Religion & Mysticism (comparative & cross-cultural)

Backed by its technological achievements, modern science appears as the de facto source of truth to the majority of our contemporaries. Its sole reliance on reason and empirical data gives it an air of objectivity that has conferred upon it an almost unquestioning authority.

Enlightened Contemporaries is the first book to compare the lives and teachings of three of the world's most admired spiritual masters: Francis of Assisi, the Christian saint; Dogen, the great Zen Buddhist teacher; and Rumi, the Islamic Sufi master. They lived during the same turbulent century.

Why is religion still around in the twenty-first century? Why do so many still believe? And how do various traditions still shape the way people experience everything from sexuality to politics, whether they are religious or not? In Why Religion? Elaine Pagels looks to her own life to help address these questions.

In this timely and important book, one of the world's leading commentators on religious affairs examines the lost art of Scripture as a medium to lift humanity and change our perception of reality while evading logical explanation.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of God: A Biography, an erudite, hugely informative portrait of the God of Islam, the world's second largest, fastest-growing, and perhaps most tragically misunderstood religion.