LIVING THE SECULAR LIFE

LIVING THE SECULAR LIFE by Phil Zuckerman | Kirkus HomeMagazineNewsletterEmail Newsletter Your AccountReviews / AssignmentsAuthor DashboardEditorial DashboardIndie Author DashboardYour Pro Page Pro InboxYour Book ListManage SubscriptionsChange PasswordLog outLog inSearch termSearch scopeAllReviewsInterviewsAuthorsListsPublishersPro ConnectLATEST ISSUE OFKirkus ReviewsFeaturing the best 100 nonfiction and best 50 teen books of 2014.Book Reviews Just Awarded the KIRKUS STAR CATEGORIESBiography & MemoirBusiness & EconomicsChildren's and TeenCurrent AffairsEntertainment & SportsEssays & AnthologiesFiction & LiteratureFood & CookingGraphic Novels & Comic BooksHealth & MedicineHistoryIndieiPad Book AppsMystery & CrimeNature & TravelPsychologyReligionRomanceScience & TechnologyScience Fiction & FantasySocial SciencesThrillersTrue CrimeBEST BOOKSKirkus Stars & RecommendationsBEST OF 2014FictionNonfictionChildren'sTeenIndieBook AppsFEATURED REVIEWSHot ListsVintage ReviewsBest of 2014FICTIONBy CategoryFull ListFeatured AuthorsCHILDREN'SBy CategoryFull ListFeatured Authors & IllustratorsNONFICTIONBy CategoryFull ListFeatured AuthorsTEENBy CategoryFull ListFeatured AuthorsINDIEBy CategoryFull ListFeatured AuthorsBOOK APPSFull ListBestsellersAuthors Featured Author CANDACE FLEMING CATEGORIESChildren's Authors & IllustratorsFiction Authors Nonfiction Authors Young Adult Authors Bestselling Author Success StoriesTOP AUTHORSLatest InterviewsBestselling AuthorsKirkus Reviews Cover StoriesAre you an author?Get Your Book ReviewedGet Your Book EditedPromote Your ReviewKirkus TV Coming Soon Beth Macyauthor of FACTORY MANDecember 9, 2014AUTHOR INTERVIEWSShow ScheduleRecent InterviewsBROWSE VIDEOSAllFictionNonfictionLatest InterviewAndrew Smithauthor of GRASSHOPPER JUNGLEBlogs Latest From SF SIGNAL CATEGORIESChildren'sMysteries/ThrillersRomanceSci-Fi/FantasyYoung AdultBLOGSSF SignalForever Young AdultThe Book SmugglersSeven Impossible Things Before BreakfastBookshelves of DoomThe Rap SheetBobbi Dumas: Read-A-RomanceATFMBAndrew Liptak Contests The Kirkus Prize Recently Nominated GENERAL INFORMATIONRules & Selection Process2014 Judges2014 Awards CeremonyFAQPress Room2014 WINNERS & FINALISTSFictionNonfictionYoung Readers' Literature2015 NOMINEESFictionNonfictionYoung Readers' LiteratureABOUT THE KIRKUS PRIZEThe Kirkus Prize is one of the richest literary awards in the world, with a prize of $50,000 bestowed annually to authors of fiction, nonfiction and young readers’ literature. It was created to celebrate the 81 years of discerning, thoughtful criticism Kirkus Reviews has contributed to both the publishing industry and readers at large. Books that earned the Kirkus Star with publication dates between November 1, 2014, and October 31, 2015, are automatically nominated for the 2015 Kirkus Prize, and the winners will be selected on October 23, 2015, by an esteemed panel composed of nationally respected writers and highly regarded booksellers, librarians and Kirkus critics.Pro Connect This Week's AUTHOR TO WATCH ALBERT FLYNN DESILVER
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KIRKUS REVIEW

Zuckerman (Sociology and SecularStudies/Pitzer Coll.;?Faith No More: Why People Reject Religion,2011, etc.) seeks to sever the association of secularity with nothingness.

The author understandsthe human impulse for religious guidance and has experienced “the intangiblebenefit of such a communal act”?e.g., when a congregation gathered in a serenegesture of solace for a couple whose baby had just died. Zuckerman also doesn’tcome from a place of pure rationalism, though that has its place: “It’s simplya matter of a lack of evidence.” Living an ethical and generous life emergesfrom the creation of a framework out of experience, a comprehensible base fromwhich to find meaning, without any moral outsourcing, and paying attention toone of those little truisms (and one of Zuckerman’s go-to beacons), the golden rule,empathetic reciprocity. His writing is both sturdy and inviting as he explainsthe traits he has observed in secular America: “self-reliance, freedom ofthought, intellectual inquiry, cultivating autonomy in children, pursuingtruth...and still enjoying a sense of deep transcendence now and then amid theinexplicable, inscrutable profundity of being.” Look to your conscience, hewrites, which is both complicated and cultivated, without “a simple,observable, obvious origin.” It is a construct whose components are comprisedof experiences that meld the civil with the rational and meaningful. Throughoutthe book, the author chronicles his interviews with secular and nonsecularpeople, trying to ferret out the sources of their worldviews. He is a hungry interviewer,but he also steps back and scrutinizes his findings to demonstrate how “[w]hatit means to be secular?and the cardinal virtues of secular living?are…deeplyimportant matters to recognize and understand.”

As Zuckerman makes clear,without resorting to smugness, secularity is not nothing but rather a way ofliving that enhances moral virtues and promotes human decency.

Pub Date:?Dec. 4th, 2014ISBN:?978-1594205088Page count:?288ppPublisher:?Penguin PressReview Posted Online: Oct.?8th,?2014Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct.?15th,?2014



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