An Intelligent Person's Guide to Religion (Intelligent Person's Guide Series) - Hardcover

"It is a great treat.... As one of the world's preeminent philosophers, John Haldane brings a careful and rigorous intelligence to bear on the question of whether religious faith is reasonable. The reader will find the objections to religious faith succinctly, and clearly presented and considered. Haldane's witty and precise analysis leads inexorably to the understanding that religious faith is the preeminently reasonable position for the modern person to take."

We live, allegedly, in a 'post-modern' age: modernity cast aside the narrative fantasies of the pre-modern era, and now it has itself been exposed as a cruel illusion. Reason is a myth, and science is a threat. If post-modernity represents the final abandonment of all 'grand theories', how stands religion? It is viewed as a particularly unbelievable form of explanation. Yet its power to effect social and political change is undeniable. Religion as a form of challenge to established order is acceptable; religion as a Divine instrument of salvation is regarded as outmoded. Against this backdrop, the author argues that religion without God is like a car without an engine: it isn't going anywhere. Drawing on many aspects of human culture he offers a defence of religion as not only credible but necessary.