After God

Religion, Mark C. Taylor argues in After God, is more complicated than either its defenders or critics think and, indeed, is much more influential than any of us realize. Our world, Taylor maintains, is shaped by religion even when it is least obvious. Faith and value, he insists, are unavoidable and inextricably interrelated for believers and nonbelievers alike.

The first comprehensive theology of culture since the pioneering work of Paul Tillich, After God redefines religion for our contemporary age. This volume is a radical reconceptualization of religion and Taylor’s most pathbreaking work yet, bringing together various strands of theological argument and cultural analysis four decades in the making.

Praise for Mark C. Taylor
“The distinguishing feature of Taylor’s career is a fearless, or perhaps reckless, orientation to the new and to whatever challenges orthodoxy. . . . Taylor’s work is playful, perverse, rarefied, ingenious, and often brilliant.”—New York Times Magazine





Summary: Religion, secularism and a new theology of culture
Rating: 5

Complexity theory permeates many facets of life: social, biological, evolutionary, economic, artistic, political and religious, to name a few. Taylor uses the scientific theory of dynamic complex adaptive systems (CAS) to explain and reframe these issues with historical and contemporary relevancy. Using Luther's Protestant Reformation as a springboard, Taylor genealogically interprets religiosity and secularism as parallel vectors, each informing the other, demonstrating that there is codependency and interrelationship in and between religious and secular beliefs and practices. By clearly explaining the process of CAS, Taylor negotiates his notions of religion, language, art, market economies, evolution and global climate change as he uniquely integrates elements of "ethics without absolutes".
Taylor explores the binary opposition between the diachronic and synchronic origins of religion and frames these different but corresponding aspects as inseparable. Taylor compares and contrasts the philosophies of Hegel, Kierkegaard, Kant, and Marx et al. and rejects absolutist views of religion in favor of a relational framework for spontaneous organization in open systems. He holds that what is most important lies not at the center or in the extremes; rather, life develops and expresses itself at the edge of chaos, where creativity emerges over time. He studies the organization and constituents of CAS - recognizing patterns, feedback, adaptation, anticipation, and internal and external competition and cooperation - and in doing so, defines emergent creativity and life-sustaining processes.
He refigures the dialectics of opposition: either/or dualism and both/and monism, and instead endorses the need for an ascendancy of neither/nor thinking - the simultaneous possibilities that complexity entails - to usher in a new global ethic based on cooperation, negotiation and progressive adaptation. Ultimately, the trajectory of Taylor's argument results in the definition of life's richness and rhythm as a sublime state of interconnectedness. If substantial changes in our ethos and behavior are made, we stand to establish a constructive, agreeable, valuable and inclusive system rather than a destructive, divisive obsolescence that effectively subverts change and progress.
Taylor's book is well researched and eloquently written; he has succeeded in creating a book that forwards a unique theology of culture and philosophy of science, and elucidates new perspectives on the complexities of contemporary life systems, technology and models of creative insight into our changing world.

Download FREE

Uploading.com

DepositFiles.com

Uploadbox.com

No Mirror(s) Please !!!