Professional Documents
Culture Documents
RELIGION
WITHOUT
GOD
Ronald Dworkin
H A RVA R D U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England
2013
Copyright 2013 by Ronald Dworkin
Dworkin, Ronald.
Religion without god / Ronald Dworkin.
pages cm
Based on the Einstein Lectures that Ronald Dworkin
delivered at the University of Bern in December 2011.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-674-72682-6 (alk. paper)
1. ReligionPhilosophy. 2. Atheism. 3. Freedom
of religion. 1. Title.
BL51.D96 2013
200dc23 2013020724
To Tom who led me into the mysteries
of the secular temperament
And to Reniforever
CONTENTS
Publishers Note ix
1 Religious Atheism? 1
Introduction 1
What Is Religion? The Metaphysical Core 10
Religious Science and Religious Value 21
Mystery and Intelligibility 29
Impersonal Gods: Tillich, Spinoza,
and Pantheism 31
2 The Universe 45
Physics and the Sublime 45
How Could Beauty Guide Research? 53
But What Kind of Beauty Could This Be? 65
Symmetry? 69
Is There a Way the Universe Just Is? 77
Inevitability and the Universe 82
The Beauty of Inevitability 97
CONTENTS
Notes 161
Index 171
viii
PUBLISHERS NOTE
ix
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
1
R E L I G I O U S AT H E I S M ?
Introduction
1
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
2
R EL I GI O U S AT H E I S M ?
3
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
4
R EL I GI O U S AT H E I S M ?
5
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
6
R EL I GI O U S AT H E I S M ?
7
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
8
R EL I GI O U S AT H E I S M ?
9
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
10
R EL I GI O U S AT H E I S M ?
11
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
12
R EL I GI O U S AT H E I S M ?
13
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
14
R EL I GI O U S AT H E I S M ?
15
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
16
R EL I GI O U S AT H E I S M ?
17
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
20
R EL I GI O U S AT H E I S M ?
21
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
22
R EL I GI O U S AT H E I S M ?
23
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
26
R EL I GI O U S AT H E I S M ?
27
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
28
R EL I GI O U S AT H E I S M ?
29
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
30
R EL I GI O U S AT H E I S M ?
31
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
32
R EL I GI O U S AT H E I S M ?
33
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
34
R EL I GI O U S AT H E I S M ?
35
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
36
R EL I GI O U S AT H E I S M ?
37
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
38
R EL I GI O U S AT H E I S M ?
39
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
42
R EL I GI O U S AT H E I S M ?
43
2
THE UNIVERSE
45
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
46
T H E U N I V E RS E
47
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
48
T H E U N I V E RS E
49
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
50
T H E U N I V E RS E
51
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
52
T H E U N I V E RS E
53
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
54
T H E U N I V E RS E
55
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
56
T H E U N I V E RS E
57
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
58
T H E U N I V E RS E
59
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
60
T H E U N I V E RS E
61
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
62
T H E U N I V E RS E
63
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
64
T H E U N I V E RS E
65
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
66
T H E U N I V E RS E
67
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
68
T H E U N I V E RS E
Symmetry?
69
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
70
T H E U N I V E RS E
71
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
72
T H E U N I V E RS E
73
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
74
T H E U N I V E RS E
75
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
76
T H E U N I V E RS E
77
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
78
T H E U N I V E RS E
79
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
80
T H E U N I V E RS E
81
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
82
T H E U N I V E RS E
83
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
84
T H E U N I V E RS E
85
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
86
T H E U N I V E RS E
87
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
88
T H E U N I V E RS E
89
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
90
T H E U N I V E RS E
91
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
92
T H E U N I V E RS E
93
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
94
T H E U N I V E RS E
95
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
96
T H E U N I V E RS E
97
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
98
T H E U N I V E RS E
99
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
100
T H E U N I V E RS E
101
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
102
T H E U N I V E RS E
103
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
104
3
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
105
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
106
R EL I GI O U S FRE E D O M
107
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
108
R EL I GI O U S FRE E D O M
109
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
110
R EL I GI O U S FRE E D O M
111
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
112
R EL I GI O U S FRE E D O M
113
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
116
R EL I GI O U S FRE E D O M
117
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
118
R EL I GI O U S FRE E D O M
119
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
120
R EL I GI O U S FRE E D O M
121
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
122
R EL I GI O U S FRE E D O M
123
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
124
R EL I GI O U S FRE E D O M
125
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
126
R EL I GI O U S FRE E D O M
127
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
128
R EL I GI O U S FRE E D O M
129
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
130
R EL I GI O U S FRE E D O M
131
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
132
R EL I GI O U S FRE E D O M
133
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
134
R EL I GI O U S FRE E D O M
135
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
136
R EL I GI O U S FRE E D O M
137
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
138
R EL I GI O U S FRE E D O M
139
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
140
R EL I GI O U S FRE E D O M
141
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
142
R EL I GI O U S FRE E D O M
143
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
144
R EL I GI O U S FRE E D O M
145
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
146
R EL I GI O U S FRE E D O M
1 47
4
D E AT H A N D I M M O RTA L I T Y
149
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
150
DEATH A N D I M M O RTA L I T Y
151
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
152
DEATH A N D I M M O RTA L I T Y
153
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
154
DEATH A N D I M M O RTA L I T Y
155
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
156
DEATH A N D I M M O RTA L I T Y
157
RELIGION WITHOUT GOD
158
DEATH A N D I M M O RTA L I T Y
159
NOTES
1. Religious Atheism?
1. Albert Einstein, in Living Philosophies: The
Reections of Some Eminent Men and Women of
Our Time, ed. Clifton Fadiman (New York:
Doubleday, 1990), p. 6.
2. Hymn to Intellectual Beauty (1816).
3. William James, The Will to Believe and Other
Essays in Popular Philosophy (New York: Long-
mans, Green, and Co., 1896), p. 25.
4. United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163 (1965).
5. Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961), fn. 11:
Among religions in this country which do
not teach what would generally be consid-
ered a belief in the existence of God are
Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular
Humanism and others. See Washington Ethical
161
N OT E S TO PAGE S 5 13
162
N OTE S TO PAGE S 19 4 1
163
N OT E S TO PAGE S 4 2 5 5
2. The Universe
1. In Living Philosophies: The Reections of Some
Eminent Men and Women of Our Time, ed. Clifton
Fadiman (New York: Doubleday, 1990), p. 6.
2. Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe: Superstrings,
Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate
Theory (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003);
Anthony Zee, Fearful Symmetry: The Search for
Beauty in Modern Physics (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2007); Bruce A.
Schumm, Deep Down Things: The Breathtaking
Beauty of Particle Physics (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2004).
3. Greene, The Elegant Universe, p. xi.
4. Steven Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1992), p. 90.
5. John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn (1820).
6. Compare Hilary Putnam, Ethics without
Ontology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2004), p. 67, where he discusses value
judgments that are internal to scientic
164
N OTE S TO PAGE S 5 6 8 6
165
N OTE S TO PAGE S 9 0 12 1
3. Religious Freedom
1. UN General Assembly, Resolution 217A (III),
Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
December 10, 1948.
2. Council of Europe, Convention for the
Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental
Freedoms, November 4, 1950, Article 9(2).
3. John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration (1685).
4. Universal Military Training and Ser vice Act of
1948, 50 U.S.C. Appx. 456( j) (1948).
5. United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163 (1965).
6. See Ronald Dworkin, Freedoms Law: The Moral
Reading of the American Constitution
166
N OTES TO PAGE S 12 1 12 2
167
N OTE S TO PAG E S 12 3 13 4
168
N OTES TO PAG E S 13 4 14 5
169
N OT E TO PAG E 15 8
170
INDEX
171
INDEX
172
INDEX
173
INDEX
174
INDEX
175
INDEX
Quantum theory of
Pagan gods, 3132 gravity. See Gravity,
Pantheism, 4043 internal integrity of
Personal and nonpersonal physics and
gods, 3143 Quarks, 52, 63 64, 91
Peyote, religious freedom
and ritual use of,
125126, 134135 Raphaels Holy Family,
Physics: beauty in, 48 67, 100
97 98; search for Religion: as interpretive
integrity in, 85 87, concept, 7; meta-
90 92, 95 97; strong phorical use of term, 5;
176
INDEX
177
INDEX
178
INDEX
179
INDEX
180