ABSTRACT
Like the woman in Perelandra, we are led to question our own convictions in the presence of alternatives widely held by others. These similarities between the loss of spiritual center in religion and in ethics may provide clues about how to approach questions of religion in a new Axial Period. The opposite reaction to fundamentalist retrenchment in the face of pluralism and uncertainty is a humanist skepticism, or "secular humanism", that rejects religion altogether. The secular interpretation of aspiration looks backward to its origin in our evolutionary past. The mind-boggling choice confronts us once again: how we explain human aspirations for ultimate meaning and worth part of the choice to go with them or against them. The point is that there is an objective aspect to religion that cannot be ignored—a matter of the truth or validity of what is believed, which cannot be removed from religion without trivializing it. Rabbi Kushner emphasizes only one aspect.
