19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
pretty good, April 23, 2004
When you read his book, you can tell that Billington obviously used to be a Christian, but lost his faith. I don't think he had any bad experience with Christianity, but his intellectual search just led him away from theism. I suspect that philosophy, science and comparative religion in particular were responsible for his change. As his mind led him out of Christianity, you might think his religiousity would become more shallow; but on the contrary, in his case it became much deeper.
Based on his own experience, he sees all of Western culture going through the same process. His thesis is that religion is better off without God. You can see that he already drew one long-winded, critical reviewer, and of course he will never convince any theists. Obviously Billington is just making his points and allowing readers to think for themselves.
(...)
Rather than theists, his book seems more directed toward people who are on the fence: maybe they suspect God doesn't exist, but they love or need religion and don't want to give it up. For them, Billington has a fresh Gospel (good news): they can go even deeper when they give God up. If you are in this position, this book will make you think hard, and it might change your life.
Now I basically agreed with Billington's thesis before I picked up the book, so you can anticipate my bias. I didn't care about the part of the book he spends criticizing the arguments that try to proove God's existence. Obviously other books do a better job of addressing that huge subject. For me, the interesting parts were his brief descriptions of non-theistic traditions, such as philosophical Taoism, Theravada and Zen Buddhism, and nondualistic Hinduism; as well as the romantic tradition in the West. Again, each of these topics are covered in other, quite lengthy books, so don't look for the last word here. But his coverage is adequate for his purposes.
From those traditions, with a very slight contribution from physics, he draws conclusions about the possibilities of religion without god, and his portrait is indeed quite rich.
Why only 4 stars? Well, because in my opinion there is much more exploration and explanation to be done. He just mentioned meditation a few times, without exploring it. He didn't fully explore the significance of modern physics, and when he mentions physics he appears dependent on an unfortunate source, Fritjof Capra. Besides, there is more science to explore: he didn't touch evolutionary psychology or the discoveries that are being made by neurologists about religious experience. He only explored a few traditions and not particularly deeply; in my opinion he left out some significant stuff. Most importantly, he needed to show that the essence of theistic religious experience can be had by an atheist, or even more that the most profound religious experience is essentially atheistic. I think such an argument is not easy, but it is possible to make. In short: this book needed to be about 500 pages longer. (IMHO.)
However, it is one of the best books I know of for people who are interested in atheistic spirituality.
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Religion of the godhead, April 3, 2002
By A Customer
I was raised a Christian fundamentalist. Eleven years ago, while searching for the foundation of my belief in the existence of god, I found that there is no logical or rational reason to hold such a belief. I still have a desire to find like-minded and family oriented people to fellowship with who share a quest for truth, knowledge, and morality. The potential groups I found posses a political drive to socialize world governments, which I do not share.
This book was easy to read, inspiring in parts, and if you are a religious scholar a rehash of many things you probably already know; but a good read nonetheless. The last 2 chapters (10 & 11) are where he gets to the heart of the matter. Chapter 10, Beyond Good and Evil, was a bit disturbing. I agreed with very little that he wrote here. On the section of moral maturity I completely disagreed with his whole premise. For example, I don't believe that slavery was ever moral. He seems to be arguing for moral relativism which I rejected long ago. I guess I'm somewhat of a moral objectivist. I believe that some things are morally right or wrong regardless of time or place. Chapter 11, Substance without form, was a bit of a let down as well; probably because of my own unrealistic expectations, more so than the contents of the chapter.
One more area that bothered me was 'religion without god' doesn't mean (to Billington) 'religion without the supernatural'. He keeps referring to the 'godhead' which is different than 'god'. It's the unknowable, non-antropomorphic, foundation of being, whatever that is supposed to mean. But if it's unknowable than why even bring it up and just assume that it exists? The experiences that people have when they shut down their ego and feel a oneness with the universe are real, in that the feelings are real, but he never addresses the fact that these experiences could be biochemical reactions and nothing more. Sure, they may inspire people to be moral and to live happy and fulfilled lives (which I don't have the slightest problem with) but I feel in a book like this all possibilities should at least be mentioned.
He seems to be stuck in the 'there's a higher power that does exist, that can't be known or described' mode. Which was somewhat of a letdown.
The book title should've been 'Religion of the godhead'.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Book, February 22, 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: Religion Without God (Library Binding)
The other reviewer mentioned that Billington didn't cover all possibilities of experience and I agree, but he was concise and I have to thank him for not dragging it out. He could have very easily turned this into a tome of epic proportions like William James' "Varieties of Religious Experience." But, he didn't. Clear-cut and well researched.
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