Customer Reviews

Ancient Beliefs and Modern Superstitions

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I am sure there is a big creationalist Vs Darwinist debate in the US and will probably reach us in the UK soon (when the media gets bored with red amber green terrorist threats and look for something else to make pointless debates about) and the late Martin Lings is (to some extent) in the creationalist camp but his books are just becoming the same old thing over and over again.

In this book again, like the 11th hour we have quotes from scientists speaking out against dawinism, how science has overtook religion, reason over spirituality and while there may be some points of interest here they are overshaddowed by a debate (creation Vs Darwinism) that the majority of the population frankly doesnt care about.

How darwinists will shout about the desruction of science by fundamentalists how creationists will shout about the lack of faith destroying society (as though through history we have never had high and low points of religious devotion)

Simple fact of the matter is while both groups attack one another the vast majority of people abandon religion for football, sports, clubbing and generally anything else which is more inclusive than "My Gods better than your God, then and us" religion. Nobody sits around reading origin of the species so why does Mr Lings waste his time on this crusade against it when most people know of it, have heard of it but care little about it?

Both camps have failed because they have tried to impliment an absolute truth to a society that has so much and so many options to chose from and is tired of being condencended by both groups thinking they are stupid enough to blindly follow one or the other and need to be 're-educated' especially when the so called 'educators' are no better than the students.

Its pointless looking at history through rose tinted glasses seeing it as 'though terrible things did indeed happen in the past, society was centred on religion and had a better world view' because otherwise there will be no concept of just why religion has been so roundly rejected in our modern age (and it should be pointed out that this is not the first time in history, from almost every society we can read how from time to time religious devotion fell away amongst its followers) At the time of the Turkish republic there were over 100 Zawiyas and Tekkes in Istanbul yet almost nothing exists of that society less than a century later. People didnt just lose faith overnight.

While the book covers religious societies across the world (especially the Indian traditions (which Guenon was interested in) and the Native American one (which Schuon studied)) The conclusions are poor, you may as well just read a book by Guenon or Schuon and save yourself the bother.

A better effort is needed otherwise this debate will be nothing more than a fringe argument that every now and again will get a bit of time on sky news or al-jazeera when there is nothing else to report.