Below, I present the outline of the half-written book I started to write after 9/11. It was the gradual realization that Bush was taking us to war in Iraq, and that the biggest problem facing our country was not understanding our enemy, but understanding ourselves, that led me to drop the book, and take to the streets….and to start this blog when we failed to defeat Bush.
OUTLINE OF THE DEATH OF DOGMA
Introduction
· Recounting of September 11th tragedy and the official al-Qaeda justification for it
· Jerry Falwell’s response and doctrine
· A synthesis of these two views into one (definition of dogma/salvation)
· An assertion that their views do not differ from the views of our recent forbears in important respects
· An assertion that we have rejected the worldviews of our forebears just as we reject the worldviews of al-Qaeda and Falwell
· An assertion that we are justified for doing so
· An assertion that the vast majority of violent disputes on Earth are among people that either share the bin-Laden/Falwell worldview or have failed to reject their allegiance to figures that shared their views.
· The positive possibilities of a post-dogmatic/salvation orientated world
Chapter One: The History of Religion and the Emergence of the Religions of Salvation
The brutish nature of existence until recent times
Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and the negative appraisal of existence
Gnosticism and The Gospel of Paradise
Christianity as a Salvation religion and a portrait of the Mediterranean at the time of its origin
Gnosticism, St. Paul, and Dogma, Dogma as the key to salvation
Chapter Two: Unnaturalistic attempts to explain phenomenon
Pantheism and anthropomorphism
Paganism
Monotheism
Science and secularism, ancient and modern, relation to Zoroastrianism
The abortion of progress under Christian rule
Chapter Three: Dogma, Salvation, and Theology to the Peace of Westphalia
The Trinity
The Virgin Mary
Angels Dancing on a Pin
Islam, Dante: Purgatory and Indulgences
Martin Luther
Wars of Religion
Democratic consequences: Revolutions in England, America and France
Chapter Four: Manifest Destiny or Mission Civilisatrice
The Enlightenment and the Conjoining of Religion and Ideology
Colonialism and the Religious and Ideological Justifications for it
Darwin, Nietzsche and Freud: the Break with the Past
Chapter Five: The Exhaustion of the West and the Coming of Multiculturalism
World War and Colonial War
Non-European immigration
Separation of Church and State
Comparative Religion
Social Revolution and the Emergence of Political Correctness
Chapter Six: Where Multiculturalism has Thus Far Failed
Ireland
Yugoslavia
India/Pakistan/Sri Lanka/Tibet
Chechnya
Palestine
Chapter Seven: A Post Dogmatic/Salvation Oriented World
The Denial of Death and the Myth of Sisyphus
Dogma Cannot Save Us
Consequences of a Salvation Oriented World (Pessimism)
What Science Teaches Us and What it Cannot Teach
Survival, not Salvation
To the Stars
