Summary
Title: Religion Without God
Author: Ray Billington
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415217865
Pro:
• Defense of religion in attempt to "save" it from God
• Re-examination of traditional association between religion and theism
• Engaging, clear writing style
Con:
• Some arguments aren't new
Description:
• Billington argues that religion can exist without traditional theism
• Exploration of traditional theism and defenses for theism
• Explanation of how mystical insights can exist without attributing them to a god
Book Review
Among both believers and nonbelievers, there are people who tend to assume that there must exist some essential tension between religion and atheism. For whatever reason, it is simply taken for granted that the two do not and cannot mix. But what if this assumption is wrong? What is atheism is readily compatible with religion?
According to Ray Billington, an ex-Methodist minister and retired Principal Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of the West of England, atheism and religion are not incompatible. Billington believes that religion and atheism are entirely compatible and objects to the common argument that morality, human nature, human destiny and even mystical experiences can only be discussed in a theistic context. As a result, he seeks to “save” religion from God:
- ...the purpose of this book can be simply stated: it is to rid religion of theology, to rescue it from God, to declare God redundant. It requires us to look anew at our cultural and natural heritage, and to appreciate that the religious experience is one that is potentially available to everyone without their having to make obeisance in the direction of the supernatural.
For Billington, religion is something natural, fundamental and unavoidable — God, however, is artificial, superficial and redundant. But just how is he able to separate religion from theism so directly?
People in the West tend to find such a separation strange, because for them, religion and theism always appear together in the major religions which are common in their culture. However, throughout the rest of the world, a number of religious traditions have dispensed with the absolute need for gods and have managed to survive just fine. This is especially noticeable when we consider the question of mystical experiences.
Mystical experiences are one type of religious experience which is not only common among many different religions, but which is in fact common outside of religion as well. Mysticism is neither inherently religious nor inherently theistic:
- It may be defined as a form of direct communication with ultimate reality or spiritual truth, brought about not through the five senses or by any kind of rational process, but by direct intuition, insight or illumination. It involves the loss of personal self-consciousness by a process of what may be termed absorption in the ultimate, the achievement of a non-dualistic state, that is, one in which there is no more “me” here and “you,” “that,” or “them” out there: the individual self and the object of the self’s consciousness have become one; the state which is reached is then on longer dualistic, but monistic.
It is through such experiences that religion without theism can develop. It is also through such experiences that nontheistic religious traditions have developed in both Hinduism and Buddhism, two belief systems which Billington explores at some length. This does not, however, explain what is wrong with theism and why religion needs to be “saved” from God in the first place.
