FROM THE MANUSCRIPT
In the author’s words
None begins with a neutral study of ultimate reality. Each begins with a world already arranged around them. The sacred has an address before it becomes an argument. That is the problem. Religion does not distribute itself randomly across the earth. It gathers in patterns. It clusters through families, languages, regions, empires, migrations, trade routes, wars, missionary movements, colonial histories, schools, marriages, laws, and the memory of the dead. One land inherits churches. Another inherits mosques. Another inherits temples. Another inherits monasteries. Another inherits secular confidence so deep it no longer recognizes itself as inheritance. Belief has borders. Not always fixed borders, not borders that cannot be crossed, but borders nonetheless. A child born in rural Alabama is more likely to inherit Christianity than Hinduism. A child born in Saudi Arabia is more likely to inherit Islam than Buddhism. A child born in India enters a religious landscape shaped by Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Jain, Buddhist, and secular histories depending on family, region, caste, community, and class. A child born in Poland may inherit Catholic memory even if personal belief later fades. A child born in Sweden may inherit secular assumptions with the same quiet confidence that earlier generations inherited churchgoing. The child does not choose the map. The map receives the child. This does not prove religion false. That conclusion would move too quickly. It does not prove God is imaginary, nor that
Faith Without Illusion, manuscript p. 143. Transcribed from the supplied manuscript; line breaks normalized.
The definition above is an editorial summary of this chapter, not a separately named theory or a claim of scientific proof.