The limits of science in discerning Ultimate Reality have brought Westerners to "as sharp an impasse in history as we have faced, " says Huston Smith. This new edition of critically acclaimed essays explores possible breakthroughts in the direction of reaching a liberated and enlightened consciousness. It contains a new preface and new final chapter.

This classic companion to The World's Religions articulates the remarkable unity that underlies the world's religious traditions.

George F. Dole, Harvard Ph.D., has translated and arranged by theme a selection of passages from Swedenborg's works on life, heaven and hell, and the nature of God. This book is an accessible introduction for the reader new to Swedenborg, as well as a concise reference for those familiar with his philosophy. [Swedenborg's] philosophy is about as practical as one could ask. Ascetism is not the way to God.... A good person can be saved with any religion or with no (...) religion. "George F. Dole... has done us a great service in bringing Emanuel Swedenborg back to the attention of our distracted age." -from the foreword by Huston Smith. (shrink)

This new edition of critically acclaimed essays explores possible breakthroughs in the direction of reaching a liberated and enlightened consciousness.

Responses and clarifications are given to the three respondents to my recent book, Why Religion Matters, in which I discuss what I see as the drawbacks and inconsistencies of Darwinism. While certain of their criticisms are understandable, others are based on a misreading of my work. Finally, my critics fail to show that my book is mistaken in its central claim that the modern loss of faith in transcendence, basic to the traditional/religious worldview, is unwarranted, because science has not been (...) able to disprove the metaphysical claim that transcendence exists. (shrink)

China's regard for nature, as expressed in Sung landscape painting, is clear and well recognised. What the Chinese believed to exceed the natural world, the realm of ‘the ten-thousand things’, is less clear. The present essay tries to explore this question systematically.

Accepting Lyotard’s “incredulity toward metanarratives” as its definition of postmodernism, and Derrida’s “openness to the other” as deconstruction’s contribution to it this essay distinguishes three species of postmodernism: minimal (we have no believable metanarratives), mainline (they are unavailable in principle), and polemical (“good riddance!”). It then argues that the religious impulse challenges all three of these contentions. Contra polemical postmodernism, metanarratives/worldviews are needed. Contra mainline postmodernism, reliable ones are possible. And contra minimal postmodernism, they already exist - in the world’s (...) great, enduring religious traditions. (shrink)