Most readers of this book will have had some type of religious instruction. Whether as children we were taught at a church Sunday school or some other religious institution, or we absorbed simple social assumptions from the culture we live in, none of us grow up in a religious vacuum. Through most of history the majority of people appear to have been reasonably satisfied with the religious culture which went hand in hand with their social structure. It has been only in the past two or three centuries that religious questioning has occupied the minds and hearts of a large share of the population. Religious questioning is now a concern of the entire world, West and East alike. One sign of this is the extraordinary proliferation of new religious creeds and organizations. It sometimes feels as if there are as many religious creeds as there are adherents. It is true that the vast majority of Westerners continue to list themselves on the census forms as Christian or Jewish, but for many people these terms have come to lose nearly all meaning except to identify them with a set of traditional festivals and a generalized “Yes,” if asked, “Do you believe in God?”

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