Arena Books (Publishers)

the role of religion in the third millennium

ISBN-13 978-0-9543161-9-8
Retail price: £14.99

The Author

Robert Corfe is a prolific author who has written extensively on the benefits of social capitalism. He is a political scientist and businessman, with considerable experience of political life, and in this book he argues the need for a regenerated deism in helping secure a safer and more peaceful world in diminishing religiously-motivated political strife. For many years he was a senior manager in manufacturing industry, and later a management consultant advising SMEs, usually in the engineering sector. He is also the author of two autobiographical books under different pseudonyms: Death in Riyadh dark secrets in hidden Arabia (Geoff Carter), based on his experiences as a businessman in the Middle East in the 1980s, and, My Conflict With A Soviet Spy the story of the Ron Evans spy case (Eddie Miller), based on his adventures in Scandinavia in the 1960s. In 1987 he founded the Campaign For Industry, to which he was elected Chairman, and for which he wrote many pamphlets on the problems of contemporary business. His broad experience, frequent travels overseas, and years of residence in Continental Europe have given him a unique perspective of socio-economic issues. 

About this book - 

Religion in many parts of the world, in both politics and personal life, for good or ill, is now exerting a greater influence than at any time in living memory. There is now not merely a cultural-religious confrontation between a worldwide Islam and what it sees as an affluent agnostic West, but the worrying rise of  Christian fundamentalism in the most powerful nation on earth. And the latter has its distinctive political agenda. Part of this agenda entails a biased approach to the Israeli-Palestinian issue, but the most significant aspect of all religiously-inspired politics is self-righteousness, and the explosive mix which this creates.

These are situations which could never have been anticipated a generation ago when it was assumed that secularism had displaced the beliefs of the past as any longer of political significance. The attitude of many thinking people, in Europe and elsewhere, is to regard religion with askance whilst looking towards the growth of a greater secularism in resolving difficult issues. But such an approach is not an option. Religion is a natural component of human nature and is unlikely to be eradicated through modernism. Nonetheless, it is necessary to distinguish between the benign and malign aspects of religion and those of the different churches.

Through surveying the traditions of the major religions in today’s world it is shown that those based on revelation too often tend towards a tenacity of belief which leads to irrationalism and then, in turn, to fanaticism. When this mutates into political power it creates a dangerous cocktail which may affect us all, as we have seen with 9/11, and later with the bombings in London, Madrid, Bali, and elsewhere.

Such threats can only be met by reverting to the language of those who claim the authority of God. And that means confronting religion with religion. But such a challenge needs to come from an over-arching religion without falsehood, or from the rational belief system of deism which seeks to unify all those of goodwill under the umbrella of an ethical religious consciousness.

This book therefore presents a vision for a regenerated deism for the 21st century in helping resolve the most difficult conflicts of our time. The futility of political confrontation, through a dualistic view of the world, must be met by a new moral order amongst majorities everywhere in bringing greater peace and security to our planet. 
 

CONTENTS 

Preface

CHAPTER 1

The Crisis of Religion in the modern World

1. The tenacity of religion
2. A natural component of human nature
3. The fear of destiny
4. Anxiety is no moral justification for religion
5. The crisis of contemporary religion
6. Religion must evolve with society
7. The deist interpretation of faith
8. Religion and the rationalist’s disappointment
9. The clandestine financing of religion
10. The mendacious environment of churchgoing

CHAPTER 2

Religion without Falsehood

1. “Faith” misused by the churches
2. Evils stemming from Revelation in today’s world
3. Some accepted definitions of deism
4. The character of deism
5. Common misinterpretations of deism
6. A definitive interpretation of deism
7. Towards the ethical life and a peaceful death
8. Our first duty is salvation in the present world, not the next

CHAPTER 3

The Practical work of Deism

1. An over-arching religion
2. Proselytising amongst the “committed” and “born again”
3. Proselytising amongst the lukewarm
4. The resurgent evils of religious terrorism
5. Christian fundamentalism versus that of Islam
6. Increasing religiosity accompanies increasing terrorism
7. The psychological damage of America’s fundamentalism
8. Fortuitous role of the deist as peacemaker
9. Confused attitude to religion in public life
10. A role for deism in public life
11. A Moral Rearmament for social progress

CHAPTER 4

The Legacy of Deism

1. How deism is absurdly misapprehended
2. Early history of deism
3. The great age of English deism
4. Deism coincided with the high point of British civilisation
5. Causes for the demise of English deism
6. War and its destruction of rational ideals
7. English deism in France and Germany
8. English deism in America

CHAPTER 5

The Corner-stone of Religion

1. Ethics as the corner-stone of religion
2. Need for a unifying world religious consciousness
3. Ethics as an insoluble philosophical problem
4. Practicality of the religious sense
5. Ethics subordinate within the wider realm of religious righteousness
6. The need for sincerity
7. The dangers of conviction
8. Contemporary crisis of the churches
9. Their unfortunate response to this
10. The crisis of belief
11. When is religion destroyed by disbelief?

CHAPTER 6

Doctrines and their Social Influence

1. Definitions of religion
2. Primitive religion (or magic)
3. Religion in the classical world
4. The rise of Christianity
5. As a force for social good
6. Integrity of the Church Triumphant
7. Thomas Aquinas and the search for truth
8. As reflected in the understanding of humanity
9. Reformation no reflection of religious progress in its true sense
10. Psychological consequences of salvation through faith
11. Questionable character of the reformers
12. The poodle of the princes
13. The dictator of Heaven on earth
14. Psychological consequences of predestination
15. The atomisation of religion
16. Its contemporary sterility

CHAPTER 7

Looking East and West

1. Perceiving the evolution of religion
2. Islamic core theology in advance of Christianity
3. Limitations of belief in a personal God
4. Backwardness of Islamic social life
5. A religion which prevents progress
6. The three reasons for this
7. The threat to Islamic civilisation
8. Contrast between the Islamic and Sino-Japanese civilisations
9. Religion responsible for these differences
10. The nature of Confucianism
11. Contrasted with the Abrahamic religions
12. The value of religion is in its sociological outcome
13. Sanity of Confucianism contrasted with the dualism of the West
14. A better approach to inventiveness
15. A developing religion
16. The dynamism of Singapore
17. Women more liberated than in the West
18. Healthiness of the Confucian soul

CHAPTER 8

Why there is no Best Religion

1. Contemporary relevance of Buddhism
2. Contrasted with the Abrahamic religions
3. Our pagan ancestors respected the environment
4. Buddhism a religion for the environment
5. Its kindness to the animal kingdom
6. Eastern view of Western religion
7. No one religion superior to the rest
8. Insensitivity of missionary activity
9. The “White man’s” religion
10. Conserving primitive cultures

CHAPTER 9

The Decadence of Contemporary Religion

1. Religion’s decline wrongly attributed to sin
2. Conventional religion has lost its credibility
3. The agnostic often a better person than the churchgoer
4. Failure of the churchgoer to extend his intellectual horizons
5. Methodism and the retardation of social progress
6. Religious thought has lagged behind secular thought
7. How religious doctrines were imposed by law
8. And passively accepted until the present day
9. Religion is now too often only an aesthetic experience
10. This compared with that in the classical world
11. Medieval theology suited medieval man
12. Modern Biblical teaching unconvincing

CHAPTER 10

How Ethics Relies on Truth

1. Ethical retardation of modern religion
2. The meaning of truth
3. Applying truth to religion
4. Fighting superstition and falsehood
5. Church leaders must maintain intellectual integrity
6. Bible abused as a work of revelation
7. Bible not an ideal source for ethical teaching
8. An example of this
9. Crimes of the Jewish God
10. Bible’s influence in promoting strife and cruelty
11. The Fall, as interpreted through the centuries

CHAPTER 11

The Problem of Sexual Morality

1. The sexual allegory
2. The power of sexual repression
3. How the church has destroyed spontaneity between the sexes
4. Definition of sin
5. Sense of sin a poor guide to a fulfilled life
6. Responsibility of the Christian preacher
7. Pathological sexual guilt special to the Abrahamic religions
8. Morality distinguished from Ethics
9. Narrow interpretation of Christian morality
10. Some sexual issues for consideration
11. Issues not considered
12. Some proposals on approaching sexual issues
13. Utilising love in confronting racism
14. Putting an end to secrecy and hypocrisy
15. The Christian activist’s attitude to sex

CHAPTER 12

Immorality of Hellfire Crusading

1. Questionable tactics of Christian crusading
2. Its repudiation of the truth
3. Hellfire as the ultimate weapon
4. The need for demonstrable truth
5. Failure of theological metaphysics
6. Subjective “truth” is no truth
7. Ethics demands the truth
8. Only in religion is it seen as necessary to deceive
9. Harmful effects of this
10. Adverse effects of the Bible on the unbeliever

CHAPTER 13

The Search for Religious Belief

1. Philistinism of the contemporary church in comparison with the Victorian era
2. A churchman’s dismissal of ethics
3. Value of the churches in arousing social consciousness
4. And as a haven for the unfortunate
5. Bible most significant as a study in resentment
6. In this light it is a work of aesthetic truth
7. Truth is sacrificed when the Bible is used as revelation
8. And to deny the spiritual truths of other religions
9. No book exclusively promotes the spiritual truth
10. All religions must be subjected to sociological analysis
11. Criteria for measuring the decadence of a church
12. Present diversity of religious belief
13. “Feminist” Christianity

CHAPTER 14

Towards a Rational Theology

1. Reasons for the need for true religion
2. The paradox of religious appeal
3. Need for a broader ecumenical movement
4. The need for faith and how it works
5. Description of those without faith
6. Faith without true religion is sterile
7. The meaning of God
8. Essential to a modern religious consciousness
9. The impersonality of God
10. Taking God’s name in vain
11. He is not a mere intervener in fulfilling petty desires
12. Foolish attempts at proving God’s existence

CHAPTER 15

Foundations for a Unifying Religion

1. The question of immortality
2. Bad arguments for its existence
3. Its usefulness to exploiters and warmongers
4. Heaven as a club for the select few
5. Ethics of the saved and the damned
6. Better ethics of Eastern immortality
7. A rational definition of immortality
8. A definition of Heaven and Hell
9. Forgiveness
10. Prayer
11. Theology must give way to philosophy
12. Towards a new religious consciousness

APPENDIX  

List of works and their authors published during the great era of English Deism between 1690-1740

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX