Living the Secular Life
New Answers to Old Questions - Phil Zuckerman
Source: friend recommendation from a discussion group I facilitate
There's a running theme in my life and readings. This is a well written book by a sociologist but it doesn't read like someone's thesis. It's full of personalized stories of the author's own life and of people he's interviewed.
He cross references countries and cultures that are more secular compared to religious and discusses whether being religious truly makes a person or group more moral or ethical.
It's a complex question but he seeks to dispel the myth that being irreligious means a slide into immorality. He uses various examples of both individuals and collective groups to back up his position.
He talks about raising children with a secular worldview and offers some interesting stories about people's perspective on this.
Zuckerman dives into such topics as death, community, morality, families, hard times and how people deal with some of life's big mysteries and challenges without a traditional religious view or structure.
There's a chapter called "aweism." It was my favorite part of the book. "Aweism" is the author's coinage because he finds some other terms like humanist, atheist, agnostic, limiting. This section I will include below to wrap up really captures the author's fluid writing style and conceptual acumen.
"Aweism encapsulates the notion that existence is ultimately a beautiful mystery, that being alive is a wellspring of wonder, and that the deepest questions of existence, creation, time, and space are so powerful as to inspire deep feelings of joy, poignancy, and sublime awe."
He goes on to say that accepting the mystery can lead to a happier state of being. I agree with this.
"An aweist hearkens to the words of Albert Einstein (a self -described agnostic) who suggested that 'the most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. he to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed out candle."
2 comments:
This is something we have had to work through ourselves after we were forced out of our longtime church in the wake of Trump's election. That was one factor of several in why our children have zero interest in religion. But we (and they) still desire meaning. I may have to add this book to the list.
Yes, thank you for sharing. Meaning, connection, purpose, mysticism, miracles, revelation - I have come to believe can all be found outside of religion.
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