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    Maybe We Need a New Religion
    Maybe We Need a New Religion
    Maybe We Need a New Religion
    Ebook73 pages2 hours

    Maybe We Need a New Religion

    By James Hilgendorf

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    About this ebook

    Sometime ago, I read a report of a young ten-or-eleven year old boy, who, after being exposed to continuing newspaper and television reports about the fighting going on all over the Middle East, involving Christians, Muslims and Jews, remarked:

    “Maybe we need a new religion.”

    This book is about the roots and myths of the current religions much of the world still lives under - religions which were born in an older and different time, whose dream-worlds have been shattered by the rise of science.

    But it is also about a new and utterly empowering vision of ourselves, as co-creators and participants at one with the very heart of the universe itself.

    Beyond the old myths, beyond atheism even, a vision of the true relation of our lives to the cosmos around us - a vision now supported by the most cutting-edge revelations of science.

    Who are we? Why are we here?

    These are the age-old questions.

    Now it’s time for a new religion.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJames Hilgendorf
    Release dateJul 21, 2014
    ISBN9781311124005
    Maybe We Need a New Religion
    Author

    James Hilgendorf

    James Hilgendorf is the author of nine books - "Life & Death: A Buddhist Perspective", "The Great New Emerging Civilization", "The New Superpower", "The Buddha and the Dream of America", "A New Myth for America", "Poems of Death: Time for Eternity", "Handbook for Youth in a Muddied Age", "Maybe We Need a New Religion", and "Forever Here". He is also the producer of The Tribute Series, a series of highly-acclaimed travel films that are in homes, libraries, and schools all across the United States, several of which have appeared on PBs and international television.

    Read more from James Hilgendorf

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      Book preview

      Maybe We Need a New Religion - James Hilgendorf

      Maybe We Need A New Religion

      by

      James Hilgendorf

      Published by James Hilgendorf at Smashwords

      Maybe We Need A New Religion

      Copyright 2014 James Hilgendorf

      Revised 2017

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      * * * * *

      Chapter One

      Maybe We Need A New Religion

      * * * * *

      Prologue

      Sometime ago, I read a report of a young ten-or-eleven year old boy, who, after being exposed to continuing newspaper and television reports about the fighting going on all over the Middle Ease involving Christians, Muslims and Jews, remarked:

      Maybe we need a new religion.

      Certainly he cannot be blamed for his reaction. At the heart of much of the conflict we see in the world today is religion.

      Religions proclaim similar messages – peace, brotherhood, happiness – yet down on the ground, down in the trenches, there is something wrong, religion only seems to add to the acidic brew of divisions among people.

      Why is this? What is the function of religion, anyway?

      Can we – as many people think – simply do without it?

      People today, especially young people, deeply sense the drift away from the old anchors of meaning in their lives. They are vaguely searching for something, but do not find it in our mainstream religions.

      More and more people are coming to realize that the religions we currently have, and have had for thousands of years, are no longer functioning to give us the answers we are looking for.

      We want meaning to our lives. We want to know why we are here, and what life in general, and my life in particular is about. But beyond all that, we want to be happy, we want something that can help us overcome the very real problems that we encounter in the daily course of our lives.

      Some say there is no need for religion, because there is no inherent meaning to life. This is a religion also; because religion, we might say, is a way of looking at things. It is a way of coming to terms with reality.

      The way we perceive things deeply influences the way we act and how we view the significance of our own lives and the lives of others, and this, in turn, has profound consequences. If our perception of reality is distorted in some way, then the actions we take based upon those beliefs will lead, in some way or another, to unhappiness.

      We are coming into a time when it is becoming more and more obvious that unless we find a new way of relating to each other, of showing respect to the human family and the planet on which we live, we are doomed as a species. The presence of nuclear weapons and global warming attest to the power we currently have to actually destroy ourselves and to desecrate the Earth.

      If a new religion is coming, it must have the power to finally connect peoples’ hearts around the globe. We appear to be moving inexorably - though not without deep resistance - in the direction of a new global civilization; and that civilization - like every civilization that has ever appeared throughout history - requires a new spiritual foundation and common vision, only one, this time, that connects all of the people of the earth to the very roots of their being.

      It’s time to examine the spiritual (speaking in the broadest sense) landscape of our world, and of our world’s religions, and subject them to the harshest scrutiny, jettisoning old, worn-out, detrimental beliefs holding back the progress of individuals and mankind.

      It’s time for fresh perspectives on our role here on Earth, and of our connection to the stars.

      Who are we, really? What are we doing here? Where are we going?

      These questions gnaw quietly at all our foundations; for we live now in a world without the old gods, without the living, breathing sustenance and assurances of the old myths. We seem naked now, in a cold impersonal, limitless universe.

      Daily, we peer out farther and farther into the outermost reaches of space and time, and nowhere do we find ourselves there.

      The ancient Chaldeans painted the heavens with their pains and joys. The sun and moon and stars were real. It was a deep connection to the light and the dark. Suns rose, suns set, the firmament revolved. Ages and ages passed, and the cycles of the stars were plotted. It is hard to imagine now - we look out and see points of light in the dark heavens, and it is remote, nothing to do with ourselves, our body and mind; but our ancestors looked out and knew their own blood

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