Chapter 1: On Earth as It is in Heaven

The role, expression, persistent presence, and extensive impact of religion is still of concern and debate in almost every area of scholarship. Within the United States, some sociologists predicted that the United States would secularize by the end of the 21st century, only later to retract their statements as the 21st century approached and religious adherents remained largely unchanged. These scholars did not understand the important role religion plays in personal identity, moral decisions, and the development of community life which connects individuals to the greater world community. Alternatively, others have tried to homogenize all religion into a base human centered activity, much like Feuerbach attempted (Harvey, 1997), and claim that all religious activity is seeking largely the same end goals and thus can be joined as one under the umbrella of spirituality or dismissed outright. And, while religion does fundamentally represent a universal human pursuit for meaning, these scholar’s error in not understanding the fundamental differences in religions contradictory epistemologies and metaphysics, and dismiss all together the possibility of the transcendent.