Phil Zuckerman

This has been on my List for a while. Extensive anecdotal "New" answers here, although at times academically presented. Not new to me, but perhaps to many...or...most? Zuckerman covers a lot in showing a different take on the common questions asked. I don't think it will convince the pious - or part-time pious. Nor will it have much impact on the irreligious. But the stories might help those who have difficulty explaining to those who have difficultly understanding.

Assigning this as part of our home-education curriculum.… (mehr)

I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it provides helpful insights into secular beliefs and value systems. It presents some good viewpoints and arguments. On the other hand, some of the research seems cherry picked and presented without its important context. At times, the author seems condescending to those who are religious and like he's trying too hard to convince the religious that secular living isn't amoral. I think secular living is a topic worth learning more about and worth discussing with others.… (mehr)

Zuckerman is a professor of sociology and secular studies, and presents here an interesting overview of secular living based on his extensive research and study. After a discussion of the rising trend in secularism in our culture (which in itself is interesting), he then, in each of eight chapters, focuses on a different life issue or topic and discusses the secular approach to each. Issues include: morality, community, death & dying, trying times and raising children. "A life lived without religion is not 'nothing', the author says, perhaps to those who are convinced it is or must be. Turns out that we secular people are very diverse in our beliefs but tend as a sociological group to share "certain key traits and values" in common; such as, self-reliance, freedom of thought, intellectual inquiry, cultivating autonomy in children, pursuing the truth, basing morality on the empathetic reciprocity embedded in the Golden Rule*, accepting the inevitability of our eventual death, navigating life with a sober pragmatism grounded in this world (not the next), and still enjoying a sense of deep transcendence now and then amid the inexplicable, inscrutable profundity of being."

I've read a lot in the subject of religion over the years, even took some classes to broaden my perspective (comparative history of, and the sociology of). It has intrigued me, not only because I once was religious, and I could now explore it from the "outside", but because of how it functions in societies, the positive and the negative. But I have never read a book about secularism, which is the life I have pretty much been living for the last 35 years or so.

This book is a kind of manifesto for those of us who live without religion, but it is also meant for those readers who are religious who might wish to understand those who are not. There is no religion-bashing in this book. I found the book well-written, interesting, and inspiring in spots (although I admit to skimming some of the illustrative stories), and I heartily recommend it.

*which predates the Christian Bible.… (mehr)