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| Category: Religion |
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| About the Book | |
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Children of fervently religious parents find themselves steeped in the family faith long before they have the ability to assess it. Then, if and when they do question, they typically enter an arena where unbiased support is all but nonexistent; rather, like one’s family faith, the secular alternative is presented as being the truth of the matter and so is each competing religion that might be available for consideration. Furthermore, there is a conspicuous lack of nonpartisan memoirs from individuals who have struggled in this arena; instead, their stories are almost always presented as testimonials promoting the view finally adopted. And as such, each simply reinforces some voice or other calling for the termination of the inquiry in favor of its own position. From Faith to Doubt is intended to highlight another option for those who find themselves in this type of predicament. That is, it makes no attempt to settle the issue for the reader; rather, being itself the memoir of a near lifelong inquiry, it would invite expanded investigation and offer a counterweight against pressures to bring religious questioning to a premature closure. Accordingly, rather than conceding skepticism to be a moral or intellectual failure, From Faith to Doubt portrays it as being morally superior to, and intellectually more exhilarating than a view that would forbid questioning by its antecedent commitment to religious dogma. Likewise, a life of honest doubt is presented as the authentic alternative for serious thinkers who otherwise are pressed to choose between worldviews that appear equally credible…and equally incredible.
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| About the Author | |
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Wallace Murphree turned to philosophy in search of answers to questions that derailed his intention to become a Methodist minister. Now, after more than three decades as a professor of philosophy, he and his wife have retired to the rural Alabama county where they met in grade school. |