Spirituality without God: A Global History of Thought and Practice
Ebook
Spirituality without God is the first global survey of “godless” spirituality. Long before “spiritual but not religious” became the catchphrase of the day, there were religious and spiritual traditions in India, China, and the West that denied the existence of God.
Peter Heehs begins by looking at godless traditions in the ancient world. Indian religions such as Jainism and Buddhism showed the way to liberation through individual effort. In China, Confucians and Daoists taught how to live in harmony with nature and society. Philosophies of the Greco-Roman world, such as Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Skepticism, focused on enhancing the quality of life rather than buying the favor of the gods through sacrifice or worship. Heehs shows how these traditions, rediscovered during the Renaissance, helped jump-start the European Enlightenment and opened the way to the atheism and agnosticism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The personal, inner, approach to religion became known as "spirituality.”
Spirituality without God is a counterbalance to theistic narratives that have dominated the field, as well as an introduction to modes of spiritual thought and practice that may appeal to people who have no interest in God.
An accessible survey of spirituality and belief without God from the ancient world to the present day, providing a new history of atheistic religion.
An alternative history of global religion focusing on nontheistic rather than theistic religions and spiritualities, covering three millennia across several different cultural regions
Highlights aspects such as freedom from dogmatic beliefs and the focus on the individual rather than communal methods of practice
Written in an accessible style by an author whose previous book published Writing the Self (Bloomsbury, 2013) was named a Choice Outstanding Academic title
Prologue, A Religion is Born
1. Introduction: Religion and Spirituality, Gods and Godlessness
2. Theistic and Nontheistic Religions in the Ancient World
3. Defending and Debating Tradition
4. The Triumph of Theism
5. The Coming of Modernity and the Decline of God
6. Secularizing the Sacred
7. The Death and Afterlife of God
Epilogue, Spiritual but Still Religious?
Bibliography
Index
Heehs offers a clear, analytical, narrative history that demonstrates how certain elements of non-theistic (or not strictly theistic) thought and practice in the religious histories of India, China, and the Greco-Roman world eventually coalesced to
produce the burgeoning 'godless' spirituality of the modern West.
Peter Heehs's book and historical examination, Spirituality without God, comes at a timely moment in
the discourse on spiritual practice.
The book gives a map, through time and place, of the world's various theistic and nontheistic spiritualities … The 'spiritual but not religious' phenomenon is growing, and readers can learn more about it through this thoughtful and knowledgeable author, who for decades has been a resident of an intentional, spiritual community.
Spirituality Without God should be read by all professors at seminaries around the world. It is helpful for gaining insight and understanding in the rise of modern nontheistic religions and spiritualities. It would be an excellent book for use in Christian evangelism classes.
For those interested in spirituality and its practices, Peter Heehs' book is an interesting source ... Easy to access, very well documented.
Heehs is a clear and engaging writer… The book would thus fit easily and well in an undergraduate classroom.
Spirituality without God: A Global History of Thought and Practice traces the history of nontheistic spiritual thought and practice from the ancient world to our days. In this comprehensive, thought provoking work Peter Heehs traces a variety of spiritual approaches to life which were combined with disbelief in the supernatural. Peter Heehs shows in this impressive and well researched book that the search for spiritual wisdom unfettered by God(s), flourished for thousands of years, alongside religions based on worship of Divine beings.
Spirituality without God is an ambitious exploration of the rich history and pervasive influence of godless spirituality in many regions of the world, and the shifting meanings attached to the word spirituality. With its autobiographical reflections, Peter Heehs' engaging study is particularly timely in a period when many in Europe and North America, the 'none of the aboves', choose to identify themselves as spiritual rather than religious. For anyone wishing to understand how 'spiritual' has come to mean, according to Peter Heehs, virtually the opposite of 'religion', Spirituality without God will be a rewarding read.
A fascinating and creative non-Eurocentric approach to the history of religion that is relevant to understanding contemporary religious ideas and practices. This is a very interesting book with a broad audience by a fine historian with a creative and synthetic approach.
- Title: Spirituality without God: A Global History of Thought and Practice
- Author: Peter Heehs
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
- Print Publication Date: 2018
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781350056213, 9781350056190, 1350056197, 1350056219
- Resource ID: LLS:9781350056213
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-04-08T21:24:22Z
Peter Heehs is an independent scholar based in India. His publications include Writing the Self (Bloomsbury, 2013) and The Lives of Sri Aurobindo (2008). His books have been translated into Russian, Dutch, French and Japanese.