Humanity Has Outgrown Religion: We Simply Haven't Admitted It Yet - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

What happens when we apply ordinary standards of evidence to extraordinary religious claims?

We are perfectly happy to ask for proof when buying a car, choosing a medical treatment or listening to a politician. Yet when the subject is God, revelation, morality or life after death, the simplest question can suddenly seem almost impolite:

How do you know?

In Humanity Has Outgrown Religion, Rupert Hennen asks that question seriously, without pretending that religion is stupid, useless or historically insignificant.

He examines where religious beliefs come from, why they are so strongly inherited through family and culture, what science has genuinely displaced, how scriptures were formed and preserved, whether miracles and religious experiences withstand scrutiny, and what happens when private faith acquires public authority.

The argument also gives religion its strongest case. Religious communities can create belonging, inspire generosity, preserve tradition, produce magnificent art and music, comfort the grieving and offer serious philosophical arguments about existence, morality, consciousness and death.

But usefulness is not truth. Tradition is not evidence. And sincere conviction does not automatically give one person authority over another.

To say that humanity has outgrown religion is not to claim that religion is disappearing. It is to argue that modern civilisation no longer requires religious authority to explain the natural world, organise government, establish morality or determine how everyone else should live.

This is not a book about smashing the inheritance.

Keep the bells. Keep the buildings, music, history and memory.

But when anybody claims to speak with the authority of the divine, ask the ordinary question:

How do you know

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