7

Becoming More Human

by Becoming More Godlike

The Conduct of Life in the Religion of the Future

Th e enhancement of life

Every religion grounds an orientation to existence in a comprehen-
sive view of who we are, of what we can become, and of our place
in the world. It does so even if the comprehensive view is one that
emphasizes the limits to our understanding of the world and of our
place within it. Th e meaning of any such inclusive account becomes
clear only through its implications for how we are to live. It is above
all by a judgment of its bearing on the conduct of life that we read
the  message of a religion. It can be no diff erent for a religion of the
future.
Th e earlier argument about the occasions and aims of religious revo-
lution has as its central thesis the claim that the higher religions, prod-
ucts of spiritual innovations achieved many centuries ago, provide an
inadequate basis for our decisions now about how to live and what to
do with our lives. A re orientation of existence, against the background
of a reconstruction of society, is the prophetic core of a change in our
religious beliefs.
Th e fi rst task is to describe the central idea of such a re orientation
today. Th e second task is to achieve clarity about the form that argu-
ments and proposals about the conduct of life in the religion of the fu-
ture should take.