Author Description

This book describes a new development in modern philosophy, one focused on how political, legal, and personal decision-making is moving away from the rigid, discredited structures of the past, and into a more open-ended future. Despite the title, this is not meant as an anti-religion book. My hope, in fact, is that the content will be of roughly equal value to both believers and non. Rather, this is primarily an attempt to orient an emerging form of democratic governance within the larger modern philosophical tradition. In recent centuries, we had governments with religious foundations, followed by systems of government aligned with ideologies like capitalism, communism, and national myths. Post-atheism is a new governing philosophy that takes us beyond such systems. Through the work of Engage Nova Scotia, I have come to be familiar with how places like New Zealand, Scotland, Iceland, and scattered sub-states are (at least claiming to be) governing based on broad human wellness and open-ended quality of life measures, rather than the traditional economic metrics. I see these attempts at wellness governing as representative of a new philosophical development. Democratic governance is adapting and deepening in places that are adopting wellness/quality-of-life budgeting approaches, with citizen-driven data as the guiding force behind government policy, regardless of its adherence to any ideology. Rather than the citizens adapting to a system, the system adapts to the citizens. With increasing quantums of data and data analysis capabilities, and in systems of governance that are designed to allow a thriving citizenry, this deeper form of democratic governance is well suited to gain prominence. We have just been through a major world crisis. Like with a personal crisis, this is a good time to be re-evaluating our choices, and as good a time as ever to break out of the natural inertia in our individual and collective lives. Post atheism is also