CHAPTER TWO. What Is a Religion?

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Author’s Note ix
4. Acknowledgments xi
5. Who’s in Charge of the World’s Mysteries? xiii
6. CHAPTER ONE. The Traveler to Excellent Beauty: Invited Rather Than Drafted 1
7. PART ONE. Of Spiritual Journeys
8. CHAPTER TWO. What Is a Religion? 9
9. CHAPTER THREE. The One Billion 16
10. CHAPTER FOUR. The Traveler’s Dark Night of the Sou 28
11. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER 4. Statistics and Probability Meet Job 46
12. PART TWO. The Biology of Religion, the Psychology of Morality
13. Introduction to Part Two 49
14. CHAPTER FIVE. Justifying the Ways of God to Man via Evolution 51
15. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER 5. Yes, There Really Is Such a Thing as a Coincidence 65
16. CHAPTER SIX. Does God Want You Dead? 69
17. CHAPTER SEVEN. Good Without Gods 82
18. PART THREE. The Journey in Tatters
19. CHAPTER EIGHT. Beyond Atheism: The Religion Illusion 93
20. CHAPTER NINE. The Janus-Faced Hominid 97
21. PART FOUR. The Heretic’s Way: Into the Mysterious Realm
22. Introduction to Part Four 113
23. CHAPTER TEN. Some Strangeness in the Proportion 115
24. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER 10. A Compendium of Mysteries 143
25. CHAPTER ELEVEN. The Beauty of Seeing More Than We Can Understand 147
26. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER 11. Welcome to the Inscrutable 152
27. CHAPTER TWELVE. The Personal Mystery and the Impersonal God 155
28. CHAPTER THRIRTEEN. Summa Mysteriologica 167
29. Notes 171
30. Bibliography 183
31. Index 189