The Religious Case Against Belief

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 240 pages
• Published by: Penguin Press HC, The May 29, 2008
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1594201692
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1594201691
• Book Dimensions: 9.4 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Weighs: 13.4 ounces

From Publishers Weekly
While it seems paradoxical to oppose religion to belief—religions, after all, are systems of beliefs; and belief in deities, ritual practices and scriptures combine to form religions—Carse convincingly demonstrates that belief and religion are too often falsely linked. Belief, he suggests, is a response to ignorance. Carse looks at three kinds of ignorance: ordinary ignorance is simply lack of knowledge of some kind, such as the weather in Africa. Willful ignorance purposefully avoids clear and available knowledge, such as Creationists acting as if they know nothing of evolution. The tenacious beliefs that grow out of willful ignorance often result in bloody religious conflicts. Finally, what Carse calls higher ignorance accepts the fact that no matter how many truths we accumulate, our knowledge falls infinitely short of the truth. Individuals acting in higher ignorance can recognize the many truths that religious traditions can offer. Seen in Carse's provocative way, religion transcends the narrow boundaries established by beliefs, and transforms our ways of thinking about the world. (June 2)
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Product Description
A provocative, insightful explanation for why it is that belief—not religion—keeps us in a perilous state of willful ignorance

In The Religious Case Against Belief, James Carse identifies the twenty-first century’s most forbidding villain: belief. In distinguishing religions from belief systems, Carse works to reveal how belief—with its restriction on thought and encouragement of hostility—has corrupted religion and spawned violence the world over.

Galileo, Martin Luther, Abraham Lincoln, and Jesus Christ—using their stories Carse creates his own brand of parable and establishes a new vocabulary with which to study conflict in the modern world. The Religious Case Against Belief introduces three kinds of ignorance: ordinary ignorance (a mundane lack of knowledge, such as ignorance of tomorrow’s weather or the reason why your stove is malfunctioning), willful ignorance (an intentional avoidance of accessible knowledge), and finally higher ignorance (a learned understanding that no matter how many truths we may accumulate, our knowledge falls infinitely short of the truth).

While ordinary ignorance is common to all people, Carse associates the strongest manifestation of willful ignorance with the most fervent (and dangerous) of believers. He points to the historic conflict between Martin Luther and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V both to reveal this seemingly religious collision as a clash of belief and to identify belief ’s inherently destructive characteristics. From Luther to the contemporary Christian right, we learn that believers construct identity by erecting boundaries and by fostering aggression between the believer and the other. This is why belief systems choose—at great cost—to remain locked in bloody conflict rather than to engage in dialogue, recognizing the great deal they have in common. This is willful ignorance.

In fierce contrast to willful ignorance, higher ignorance is an acquired state enhanced by religion. Those traveling the path to higher ignorance recognize faith teachings (such as the Bible) as poetry intended to promote contemplation, interpretation, and a sense of wonder. For evidence of religion’s deeply embedded rejection of singular truth and its acceptance of diverse dialogue, Carse looks to the many faces of Jesus presented in the books of the Bible and elsewhere. Uncontaminated by belief systems, religion rejects the imagined boundaries that falsely divide people and ideas, working to expand horizons.

The Religious Case Against Belief exposes a world in which religion and belief have become erroneously (and terrifyingly) conflated. In strengthening their association with powerful belief systems, religions have departed from their essential purpose as agencies of higher ignorance. Carse uses his wideranging understanding of religion to find a viable and vital path away from what he calls the Age of Faith II and toward open-ended global dialogue. Far from abstract philosophical musing, The Religious Case Against Belief is required reading for our age.

Reader Reviews
Whereas many, perhaps most, books on "spirituality" make the case that "faith," "belief," and "convictions" are positive, laudable, and commendable, they cast suspicion on "religion" as being misguided and mistaken. The present book reverses such a judgment and asserts, in short: "belief" bad; "religion" good. James Carse, professor emeritus of religion at New York University, has written a reflective and religiously literate critique of belief and its distorted understanding of the nature of religion. According to Carse, the "blind ignorance" of belief systems, locked in literalism and absolutism, leads to violence of "the other"; the "higher ignorance" at the core of authentic religion, exemplified in imaginative "musicality," is the beginning of wisdom. "What belief systems conspicuously lack is music," writes Carse. "They are monotonal. One voice speaks for all others." On the other hand, "religion in its purest form is a vast work of poetry. As such, its vitality comes in the form of communitas [a community of authentic dialogue], fully independent of any civitas [political or secular establishment]. Belief is very often a sign that whatever counts for religion has been pushed aside." Carse points out that to be human at all is to live in an ill-lit zone of imponderables: Why am I alive at all? Where did I come from and where am I going? What happens at death? How should I conduct myself in a world as confused as this? Why must so much of the world live in misery and violence? Why such collective self-destruction? Why do the evil prosper? Why is there something rather than nothing? Whereas belief systems fairly bristle with (alleged) definitive answers, leaving no ambiguity in their arrogant declarations of truth, religion, in the best sense of the word, seeks to peer beyond the boundaries and catch a vision of life beyond the horizon. Like a magnificent symphony, with an orchestration of mystery, awe, wonder, and a "higher ignorance," it is open to the future rather than locked in a closed and stifling world. Belief systems are actually pseudo-religions. Imprisoned within the confining boundaries of dogmatic "certainties," "true believers" lack the vision of poetic imagination that opens new horizons of possibility. In seeking to show the contrast between religion and faith, Carse provides intriguing "takes" on such widely divergent figures as Plato, Galileo, Luther, Lincoln, Jesus, and Emily Dickinson. An intriguing study in the philosophy of religion, The Religious Case Against Belief provides excellent food for thought. Although the author does not mention the following quotation from the German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900), the quotation might well be chosen as an excellent and fitting epigraph to Carse's book: "'Faith' means not wanting to know what is true. . . . A very popular error: having the courage of one's convictions; rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack on one's convictions." About the author: James P. Carse is professor emeritus of religion at New York University, where for thirty years he directed the Religious Studies Program. His previous books include The Silence of God, Finite and Infinite Games, and Breakfast at the Victory. He lives in New York City.