After God: The Future of Religion

by Don Cupitt

Book Overview

Cambridge's Don Cupitt takes us through the evolution of religious belief from the dawn of the gods to their twilight. Drawing on examples ranging from Plato to Donald Duck, Cupitt eloquently steers... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465045146
• ISBN13: 9780465045143
• Release Date: April 1997
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.9" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

After Spong

A challenging book indeed. Cupitt's challenge makes Spong's challenge seem easy, Spong's challenge, while not easy, seeming intellectually a far simple one for those of us who have already long ago dismissed supernaturalism as anything other than a convenient deception. Cupitt's wide sweep though Western history can be mind-blowing but it's especially the views he has arrived at that pulled the rug out. Cupitt claims to be "at home with nihilism" albeit an ethical nihilism and able to "do without roots, identity, stability, or provenance". [ I admit I had to look up "provenance", it means, in case you also didn't know "place or source of origin" ]. He speaks of the value of "deferring objectivity" to arrive at a subjective and "nonrealist" vision. Not easy to follow and certainly something I would need not only a second read but much thought to make useful sense of. Cupitt (who has launched a Sea of Faith movement after a British TV series he conceived of the same name) seems to find a value in traditional religions simply in the "tricks and techniques" they have gathered to help us be a self and relate to the world. Otherwise, he seems eager to explore the creation of a new world religion, one not at all easy for him or others, he admits, to define, but all the more critical if we are to respond to the crises of our time. That he does not advocate the abandonment altogether of religions, old or to be created, is one of the challenges of this book and Cupitt. He addresses that challenge especially at the end of the book, turning to such themes as "The Eye of God", "The Blissful Void", "Solar Living" and "Poetic Theology" to try to communicate his insights. If postmodernity has led to Tillich, Spong, and Altizer, it now comes full weight upon us in Cupitt. It's hard to know what to make of it but there is a sound logic and sense of historical development in Cupitt's thought that seems to me to deserve further and serious consideration. As to where it might lead me,if anywhere, of value, I don't know. But I don't think I can ignore Cupitt's challenge.

The Unanswered Question

In 1906, the American composer Charles Ives wrote a short orchestral piece called "The Unanswered Question". He described the music as a "cosmic drama." The piece is indeed a musical picture of the human search for meaning and religion and a world full of skepticism about both. (Ives himself was a believer of a rather traditional sort.)I thought of Ives, and his "Unanswered Question" in reading Don Cupitt's short study "After God". Cupitt is a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge and his written widely on religious subjects. He is the founder of the "Sea of Faith" movement, which is an attempt to provide meaning for religion in a non-theistic, non-traditional sense.The book is modernistic in tone. It is addressed to the many people who attempt to find a form of religion in their lives separate from theism. In setting out his topic Cupit states: "Religious life is an expressive, world-building activity through which we can get ourselves together and find a kind of posthumous, or retrospective, happiness". (page xiv)The book is in three parts. In the first part, "The Coming of the Gods", Cupitt tries to give a historical, genetic account of the origins of theistic belief, based on the development of cities and ruling hierarchies from more primitive hunting or agrarian societies. He finds both religion and early philosophy deriviative of this change in human social organization.In the second section, "The Departure of the Gods" Cupitt explores the difficulties in the concept of a transcendent God separate from the imminent world of the everyday. He talks insigtfully, if too briefly, of the development of philosophy from the objective realism of Plato (both the chief hero and the chief villian of the book) through Kant's internalization of the sources of human knowledge, through Nietsche and modern philosophy of language. His position straddles, I think, postmodern thought, which denies the possiblity of any absolute truth separate from the observer, and a more traditional philosophical naturalism (denial of supernaturalism) where I think it is ultimately more comfortable. The third part of the book "Religion after the Gods" offers a new version of religion stripped of its theological trappings. Cupitt adopts a three-fold religious practice from the wisdom of the past, consisting of 1. attempting to see one's life through the eye of eternity 2. meditation on emptiness and 3. "solar living" -- a radiant, outgoing way of life based on emotion and human need, receptive to change and to the moment, and concerned with immanences here and now rather than fixed absolutes. Cupitt sees religion as ultimately global in character, breaking down the tendency of believers to separate themselves and their creed from other parts of humanity. Strangely enough, he closes the book with advice that people remain in their current religious traditions, but follow them in a manner consistent with the teachings of his book.Cupitt writes eloquently and well. I am

Insightful look toward resolving the modern religious crises

I think Don Cupitt makes some visionary steps toward outlining workable religious practice for the future. As a more secular thinker myself, I have always felt that religion as it endures today remains largely unworkable. Yet I have always felt that there remains a need for the roles that religion has filled in the past, even though I haven't felt clear on exactly how it might do so in a workable fashion. Don Cupitt shows some very plausible ways it might. He boils down religion to recurrent essentials, and tailors them together in a way that does not offend the sensibilities of rational thinking people. He takes a very good metaphorical approach instead of getting bogged down in issues of literal existence where inevitable clashes with science would otherwise turn off more empirically minded people. I came to read his book after reading George Lakoff and Mark Johnson's "Metaphors we Live By" and "Philosophy in the Flesh." This gave me a much deeper appreciation for the metaphorical undertaking that Cupitt delves into as well as providing a deep context of cognitive science within which Cupitt's thinking manifestly makes a lot of sense. Fundamentalists and hard core atheists may not like his approach. I think otherwise most people will appreciate his thoughtfulness.Cupitt points in the right direction with his emphasis on the linguistic, however he seems to lack the cognitive science background to flesh out those theories with the more primordial cognitive underpinning structure. Lakoff and Johnson prove good for that purpose. Of course that would have made his task unwieldy for such a concise and to the point book. Though he may not understand the things that he does, he does them well. After leaving his introductory reverie on language he delves into a masterful use of metaphorical thinking that much of the secular world could desperately use.

A stimulating summary of the religious era.

It should be noted that this book is not an argument against organized religions, but is rather a description of their demise, along with what I will call an autopsy. It is a review of an already completed story. I am grateful to Don Cupitt for providing structure for my own vague and disjointed thoughts and convictions. This is a beautifully crafted book - an optimistic and forward looking view.