Experiments in Mystical Atheism

Brook Ziporyn is the Mircea Eliade Professor of Chinese Religion, Philosophy, and Comparative Thought in the Divinity School at the University of Chicago. He is the author and translator of many books, most recently Daodejing.

• PrefaceIntroductionThe Weird IdeaGod as Default?Preaching to the ChoirLet’s Assume a Brain Tumor: Futile Attacks on Monotheistic FaithAtheism Postmonotheist and Nonmonotheist: Against and after NancyReligious Innovation as Backfiring DetheologyAtheism as UberpietyPart I: The Sleeping IslandChapter 1: Purposivity and ConsciousnessNoûs as Arché: Seemed Like a Good Idea at the TimeDesign versus Infinity: Two Rival Explanations for the Intricacy of ExistenceIntelligible Good/s versus Infinite W/hole/s in Plato’s SymposiumThe Hypertrophy of Purposive Consciousness: Animism Gone WildChapter 2: Purposivity and DichotomyThe Purpose-Driven Life? No Thanks!The Great Asymmetry: Purpose Obstructs Purposelessness, but Purposelessness Enables PurposesThe Great Asymmetry Redux, Mutatis Mutandis: Chaos as Enabler and Encompasser of OrderDaodejing: The Discovery of the Opposite of GodThe Moral Hazard of Moral IdealsChapter 3: Purposivity and PersonhoodWhat Is a “Person”? Control versus Necessity and the Dichotomization of Oneness and DifferenceRethinking Personhood as NonultimateLove contra the Ultimacy of PersonhoodGod beyond Personhood? No, Not ReallyChapter 4: Purposivity and FinitudeTool, Control, Purpose, Thinghood: Bataille on God as Failed ReligionSchopenhauer on the Suspension of the Principle of Sufficient Reason: How the Halfway Measure of “God” Obstructs the Absolute (or, Three out of Four Ain’t Bad)Toward the Synonymity of Conditionality and Unconditionality: Two Alternate Models of Omnipresence, Theistic and AtheisticRecap and GameplanPart II: Varieties of Atheist BeatitudeChapter 5: Spinoza, or Intoxicating SobrietyThe Theological Proof of God’s NonexistenceSpinoza in Twelve StepsThe Nonthing, the Only Thing, Everywhere, EternallyTruth as Adequacy as MoretoitivityThe Big Rethink: Body, Mind, Cause, and PurposeNot Merely Parts of the Whole: How the Temporary Finite Mode I Am Is Also Eternal and InfiniteFinitude as the Intersection of Two InfinitiesBeatific Vision, Spinoza StyleSpinoza and Schopenhauer on the Universal Will as Unreason, Reason, and BothChapter 6: Nietzsche, or the Divinely Vicious CircleWhy Nietzsche Thought So Highly of This Wacko IdeaProof in the PuddingThe Same Life Again Makes No Difference If Truly the SameThe Absolute Affirmation of Anything Is the Affirmation of Absolutely EverythingChapter 7: Bataille, or Fuckin’ ChaosGodlessness as Liberation from Both Spirit and Matter and Several Versions of What RemainsBeyond Will to Power as Will to Control: Squandering through the Gordian Knot of PurposeThe Practice of Joy before DeathConclusion: Meaningfulness Revisited: Styles of Suffering, Sublimity, and Beatific Vision, Theistic and AtheisticAcknowledgmentsAppendixesNotesBibliographyIndex

“Experiments in Mystical Atheism is a brilliant and challenging meditation on and critique of monotheism. In it, Ziporyn demonstrates how those of us without the ‘God gene’ need not suffer a lack of spiritual depth or meaning. This book is an impressive example of how Chinese dialogue with Western thought can contribute to a mature religious worldview.”