Secular Wholeness: A Skeptic's Paths To A Richer Life [Paperback]

David Cortesi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 6, 2006

Can a skeptic reap the benefits of a religious practice? When you can't abide ideas of the supernatural, when no religious account of the world satisfies, how can you satisfy the need for depth, engagement, serenity in life?

Davd Cortesi, well-known as a writer on technical subjects, brings a programmer's bent for logic and scholar's research skills to the search for secular ways to:
* Gain existential validity, the sense we have a right to exist.
* Weave a richly connected, suppportive community.
* Gain the psychological benefits of meditation and prayer.
* Enjoy the stability and comfort of meaningful ritual.
* Formulate and justify a personal ethical code.
* Prepare for deaths: our own, and those of people we love.


The book also includes wide-ranging essays on:
* The pursuit of the mysic experience: How common is it? What is it like? What does it signify? How hard is it to reach?
* How do we identify heroes and role models? Whata does that imply for us and our children?
* What does science know about happiness? What are practical strategies for becoming happier?

The book draws as freely from recent papers in refereed journals as it does from the teachings of the Buddha, Solon, and Epicurus.
Optimistic, sometimes lyrical, but always grounded firmly in reason, Secular Wholeness is for anyone trying to live a deeper, more intentional life.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

David Cortesi was a programmer with IBM in the years before computers were personal. With the personal computer revolution he became a free-lance writer and magazine columnist, producing several well-regarded books including Inside CP/M and The Essential OS/2 Handbook. Returnng to salaried employment, he contributed to a number of technical manuals for companies such as Infomix, Novell, and Silicon Graphics (where he wrote the IRIX Device Driver Programmer's Guide).

After retiring from daily work, he looked for a way to apply the skills he'd honed as a technical writer - skills of gathering complex information and organizing it for clear presentation - but to apply them to subjects that are less ephemeral than computer software. Secular Wholeness is the first result of this effort.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

This book is a long answer to a short question. Here's the question: Can you build a vital, fulfilling life experience using methods and ideas that are purely secular, not based in religious doctrine?

If that seems like a pointless question to you, you are probably one of the majority of Americans who profess a religious belief. You naturally assume that when you need an answer to one of life's big questions, you'll find it in that belief - and probably you will. But some of us do not find any religion satisfactory, and I am one. Although I am content with my choice, when I watch people who diligently practice a religion, I see their practice yielding important benefits. I had to ask: are those benefits uniquely "religious" and so unavailable to people like me? Or do they have secular sources? Areall the routes to wholeness, to an integrated life practice, exclusively religious? Or can a secular life practice lead to a meaningful, satisfying life?

This book is my answer, to be shared with others who want to deepen their lives and who find religious ideas unhelpful.

If you are comfortable in a religious belief, understand that this book is about finding secular sources for things that your religious practice ought to be giving you. If you aren't getting them, I respectfully suggest you look deeper into your own faith. But you are certainly welcome to walk along with the rest of us on our quest!

The goods of religious practice

When I observe the life-styles of devout people, I see their religious practice delivering these important values:

*   The philosophical comfort of existential validity - in plain language, assurance that one is not an accident but an intentional creation, with a role in a great story.

*   The social and material support of a congregation of like-minded people.

*   The psychological benefits of contemplative prayer and meditation.

*   The emotional comfort of ritual.

*   For a few, the bliss of ecstatic union with the All.

*   Constant challenge to be a better person, to transcend one's limits.

*   The use of a predefined ethical system.

*   Fearless awareness of death and comfort in bereavement. These are the benefits for which I hope to find secular sources. As a skeptic by inclination and training, I have been quite selective in my search. I only tell you about things I have personally tried, or things that are documented in respected scientific journals, or things that, like the philosophy of Epicurus, are both satisfying to common sense and visibly harmless.

Chapter summary

Here is what follows this Introduction:

*   Chapter 1 elaborates on the good things any religious practice should give to those who devotedly practice it.

*   Chapter 2 explores the philosophical and emotional implications of being a "mere accident" and shows how contingency can be turned into triumph.

*   Chapter 3 reviews the research that shows how crucial human contacts are to your life and health, and points out many techniques to improve them.

*   Chapter 4 introduces a single model incorporating meditation, contemplation, and prayer, and introduces simple meditation practices whose benefits have been documented.

*   Chapter 5 shows how pervasive ritual is in everyone's life, and suggests ways to take control of the rituals in your life.

*   Chapter 6 surveys the literature on the mystical experience, showing that it is probably a real, though rare, state of brain function; then takes up the tough question of whether the experience is worth pursuing.

*   Chapter 7 proposes that we cannot be taught heroes but have to discover them, each of us in an idiosyncratic way; but then says there are plenty of them to be discovered.

*   Chapter 8 tackles the problem of defining and justifying a personal ethical code, drawing elements from a wide range of traditions.

*   Chapter 9 urges the importance of facing up to death and bereavement, and shows ways to prepare for one and deal with the other.

*   Chapter 10 surveys the research on what makes people happy, and covers a number of strategies for becoming more happy.

*   Chapter 11 is about four radical techniques for making oneself more resilient in the face of disaster.

Product Details

• Paperback: 270 pages
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing (July 6, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155369175X
• ISBN-13: 978-1553691754
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,192,062 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Life's Own User Manual, June 19, 2005

By 

G. Bestick (Dobbs Ferry, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Secular Wholeness: A Skeptic's Paths To A Richer Life (Paperback)

David Cortesi's premise is that the benefits of traditional religions are available to non-religious people if they're given the tools to reframe these benefits in secular terms. Cortesi proves capable of delivering on his generous but ambitious agenda. He's smart enough to sort through contending philosophies, honest enough to admit his biases, and grounded enough to not lose his way among the murky ambiguities of existence.

He starts by exploring religion's payoffs. First and foremost, religion provides answers to those two bedeviling questions: who am I and why am I here? You also get ritual practices that orient you in time and space, a ready-made community of like-minded people, and a pre-assembled ethical structure. Religion gives you tools for dealing with life's pitfalls and pratfalls, and ways to cope with your passage out of here. Religious believers get to feel the kind of contented bliss that's been missing since those golden days when it was just the infant you and an attentive caregiver placing a nipple between your lips. Finally, the lucky few occasionally plug in to states of ecstatic transcendence.

Sounds attractive, but there's a catch. To get the benefits, you have to buy in to the whole agenda, and most of these agendas weren't designed with you in mind. Some of them have in fact caused immense suffering and distress over many centuries. Cortesi shows us how to construct beliefs and practices that provide the same emotional and psychological support as religion without forcing us to park our common sense at the door or sally forth to smite infidels who happen to believe in a different godlike character.

His method is to research, then summarize the major issues we must deal with to construct a meaningful life. He's fair to all religious traditions and approaches each of life's big topics in an even-handed, pragmatic manner. Among other things, we learn ways of coping with the fact we're a random accident in the universe, how people actually achieve mystical bliss, and what it means to be happy. He gives practical advice on skills such as creating your own set of rituals, helping people who are grieving, and building up the psychological arsenal you'll need in order to be content. In an appendix, he lists further readings for those who want to delve deeper into any of these questions.

Cortesi is no Augustine, wrestling with great sins on the way to becoming a great saint. He has modest regrets (he wishes he'd devoted more effort to being part of a community) and isn't trying to attain every grand spirtitual aspiration (for instance, he questions whether the efforts to achieve bliss, are, practically speaking, worth the results). In the end, he delivers what he promised, showing us that it's quite possible to live a meaningful, spiritually fullfilled life without surrending yourself to a religious tradition. Cortesi has done us all a great service by writing this book, and everyone, whether secular or religious, should find something of value in its pages.

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the book I was looking for, May 9, 2004

By 

Wyote (Seoul) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Secular Wholeness: A Skeptic's Paths To A Richer Life (Paperback)

David Cortesi writes in plain language for everyone, without condescending to anyone. He discusses how a non-religious person can get all the spiritual, emotional, social and psychological benefits of religion, without sacrificing a single neuron of intelligence, education or critical thinking.

He is completly critical of every religious tradition, but also open-mindedly sympathetic to all kinds of spirituality. He has searched for what "they" have, and how they get it. But he has not accepted an ounce of new-age hokeyness. He has kept his analytical mind active throughout.

He considers how a person can believe that the universe is purposeless and basically accidental, while still believing that one's own life has meaning. He discusses ways to create community, meditative or contemplative practices, meaningful rituals, ethics, happiness and contentment. He discusses death and self-transcendence and the bliss experience.

If you have no religion, or if you are losing your faith, read this book soon. It's full of good advice. It's consistently understated and about as brief as possible (Cortesi is a computer programmer), so you might have to consider his points carefully. It's honest and deeply thoughtful, intelligent and respectful of its audience. Highly recommended.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simple, Relevant and Approachable, February 14, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Secular Wholeness: A Skeptic's Paths To A Richer Life (Paperback)

Mr. Cortesi has written an amazing and fulfilling book. First, he analyzes why those who belong to a religion seem to have longer, healthier, happier lives. Second, he addresses each point and dissects it for its very essence. For instance, he argues that one of the benefits of belonging to a church is that it provides a network of friends who know you and each other. Therefore, a person could build a network of friends to gain the same webbing of love and support in their own life, without a religion. In another chapter, he obligingly goes over the Golden Rule of several faiths using logical arguments to see if they could work in the modern world. His "Mortal Imperative" is perfect, by the way, and was almost worth the price of the book all on its own.
Every page is informative without any hint of stuffiness. He is humorous but never glib. I felt as if I had had a wonderful conversation with someone akin to Joseph Campbell after reading this book! David Cortesi, I thank you.