Jean Pierre Dupuy prophet of what he calls enlightened doomsaying has long warned that modern society is on a path to self destruction In this book he pleads for a subversion of this crisis from within arguing that it is our lopsided view of religion and reason that has set us on this course In denial of our sacred origins and hubristically convinced of the powers of human reason we cease to know our own limits our disenchanted world leaves us defenseless against a headlong rush into the abyss of global warming nuclear holocaust and the other catastrophes that loom on our horizon Reviving the religious anthropology of Max Weber Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss and in dialogue with the work of Rene Girard Dupuy shows that we must remember the world s sacredness in order to keep human violence in check A metaphysical and theological detective he tracks the sacred in the very fields where human reason considers itself most free from everything it judges irrational science technology economics political and strategic thought In making such claims The Mark of the Sacred takes on religion bashers secularists and fundamentalists at once Written by one of the deepest and most versatile thinkers of our time it militates for a world where reason is no longer an enemy of faith