While modern science and technology has aided humanity’s search for answers to the nature and society problems, modern science nor technology can not answer the religion problem.

But the traditional emphasis upon religion has been omitted in modernity and post modernity.

Smith believes that modernity and post modernity have strengths: modernity provides a new view of science while post modernity emphasizes social justice. He argues that modernity addresses the initial problems of nature and society but can not address the religion issue. And finally, how to relate to the total scheme of things, which Smith calls the religious problem. How to get along with one another or the social problem. Smith discusses what he calls three inescapable problems: how to win food and shelter from our natural environment or the problem that nature poses. But Smith believes that science is incapable of answering life’s most perplexing questions of “How did we get here?” and “What is our purpose for being here?” Smith writes that science cannot answer the question of why individuals were created nor can science fill the void within a person’s life regarding life’s purpose. He argues that science has become the world view of many. Smith maintains that modernity has created within many individuals a tunnel vision that has destroyed their ability to see the “big picture” of life. Including Why Religion Matters, the now-retired Smith has written over ten books. Among Smith’s impressive credentials include teaching positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley. Later he spent many years studying with spiritual masters in Hinduism and Buddhism. Smith, raised by missionary parents in China, took an early interest in Confucianism and Taoism. While Smith is a Christian and a member of the Methodist church, as one reads The World’s Religions one realizes that Smith, intellectually, is equally at home in Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism. Since 1958 Smith’s The World’s Religions book has been an invaluable resource. Houston Smith is internationally recognized as the world’s foremost authority on world religions. Kelvin Moore, Th.D., Associate Professor of Christian Studies Published: 2001, Harper Collins Publishers, ISBN: 0060671025īy R. Vocatio Center for Life Calling and Career.Office of Student Leadership & Engagement.

Why religion matters by huston smith