The Myopathy of Western Atheism

Not only should the more rational and therapeutic elements be distilled from the opi­ate of re­li­gion. But the wacky, su­per­sti­tious, cloud-cuck­oo-land forms of re­li­gion, too, should be cherished and preserved, for those forms of religion some­times do great good for our emo­tion­al lives, even when they com­pro­mise our more-rational lives. … An­i­mism is the Rod­ney Dan­ger­field of re­li­gions. But most of the world is made up of an­i­mists. The West is naïve when it imag­ines that the ma­jor op­tions are mono­the­istic. In ac­tu­al num­bers and geo­graph­ic spread, be­lief in na­ture spir­its trounces the One-Godders.