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Airy Nothings

Religion and the Flight from Time

Peter Heinegg

Even as the number of unbelievers continues to rise, religion in America still gets unwarrantably good press. The tenets and teachings, however nonsensical, of each and every “community of faith” may not be attacked. Secular academics who would never be caught in a synagogue, church, or mosque seldom fail to manifest politically correct reverence for the creeds, codes, and cults of the religious. Unfortunately, the central religious concept of the “sacred” proves, upon closer inspection, to be fictitious. The understandably popular “holy” times, places, deities, peoples, books, laws, and scenarios for the afterlife are fantasies projected into everyday experience by human beings trapped in time and unwilling to accept their own transiency and long-term insignificance. This book surveys the various traditional “fortresses” of the sacred and finds them all empty and indefensible.

University Press of America

Pages: 120 • Trim: 6 x 8¾

978-0-7618-6252-9 • Paperback • November 2013 • $38.99 • (£30.00)

978-0-7618-6253-6 • eBook • November 2013 • $37.00 • (£30.00)

Subjects: Religion / Comparative Religion, Religion / Biblical Criticism & Interpretation / General, Religion / Theism, Religion / Biblical Commentary / General, Philosophy / Religious, Social Science / Culture, History / Intellectual History

Airy Nothings

Religion and the Flight from Time

Paperback

eBook

Summary

Even as the number of unbelievers continues to rise, religion in America still gets unwarrantably good press. The tenets and teachings, however nonsensical, of each and every “community of faith” may not be attacked. Secular academics who would never be caught in a synagogue, church, or mosque seldom fail to manifest politically correct reverence for the creeds, codes, and cults of the religious. Unfortunately, the central religious concept of the “sacred” proves, upon closer inspection, to be fictitious. The understandably popular “holy” times, places, deities, peoples, books, laws, and scenarios for the afterlife are fantasies projected into everyday experience by human beings trapped in time and unwilling to accept their own transiency and long-term insignificance. This book surveys the various traditional “fortresses” of the sacred and finds them all empty and indefensible.

Details

University Press of America

Pages: 120 • Trim: 6 x 8¾

978-0-7618-6252-9 • Paperback • November 2013 • $38.99 • (£30.00)

978-0-7618-6253-6 • eBook • November 2013 • $37.00 • (£30.00)

Subjects: Religion / Comparative Religion, Religion / Biblical Criticism & Interpretation / General, Religion / Theism, Religion / Biblical Commentary / General, Philosophy / Religious, Social Science / Culture, History / Intellectual History

Author

Peter Heinegg is a professor of English and comparative literature at Union College in Schenectady, New York. A former Jesuit seminarian, he has written widely on the subject of religion and culture.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction: Fear of Flowing
1.Holy Time
2.Holy Space
3.Holy God
4.Holy People
5.Holy Hero-Worship
6.Holy Books
7.Holy Laws
8.Holy Afterlife
Conclusion—The Triumph of Time

Airy Nothings

Religion and the Flight from Time

Peter Heinegg

Airy Nothings

Religion and the Flight from Time

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