The illusion of God's presence

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Maurice Bloch

Maurice Bloch has for many years been developing an original and influential theory of ritual. In this book he synthesizes a radical theory of religion. Rituals in a great many societies deny the transience of life and of human institutions. Bloch argues that they enact this denial by symbolically sacrificing the participants themselves, so allowing them to participate in the immortality of a transcendent entity. Such sacrifices are achieved through acts of symbolic violence, ranging from bodily mutilations to the killing of animals. The theme is developed with reference to rituals of many types, from a variety of ethnographic sources, and Bloch shows that even exogamous marriage rituals can be reinterpreted in the light of this thesis. He concludes by considering the indirect relation of symbolic and ritual violence to political violence.

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Peter L. Berger

After ten years of writing in other areas, Peter L. Berger returns to the problem of religion and modernity discussed in his earlier book A Rumor of Angels. In The Heretical Imperative, however, not only is the argument developed further in terms of the challenge to religion of modern secularism, but it is also argued that a new and greatly promising encounter is about to take place between the Judaeo-Christian tradition and the great religions of Asia. Berger discusses the options for religious thought in the contemporary world and suggests that out of the confrontation between different traditions may come a powerful revitalization of religious faith.

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Earl R. MacCormac

Most of the effort in this work is fully devoted to establishing the thesis that science and religion use language in a similar manner; both employ metaphors to suggest new hypotheses, both seem to confirm their hypotheses in human experience, and both often create myths by forgetting the hypothetical character of their metaphors.

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Mary Midgley

This work exposes the illogical logic of poor doctrines that shelter themselves behind the prestige of science. Midgley examines how science comes to be used as a substitute for religion and points out how badly that role distorts it.