God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World (59 page)

23
. Some of these practices emerged during the more Deistic Cult of the Supreme Being, which replaced the Cult of Reason under Robespierre in 1794. See Nigel Aston,
Religion and Revolution in France, 1780–1804
(Washington, DC: Catholic Univ. of America Press, 2000); and John McManners,
Church and Society in Eighteenth-Century France
(New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1998).

24
. Karl Marx, “The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature,” in
Marx/Engels Collected Works
(London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1975), 1.30, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1841/dr-theses/foreword.htm.

25
. Brad Spurgeon, “Agent Provocateur,”
The Star
(Toronto), December 17, 2006, http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/157872.

26
. Onfray,
Atheist Manifesto
, 57; Onfray (citing the eighteenth-century French aphorist Nicolas Chamfort) quoted in Andrew Higgins, “As Religious Strife Grows, Europe’s Atheists Seize Pulpit,”
Wall Street Journal
, April 12, 2007, A1.

27
.
Torcaso v. Watkins
, 367 U.S. 488 (1961). Footnote 11 reads: “Among religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God are Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism.”

28
.
Kaufman v. McCaughtry
, 419 F.3d 867 (8th Cir. 2005). This case concerned a prisoner who asserted a First Amendment right to create an atheism group. See Derek H. Davis, “Is Atheism a Religion? Recent Judicial Perspectives on the Constitutional Meaning of ‘Religion,’ ”
Journal of Church and State
47, no. 4 (2005): 707–23. A sustained legal argument for atheism as a religion is presented in Douglas Laycock, “Religious Liberty as Liberty,”
Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues
7 (1996): 313–356. Kent Greenawalt refutes Laycock in “Saying What Counts as Religious,” in his
Religion and the Constitution,
vol. 1:
Free Exercise and Fairness
(Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 2006), 124–56.

29
. Onfray,
Atheist Manifesto
, 215.

30
. Quoted in Sidney Hook,
From Hegel to Marx: Studies in the Intellectual Development of Karl Marx
(New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1994), 154. See also David Sloan Wilson, “Atheism as a Stealth Religion,” Huffington Post Blog, December 14, 2007, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sloan-wilson/atheism-as-a-stealth-reli_b_76901.html.

31
. Tillich,
Systematic Theology,
1.11–12.

32
. “FAQ,” Friendly Atheist Blog, http://friendlyatheist.com/faq/.

33
. William Lobdell,
Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America—And Found Unexpected Peace
(New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 269, 271.

34
. Nica Lalli, “Atheists Don’t Speak With Just One Voice,”
USA Today
, October 8, 2007, http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/10/atheists-dont-s.html. Another possible candidate for “friendly atheist” status is literary critic Harold Bloom. Shortly after the appearance of his book,
Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine
(New York: Riverhead, 2005), he was telling an interviewer about his dislike for Yahweh—“He’s as good an explanation for why everything goes wrong all the time as we could want”—when his wife interrupted and said that he was an atheist. “No, I’m not an atheist,” he replied. “It’s no fun being an atheist.” So what is the alternative, his interviewer asked. “Well, the alternative is to entertain all of these fictions” (Laura Quinney, “An Interview with Harold Bloom,” http://www.rc.umd.edu/praxis/bloom_hartman/bloom/bloom.html).

Conclusion

1
. Irenaeus,
Against Heresies
, 4.20.7.

2
. Tu Wei-ming,
Confucian Thought
, 63.

3
. Lucy S. Dawidowicz, ed.,
The Golden Tradition: Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe
(Syracuse, NY: Syracuse Univ. Press, 1996), 93.

4
. Schipper,
Taoist Body
, 158.

5
. Nasr,
Ideals and Realities of Islam
, 73–74.

6
. “Our Movement, Our Stories,” Interfaith Youth Core, http://www.ifyc.org/donate

7
. Swami Nikhilananda, trans.,
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
(New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1942), 191.

8
. Nikhilananda,
Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
, 191.

9
. John Godfrey Saxe,
The Poetical Works of John Godfrey Saxe
(Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1882), 112. This story has also been put to use by Leo Tolstoy and Nikos Kazantzakis, and by recent children’s book authors. For a thorough review of this literature, and an intriguing application of this story to the world of computer science, see Edith Feistner and Alfred Holl,
Mono-perspective Views of Multi-perspectivity: Information Systems Modeling and “The Blind Men and the Elephant”
(Växjö, Sweden: Växjö Univ. Press 2006), http://www.informatik.fh-nuernberg.de/professors/Holl/Personal/Elefant_Acta.pdf.

10
. Rilke,
Rilke on Love
, 25.

11
. Fadiman and Frager,
Essential Sufism
, 82.

Index

The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature of your e-book reader.

Abraham: biblical story of, 73, 255; as Jew by adoption, 262; Judeo-Christian-Islamic sharing of, 26–27; Kabah shrine (Mecca) built by, 34

Absolute Truth (Mahayana Buddhism), 195, 200–201

Abu Bakr, 51

Adam and Eve story, 71, 72–73, 243, 246, 255, 279

Adefunmi, Efuntola Oseijeman Adelabu, 227–28

Adefunmi, Oba, II, 228

Ade, King Sunny, 229

adhan
(call to prayer) [Islam], 27–28, 30–31

Advaita Vedanta (Hindu philosophy), 166

Africa: estimates of Yoruba practitioners in, 220–22; Yoruba religion spread by slaves from, 222–23.
See also
Nigeria; Yoruba religion

Agee, James, 294

Agnes, St., 82

Agni (Vedic god), 142

ahimsa
(noninjury) principle, 10

Ali (Muhammad’s son-in-law), 51

Allah:
adhan
(call to prayer) to, 27–28, 30–31; as author of Quran, 40–41; description, names, and nature of, 36–37, 45–46; total submission to, 31–32.
See also
God

Alliance for Jewish Renewal, 276

All Religions Are One
(Blake), 1

“all religions are one” belief, 3, 4, 8

al-Qaeda, 19, 52–54

American Atheists, 325

American Idol
(TV show), 84

American Muslims: Nation of Islam (NOI) and, 29; popular culture influence of, 29–30

American politics: American Jewish influence in, 246; Bible used in, 18; growing influence of U.S. Muslims in, 20; Religious Right impact on, 8, 320, 338; role of religion in, 6–11, 18.
See also
United States

American popular culture: American Muslims’ influence on, 29–30; Buddhism influence on, 176–77; Daoism revival through, 281–85; Jewish influence on, 246–47; Yoruba religion adopted by, 229.
See also
United States

Amida Buddha, 191

Anabaptists, 79

Analects (Confucius), 102, 104, 106, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117–18, 119, 121, 128, 281

anatta
(no soul) [Buddhism], 184–85

Anglican Church in North America, 96

Anglican Communion, 79

Ansari of Herat, 58

Aristotle, 98, 123

Armstrong, Karen, 2, 6, 166

Arnaz, Desi, 229

Aryans (“Noble Ones”), 143

asceticism, 66

ashe
(orisha power) [Yoruba religion], 88, 156, 205–6, 207, 209, 212, 219–20, 234, 235

Ashkenazi Jews, 247

Ashoka (Emperor of India), 175

Asian-American “model minority,” 105, 133

atheism: crossroad facing New Atheists, 328–29; debate over creed of, 323–26; ethics of, 325; Friendly Atheists, 327–28; Harvard University atheism rally (2009), 327–28; historic tradition of, 317; New Atheists attacks on religion, 9, 66, 317–26

Atheist Alliance International, 325

Atheist Manifesto
(Onfray), 319

Atman (self/soul) [Hinduism], 149, 150, 151

Augustine, St., 24, 92–93, 98

Auslander, Shalom, 258

Autobiography of a Yogi
(Swami Yogananda), 168