Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious

Ross Douthat
Hardback, 288 pages
9780310367581

For searchers caught between doubt and belief and for believers struggling to reconcile faith with contemporary assumptions about science and progress, Believe by New York Times columnist Ross Douthat shows how religious faith makes better sense of reality than skepticism or disbelief.

Do you ever wish you had more faith, but struggle to make religious belief fit with modern assumptions about the world and human life? With a rare combination of empathy, open-mindedness, and persuasive argument, Ross Douthat offers a blueprint for thinking one's way from doubt to belief.

Douthat argues that in light of what we know today it should be harder to not have faith than to have it. With empathy, clarity, and rigour, Douthat explores:
- Why nonbelief requires ignoring what our reasoning faculties tell us about the world
- How modern scientific developments make a religious worldview more credible, not less
- Why it's entirely reasonable to believe in mystical and supernatural realities
- How an open-minded religious quest should proceed amid the diversity of religious faiths
- How Douthat's own Christianity is informed by his blueprint for belief

Highly relevant for our current moment, Believe offers a pathway for thinking your way from doubt into belief, from uncertainty about our place in the universe into a confidence that we are here for a reason.