What is it about religion that, despite all odds, allows it to survive? In After God, the renowned scholar Don Cupitt considers the fate of religion, now that we have effectively killed off our gods. The author, a trained theologian and an ordained priest in the Church of England, takes us through the evolution of religious belief from the dawn of the gods to their twilight—as well as to the morning after.Tracing the postmodern pilgrimage from traditional belief to cynicism to faith after God, Cupitt says we need to build a new religious vocabulary. He challenges us to see religion less as an ideology and more as a tool kit, a set of techniques—perhaps an art form—enhancing our lives the way that literature and art do.”A heretic’s heretic” and ”an atheist priest,” Cupitt has respect for both skepticism and devotion. He neither accepts nor denies religion at face value; he takes faith to pieces, throws away what he can’t use, and assembles the remainder into new and extraordinary shapes, challenging us to creatively reshape it, give it new language, reinvent it.After God is for those who find it hard to be among the congregation of an orthodox religion but who miss the discipline and rewards of practicing a faith, and for the person who will understand Cupitt when he writes, ”I actually think that I love God more now that I know God is voluntary. Perhaps God had to die to purify our love for him.”
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Don Cupitt, professor of philosophy and religion, accepts Nietzsche's death knell for God and writes off the worldwide rise of conservative religious movements as a mere reactionary convulsion. The significance of religion for him lies not in faith but in the therapeutic value of orienting oneself in relation to a metaphysical otherness, even if it is only imaginary. Until now, the valuable existential techniques available in traditional religions have always demanded the prerequisite of faith. Cupitt's daring reformulation of religion drops this prerequisite and demands only a sincerity and creativity that can perpetually recreate modern global culture by drawing on all available religious traditions.
From Library Journal
Cupitt (philosophy, Emmanuel Coll., Cambridge) redefines what it means to believe in God while accepting that God does not exist. He argues that there is indeed an unseen intelligible, or spirit world, among us. But this world is made up of words and symbols. The world of religion is a mythical representation of the world of language. Cupitt's is a postmodern religion that sees God not as a transcendent reality but as a reflection of human selfhood. According to Cupitt, this conception of religion frees one from the belief in absolutes, which, he says, spells the death of religion. Human beings themselves are the only source of meaning and value. Belief in God, Cupitt holds, is a valuable and interesting form of consciousness. While Cupitt's analysis will not be accepted by many, his book offers a well-wrought argument. For larger theology/philosophy collections.?Augustine J. Curley, O.S.B., Newark Abbey, N.J.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Insightful look toward resolving the modern religious crises,
This review is from: After God: The Future Of Religion (MasterMind) (Hardcover)
I think Don Cupitt makes some visionary steps toward outlining workable religious practice for the future. As a more secular thinker myself, I have always felt that religion as it endures today remains largely unworkable. Yet I have always felt that there remains a need for the roles that religion has filled in the past, even though I haven't felt clear on exactly how it might do so in a workable fashion. Don Cupitt shows some very plausible ways it might. He boils down religion to recurrent essentials, and tailors them together in a way that does not offend the sensibilities of rational thinking people. He takes a very good metaphorical approach instead of getting bogged down in issues of literal existence where inevitable clashes with science would otherwise turn off more empirically minded people. I came to read his book after reading George Lakoff and Mark Johnson's "Metaphors we Live By" and "Philosophy in the Flesh." This gave me a much deeper appreciation for the metaphorical undertaking that Cupitt delves into as well as providing a deep context of cognitive science within which Cupitt's thinking manifestly makes a lot of sense. Fundamentalists and hard core atheists may not like his approach. I think otherwise most people will appreciate his thoughtfulness. Cupitt points in the right direction with his emphasis on the linguistic, however he seems to lack the cognitive science background to flesh out those theories with the more primordial cognitive underpinning structure. Lakoff and Johnson prove good for that purpose. Of course that would have made his task unwieldy for such a concise and to the point book. Though he may not understand the things that he does, he does them well. After leaving his introductory reverie on language he delves into a masterful use of metaphorical thinking that much of the secular world could desperately use.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Unanswered Question,
By Robin Friedman (Washington, D.C. United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: After God: The Future Of Religion (MasterMind) (Hardcover)
In 1906, the American composer Charles Ives wrote a short orchestral piece called "The Unanswered Question". He described the music as a "cosmic drama." The piece is indeed a musical picture of the human search for meaning and religion and a world full of skepticism about both. (Ives himself was a believer of a rather traditional sort.)I thought of Ives, and his "Unanswered Question" in reading Don Cupitt's short study "After God". Cupitt is a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge and his written widely on religious subjects. He is the founder of the "Sea of Faith" movement, which is an attempt to provide meaning for religion in a non-theistic, non-traditional sense. The book is modernistic in tone. It is addressed to the many people who attempt to find a form of religion in their lives separate from theism. In setting out his topic Cupit states: "Religious life is an expressive, world-building activity through which we can get ourselves together and find a kind of posthumous, or retrospective, happiness". (page xiv) The book is in three parts. In the first part, "The Coming of the Gods", Cupitt tries to give a historical, genetic account of the origins of theistic belief, based on the development of cities and ruling hierarchies from more primitive hunting or agrarian societies. He finds both religion and early philosophy deriviative of this change in human social organization. In the second section, "The Departure of the Gods" Cupitt explores the difficulties in the concept of a transcendent God separate from the imminent world of the everyday. He talks insigtfully, if too briefly, of the development of philosophy from the objective realism of Plato (both the chief hero and the chief villian of the book) through Kant's internalization of the sources of human knowledge, through Nietsche and modern philosophy of language. His position straddles, I think, postmodern thought, which denies the possiblity of any absolute truth separate from the observer, and a more traditional philosophical naturalism (denial of supernaturalism) where I think it is ultimately more comfortable. The third part of the book "Religion after the Gods" offers a new version of religion stripped of its theological trappings. Cupitt adopts a three-fold religious practice from the wisdom of the past, consisting of 1. attempting to see one's life through the eye of eternity 2. meditation on emptiness and 3. "solar living" -- a radiant, outgoing way of life based on emotion and human need, receptive to change and to the moment, and concerned with immanences here and now rather than fixed absolutes. Cupitt sees religion as ultimately global in character, breaking down the tendency of believers to separate themselves and their creed from other parts of humanity. Strangely enough, he closes the book with advice that people remain in their current religious traditions, but follow them in a manner consistent with the teachings of his book. Cupitt writes eloquently and well. I am in sympathy with much of his programme, but he moves too quickly at times. There is a sense in his book of the mystery and enigma that Ives presents so well in "the unanswered question"; although, paradoxically, Cupitt seems too eager to disolve the mystery by creating a dogma of his own. Those wanting to hear more of Cupitt might be interested in looking up his interview with Steven Batchelor in the Fall, 2003,issue of "Tricycle, the Buddhist Review."
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A stimulating summary of the religious era.,
By A Customer
This review is from: After God: The Future Of Religion (MasterMind) (Hardcover)
It should be noted that this book is not an argument against organized religions, but is rather a description of their demise, along with what I will call an autopsy. It is a review of an already completed story. I am grateful to Don Cupitt for providing structure for my own vague and disjointed thoughts and convictions. This is a beautifully crafted book - an optimistic and forward looking view.
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