Customer Reviews

The Religious Case Against Belief

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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.

I'm already a fan of Prof. Carse from "Finite and Infinite Games," and this new book adds to my respect for his careful way of seeing. In this new work, Carse offers a reasoned and useful distinction between religious thought and belief systems. The basis of his distinction is the comparative openness to wonder. Belief "systems" are not religions, by Carse's reasoning, but closed sets of dogma which thrive in opposition to other such systems. His basis for true religion is longevity. This book will reward rereading!

This book invites the reader to explore the differences between belief (dogma, doctrine, etc) and religion (living faith, spirit, connection with God/Spirit). I find it fascinating and very very accessible -- thought provoking AND fluid, not heavy as some theology books can be. Whatever a person's faith or spiritual journey, this book can be a valuable asset in looking at one's own journey and, most important, at the ways in which we (historically, collectively) tend to deal with differences in belief/tradition. Also looks at political and social belief structures.....fascinating and liberating!

One can sympathize with James Carse's intention in The Religious Case Against Belief without agreeing with his thesis.

His intention is to find some way to avoid the fruitless wrangling between religionists and atheists that is currently going on. He does this by arguing that the atheists are correct in their criticisms of dogmatic belief that goes by the name of "religion," but that such belief doesn't constitute religion at all. Belief systems, he says, are closed ideologies that frequently employ willful ignorance. Like Galileo's detractors, ideologues refuse to take seriously any claims that run counter to their belief systems. They automatically draw lines in the sand between themselves and everyone who disagrees with them, thereby creating adversarial relationships which can lead to excess and violence.

But genuine religion, Carse continues, is imbued with the spirit of what Nikolaus of Cusa called "learned ignorance": the humble realization that reality is far greater and more complex than an single explanation of it, whether that explanation is God-oriented or not. Genuine religious faith refrains from dogmatism because of its conviction that God is always greater than we humans can imagine.

This is a clever abstract distinction--and herein lies my disagreement with Carse--but reality is much messier. Religious humility is typically interwoven with a great deal of self-doubt, and this in turn easily breeds ideological tendencies. Learned ignorance in practice usually draws pretty clear lines between what's ultimately acceptable or unacceptable when talking about God. And belief systems, I would suggest, aren't nearly as monolithic as Carse suggests. They can accommodate any degree of toleration, and they also have life spans in which their openness ebbs and flows. They are, in short, more dynamic than Carse allows.

This isn't to say that Carse's treatment is without merit. Although his thesis is flawed (and not terribly original, as a matter of fact), he asks the right question when he wonders if atheists aren't tilting for the most part at windmills--that is, closed and intolerant ideologies--more than what they think they're attacking.

At first glance, the reader may be confused by the title of the book since the terms seem to be synonyms. This, as it turns out, is part of the problem experienced by each concept. The mistake made by many is to apply the terms interchangeably. Religion and belief are two different things in a very important ways. Religion, as defined by Professor Carse exhibits features associated with communitas and requires a significant history. He uses many of the largely recognized religions to make his point, including Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. These he distinguishes from Mormonism which has too short of a life span and too few permutations to be described as anything more than a belief. It is the latter element that contributes to understanding his point. It is the ability of the religion to adapt and include that makes it a religion. The belief system is far less flexible and is easily threatened by the poets, a term he broadly assigns to those who express contrary ideas. The essence of the belief is that it relies on its ability to identify what is to be considered outside the boundaries of its tenets.
The beginning of this argument rests in the nature of ignorance, which Carse describes as having three basic forms: common, willful, and higher. Common ignorance is simply our inability to know certain things, such as what the weather will be next week. Willful ignorance is the choice to reject anything that falls outside the believer's conclusions. This may include the Creationists refusal to acknowledge that there is any credibility to evolution at all. Higher ignorance is the healthy form of humility that recognizes that we all have "bounded rationality" as noted by C. Wright Mills. In the context of religion, each of these may be present but it is a reliance on the higher form of ignorance, perhaps even a respect for it, which promotes the well-being of a religion. Once the religion strays into the area of willful ignorance, setting up boundaries similar to those of a civitas, it places itself at great risk of creating their own mortality.
Much of what Professor Carse offers has notable relevance to the current state of affairs of the Roman Catholic Church. As the conservative, or more accurately Restorationist, elements, push for control and emphasize the need for orthodoxy and consistency in all practices, they are driving the church itself to a position of becoming a belief system. Once an institution becomes a belief system, it cuts off all dialogue that takes place within a religion. The institution then takes on more elements of the civitas which relies on compliance with the rules more than it does on the embrace of mystery. It is now showing its "early signs of mortality." The result will be a loss of resonance. "Even more perilous, this splintering seems to have tossed aside the centuries of culture that has accumulated around the historic church--its music, literature, architecture, rituals, schools of higher (non-ideological) learning. The grand conversation that provided the unity for the religion as a whole is largely ignored." This is a clear call for all in Christianity to seek to restore the discursive nature of their religion and resist the temptation to decide that all the questions have been answered--and now the poets must be silenced.

I truly appreciate Prof. Carse's slim volume, here, but it definitely falls short of a full five stars. The other reviews have already hit the strengths of his work--such as his soundly and thoughtfully provocative separation of belief from religion. My criticism (which leads me to a somewhat generous downgrade of four stars) stems from my view that the book could've benefited from (a) a bit more refinement and (b) tighter editing. It reads as if it grew from a paper presentation he made at a conference which was then roughly expanded into book treatment so it could go to press, with several somewhat sloppy editorial problems (e.g., redundancies, dropped lines of reasoning, etc.).

But more basically, I wish Prof. Carse more carefully developed his descriptive structure of "religion." Frankly, I think he copped out, summing it up as (a) no one can agree on what a "religion" is but (b) we can agree on longevity and cultural coherence as the two defining characteristics. I was left both unconvinced and a bit puzzled as to what he actually meant. His discussion of "religion" certainly was less thought through than his descriptive structure for "belief."

That said, I see the book as an excellent conversation starter/book club selection/course assignment. That is, reading it as a stand alone tome? It's fine, with a basic thesis that is timely and well received (at least by the reviewers here). But it is lacking. Reading it as part of a larger (and actual, face-to-face discussion)? That's where I expect it would shine. I'd love to hear the arguments that can be made on the various points he raises, not in a self-congratulatory circle of agreers but among those who agree and those who may be offended. The Coda seems to call for that sort of use of the book.

Fundamentally (which may be an ironic choice of words!), the book provokes thought and reflection, of which there is far too little in this day and age, and I whole heartedly and strongly applaud Prof. Carse for his contribution toward nudging us back in that direction. But the bun could have stayed in the oven a bit longer, and this would have been a truly excellent book, not merely a compelling thesis.

The main argument James P Carse makes in "The Religious Case Against Belief" is that it's not necessary to believe something to be religious. But Carse himself can't really figure this out. He admits that this itself is a belief. And he says that the danger of this thinking is that it may lead to relativism, which of course is an evil word these days, but then says a lot of things that sound an awful lot like relativism, but then says we need to have boundaries. It's all a bit convoluted and a bit confusing.

Still, Carse has an important point that, if not completely original, is nonetheless significant to public dialogue today. Too many people think religion is about knowing certain specific things and don't understand how it is and can be more about an encounter with an unknown force. Carse doesn't really present this well. In addition to his contradictions mentioned above, he also uses very odd examples and a repetitive and truly boring prose style. But he can be resonating at times. And the fact that he is making the point, that there is a book called "The Religious Case Against Belief" and it is being read is an accomplishment enough.

This is one of the powerful books I have read. Not only does he summarize and analyze well, he sources back to the great thinkers of the past that he recommends for one's own learned and earned ignorance.

In the brief flicker of public attention granted to the New Atheist movement in 2006, it became clear that the critique being made was not likely to cut any deep wounds into the religious community. They had missed the mark, as Eagleton said in his review of The God Delusion: "thrusting, flailing, mispunching." Attention has shifted elsewhere, and it is unlikely that the New Atheists will get a second chance in the limelight. So it may be that Carse's essay is no longer topical, but it is worth reading.

The point of the book is to show the differences between Religion and Belief. Religions are not simply belief systems, but a mode of poetic dialogue accessible only to believers. (His use of the word "poetry" is not romantic or arbitrary. The Greek word for poetry, poesis, means "making" and for most of human history poetry had divine significance.) Religion is not a universal, but each religion is unique to itself: "There is no category to which different religions belong." Thus, we cannot talk about Religion in general, because is no such thing as Religion, only religions.

In response to the New Atheist equation "Religion = Belief = Evil," Carse says: Religion sings, Belief broadcasts, Evil is the attempt to silence the voices of others. (Here he draws on themes from his earlier work Finite and Infinite Games, which would be helpful to read beforehand.)

Ultimately, the book is longer than it needed to be to make his point, and not long enough to develop his more radical statements. If Dawkins is a "mispuncher," Carse is a suckerpuncher, landing heavy hits and then leaving the fight. So for a point well made, and several profound insights, I give this book four stars. If he had made this book either as short as the main point called for, or as long as it deserves to be, it would easily be worth five.

This book is obviously the culmination of decades of well measured critical thinking. The author's finely honed skills as a religious studies academic present the case in clear and measured steps.

He starts by defining his terms, so that a dialogue between the text and reader is unobfuscated by technical terminology. After the language of the book is laid out clearly, he presents his arguments in a clear and approachable language that a casual reader can easily understand. The thread of his case against belief makes for compelling reading. It tells the history and development of the phenomena under discussion with a storyteller's grace. I highly recommend this read for anyone interested in contemporary religions, as it especially clarifies the motivations underlying a great deal of contemporary religious peoples' thinking.

I came to this book expecting a dry academic read, and was pleasantly surprised with a book that I can heartily recommend to anyone.