Spirituality without God: A Global History of Thought and Practice

Description

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.

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.

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. * Journal of Contemporary Religion * Peter Heehs's book and historical examination, Spirituality without God, comes at a timely moment in the discourse on spiritual practice. * Bulletin of the British Association for the Study of Religions * 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. * Horizons: The Journal of the College Theology Society * 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. * Reading Religion * For those interested in spirituality and its practices, Peter Heehs' book is an interesting source ... Easy to access, very well documented. * Archives de sciences sociales des religions (Bloomsbury Translation) * Heehs is a clear and engaging writer... The book would thus fit easily and well in an undergraduate classroom. * Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses * 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. * Boaz Huss, Professor of Jewish Thought, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel * 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. * Gwilym Beckerlegge, Professor of Modern Religions, The Open University, UK * 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. * Jay L. Garfield, Doris Silbert Professor in the Humanities, Smith College and Harvard Divinity School, USA *