The age of doubt : tracing the roots of our religious uncertainty / Christopher Lane.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lane, Christopher, 1966-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Faith.

Theology, Doctrinal--England--History--19th century.

Theology, Doctrinal.

Faith--History of doctrines--19th century.

Belief and doubt.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (160 p.)

Place of Publication:

New Haven [Conn.] : Yale University Press, c2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The Victorian era was the first great "Age of Doubt" and a critical moment in the history of Western ideas. Leading nineteenth-century intellectuals battled the Church and struggled to absorb radical scientific discoveries that upended everything the Bible had taught them about the world. In The Age of Doubt, distinguished scholar Christopher Lane tells the fascinating story of a society under strain as virtually all aspects of life changed abruptly.In deft portraits of scientific, literary, and intellectual icons who challenged the prevailing religious orthodoxy, from Robert Chambers and Anne Brontë to Charles Darwin and Thomas H. Huxley, Lane demonstrates how they and other Victorians succeeded in turning doubt from a religious sin into an ethical necessity.The dramatic adjustment of Victorian society has echoes today as technology, science, and religion grapple with moral issues that seemed unimaginable even a decade ago. Yet the Victorians' crisis of faith generated a far more searching engagement with religious belief than the "new atheism" that has evolved today. More profoundly than any generation before them, the Victorians came to view doubt as inseparable from belief, thought, and debate, as well as a much-needed antidote to fanaticism and unbridled certainty. By contrast, a look at today's extremes-from the biblical literalists behind the Creation Museum to the dogmatic rigidity of Richard Dawkins's atheism-highlights our modern-day inability to embrace doubt.

Contents:

Introduction : putting faith in doubt

Miracles and skeptics

Stunned Victorians look backward and inward

Feeling doubt, then drinking it

Natural history sparks honest doubt

Uncertainty becomes a way of life

Faith-based certainty meets the gospel of doubt.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786613057877

9781283057875

1283057875

9780300168815

0300168810

OCLC:

711000208