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Spirituality is a difficult subject in the modern world. Everywhere, from popular media to the university, from the bookshelf to the dinner table, religions are derided or marginalised and public figures, such as Richard Dawkins, set upon anyone who admits to a belief in God. It seems that science and religion are fundamentally at odds and that mutual respect is unacceptable to either in their parallel pursuit of 'truth'. Yet most Enlightenment authors engaged with both science and spirituality and did not lose their faith. Today we tend to see these authors as not having applied full scientific rigour to their religious beliefs, but are we correct in dismissing this aspect of their lives so easily? In Secularism, Mike King examines the elements of religion, philosophy and science which have contributed to an almost total disavowal of spirituality by contemporary western intellectuals. He engages with a wide range of thinkers, including Pythagoras, Marx, Spinoza, Darwin and Nietzsche, and incorporates detailed studies of a variety of 'spiritual' leaders, some of whom readers are unlikely to have considered in this way before, to uncover why the western world no longer has any interest in devotion or accords it any respect. . The first of two timely volumes on this fascinating subject. . A startling critique of western culture and its dismissal of 'faith'. . Scintillating and insightful for academic and lay person alike. Dr Mike King is Reader in Computer Art and Animation at London Metropolitan University and Director of the Centre for Post-Secular Studies. He serves as a Director of the Scientific and Medical Network, a charity devoted to combating scientific materialism, and on the Steering Group for the University for Spirit Forum, which promotes spiritual learning on all levels within society.
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The first of two volumes on this fascinating and timely subject
A startling critique of western culture and its dismissal of `faith'
A thought-provoking and insightful read for academic and lay person alike
A startling critique of western culture and its dismissal of `faith'
A thought-provoking and insightful read for academic and lay person alike
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Secularism by Mike King is an important book which should be owned, studied and recommended to your friends and enemies. Post 9/11 such a book is essential reading.
Anyone who is seeking a more peaceful world will benefit from the insights and analysis done so thoroughly and with humor. According to Dr King the dominance of Western culture by secularism is an error which can be shared by Religious clerics, New Agers and Secularists themselves.
Under his authorship by covering the entire span of human civilization we are able to understand how humanity accidentally went down a secular hole in the west and how a few zealots overcame the majority during the Enlightenment and took us to where we are today.
After studying this book you will have a vocabulary and some new tools
Dr King particularly recommends we examine our shibboleths, meaning deeply seated and unexamined assumptions.
Anyone who is seeking a more peaceful world will benefit from the insights and analysis done so thoroughly and with humor. According to Dr King the dominance of Western culture by secularism is an error which can be shared by Religious clerics, New Agers and Secularists themselves.
Under his authorship by covering the entire span of human civilization we are able to understand how humanity accidentally went down a secular hole in the west and how a few zealots overcame the majority during the Enlightenment and took us to where we are today.
After studying this book you will have a vocabulary and some new tools
Dr King particularly recommends we examine our shibboleths, meaning deeply seated and unexamined assumptions.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Mike King is Reader at London Metropolitan University as well as a Director for the Scientific and Medical Network, an organization dedicated to combating scientific materialism. He also, I understand, sits on the Steering Group for the Wrekin Trust Forum, which promotes spiritual learning on all levels. His new book, Secularism: The Hidden Origins of Disbelief, throws a long awaited new light into our recent literary squabbles about atheism, God, religion, etc.
On the writing of books dealing with religion, spirituality, and secularism there seems no end. King, however, presents us with a whole new multidimensional picture. For most of us, modern secularism rose out of the contingencies of the Enlightenment. King, however, argues that, with rare exception, the Enlightenment thinkers were not atheists and had no intention of eliminating religion but rather of improving it. He argues that the rise of an Eastern style, non-devotional impulse at that time was not accepted but did indeed encouraged the expression of what might be called Atheism.
King's perspective is a new and, to my knowledge, a unique one. He guides us through a broad range of thinkers, from Pythagoras to Freud, interweaving and incorporating the thought and perspectives of a variety of Eastern writers and thinkers.
His elucidation of the Eastern concepts of "bhakti" and "jnani" will be new to many readers and the use of these concepts (as well as "via negativa" and "via positiva") are vital giving us new perspectives on the historical development of "Western" religion, and of religion and spirituality in general.
I read this book with ever growing interest and at the end felt that King's planned next volume on this subject will be well worth the waiting. In fact I recently referred to it as "an intellectual cliff hanger" to a friend.
My only complaint about the book is an editorial one. To my mind, the "lead" time" to the true thesis of the book was a bit long and contained sections which contributed nothing to the main argument. This may be my personal taste, however, and the wait for the "real stuff" was well worth it.
On the writing of books dealing with religion, spirituality, and secularism there seems no end. King, however, presents us with a whole new multidimensional picture. For most of us, modern secularism rose out of the contingencies of the Enlightenment. King, however, argues that, with rare exception, the Enlightenment thinkers were not atheists and had no intention of eliminating religion but rather of improving it. He argues that the rise of an Eastern style, non-devotional impulse at that time was not accepted but did indeed encouraged the expression of what might be called Atheism.
King's perspective is a new and, to my knowledge, a unique one. He guides us through a broad range of thinkers, from Pythagoras to Freud, interweaving and incorporating the thought and perspectives of a variety of Eastern writers and thinkers.
His elucidation of the Eastern concepts of "bhakti" and "jnani" will be new to many readers and the use of these concepts (as well as "via negativa" and "via positiva") are vital giving us new perspectives on the historical development of "Western" religion, and of religion and spirituality in general.
I read this book with ever growing interest and at the end felt that King's planned next volume on this subject will be well worth the waiting. In fact I recently referred to it as "an intellectual cliff hanger" to a friend.
My only complaint about the book is an editorial one. To my mind, the "lead" time" to the true thesis of the book was a bit long and contained sections which contributed nothing to the main argument. This may be my personal taste, however, and the wait for the "real stuff" was well worth it.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book attempts a rather ambitious set of tasks in a limited space, and so it is not surprising that, as I contend, it falls rather short. To set out a taxonomy of religions, a history of how these have been affected by modern secularism, what the latter is (in the author's opinion, a somewhat variable set of actually religious attitudes in the broadest sense, developed or less so, though not often so understood) and, inter alia, evaluations and criticisms of a veritable galaxy of major current and historical figures critical to his thesis - all this is a major undertaking. I have learned quite a bit from it about various thinkers, but (and this is a major caution) Mr King's scholarship is somewhat suspect. This is most apparent in the criticisms of the work of Ken Wilber sprinkled throughout the book. He clearly dislikes many of Wilber's central ideas, but this is no excuse for repeatedly flat out getting him wrong - sometimes ridiculously so, as in at one stage accusing Wilber of 'reductionism'. Someone who can do that cannot have read much of Wilber with anything like close attention, as he is probably the most stoutly anti-reductionist philosopher in print! It also makes me wary about Mr King's take on other thinkers I do not know so well.
Nevertheless, there is much to think about and respond to in the book, even if, as I do, you think King's overall account of religion is rather flawed in detail. It is also rather a shame that King does not appear to have read Charles Taylor's magisterial 'A Secular Age', which covers, with astonishingly deep and broad scholarship, much of the same ground that King covers in his historical survey.
Nevertheless, there is much to think about and respond to in the book, even if, as I do, you think King's overall account of religion is rather flawed in detail. It is also rather a shame that King does not appear to have read Charles Taylor's magisterial 'A Secular Age', which covers, with astonishingly deep and broad scholarship, much of the same ground that King covers in his historical survey.
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