The Religious Case Against Belief

by James P. Carse

In The Religious Case Against Belief, James Carseidentifies the twenty-first century’s most forbidding villain:belief. In distinguishing religions from belief systems, Carseworks to reveal how belief—with its restriction on thoughtand encouragement of hostility—has corrupted religion andspawned violence the world over. Galileo, Martin Luther, Abraham Lincoln, andJesus Christ—using their stories Carse creates his own brand ofparable and establishes a new vocabulary with which to studyconflict in the modern world. The Religious Case Against Beliefintroduces three kinds of ignorance: ordinary ignorance (amundane lack of knowledge, such as ignorance of tomorrow’sweather or the reason why your stove is malfunctioning), willfulignorance (an intentional avoidance of accessible knowledge),and finally higher ignorance (a learned understanding that nomatter how many truths we may accumulate, our knowledgefalls infinitely short of the truth). While ordinary ignorance is common to all people,Carse