Word: religion
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Commenting on investigations by another member of the group, Harvey Cox, professor of Divinity, Mesthene wrote i his report that technology was largely responsible for "the pluralism of belief systems that is characteristic of the modern world" and that religion must come to terms with this...
Converts to Soka Gakkai are a mixed assortment of religion seekers. Some were first attracted to Oriental thought by an exposure to Zen; others have worked their way through a number of religions without finding spiritual satisfaction. The most notable seeker to date is a onetime Mormon elder who tried 30 different religions before joining the sect. Negroes who join the movement claim to be impressed by the absence of racial prejudice. Whatever their motives for joining, converts generally admire the warmth and zeal of the sect's prayer meetings. "I felt like I wasn't really alone...
...Lutheran layman and professor of sociology at Manhattan's New School for Social Research, Berger has already used the tools of his discipline to challenge the bureaucratic pretensions of institutional religion in two books, The Noise of Solemn Assemblies and The Precarious Vision. He readily admits that sociology has helped to undermine the traditional faiths of the past, but he also argues that it can just as easily undermine the certainty of today's aggressive disbelief. Disbelief, he insists, is largely the product of man's present environment, and the skepticism of the professional atheist is just...
...fundamentally a sense of discrepancy, and the most basic is the discrepancy between man and the universe. Man's laughter, Berger believes, "reflects the imprisonment of the human spirit in the world"-and his audacious conviction, when that world seems awry, that the imprisonment is not final. "Religion," concludes Berger, "vindicates laughter...
...does not suggest that such a search will find its final expression as a universal religion, and disassociates himself from any attempt to create a "theological Esperanto." He sees, in fact, a continuing pluralism, but a more confident one, in which all religions more fully appreciate the commonality of human experience that unites them and the diversity of approach that mutually enriches them...