The Professor and the Engineer #

On a rainy Tuesday afternoon in early March, I found myself hunched over not one but two versions of James P. Carse’s philosophical masterpiece, The Religious Case Against Belief. The first—dog-eared and coffee-stained—was Carse’s original 2008 publication. The second—pristine and unauthorized—was a dramatically condensed edition that has been stirring controversy in religious and publishing circles alike.

The unauthorized second edition, prepared by software engineer and religious studies enthusiast Joshua Pritikin, has been described as both “literary vandalism” and “an act of spiritual generosity,” depending on whom you ask. Released without Penguin Random House’s permission, it reduces Carse’s dense philosophical prose by nearly half. Entire chapters have vanished. Technical passages have been recast in simpler language.

“I was awestruck when I discovered it,” Pritikin wrote in his editor’s note, describing his first encounter with Carse’s work. “In my view, this wasn’t merely an academic book about religion but a genuine religious text.”

That’s a bold claim about a university professor’s philosophical treatise. But spend enough time with Carse’s work, and you might begin to see his point.

Theological Thunderbolt #

James P. Carse, who died in 2020, was no ordinary religious studies professor.¹ During his three decades at New York University’s Religious Studies Program, he developed a reputation for intellectual originality and stylistic flair. His most famous work before The Religious Case Against Belief was 1986’s Finite and Infinite Games, a meditation on play and possibility that gradually developed a cult following.

The original version of The Religious Case Against Belief landed like a theological thunderbolt in 2008. Carse’s central argument was both subtle and revolutionary: religion and belief are not synonymous but often stand in opposition to each other. True religion, he proposed, is characterized by “higher ignorance”—a learned awareness of what we cannot know—while belief systems are rigid structures that claim certainty where none exists.

Carse illustrated his thesis with masterful historical portraits. Galileo facing the Inquisition. Martin Luther defying Emperor Charles V. Abraham Lincoln delivering his Second Inaugural Address. These weren’t merely historical illustrations but vibrant character studies exploring how individuals navigate the tensions between personal conviction and higher mystery.

The original book paired this historical storytelling with dense philosophical passages. Carse’s prose often reached Flesch-Kincaid reading levels above 15—meaning you’d need some graduate school education to comfortably process many paragraphs. Sentences frequently stretched beyond fifty words, packed with subordinate clauses and academic jargon.

Consider several sentences from the first edition:

The second form of ignorance is subtler and potentially far more dangerous. Call it willful ignorance. It is a paradoxical condition in which we are aware there is something we do not know, but choose not to know it. It is assuming an ignorance when there is no ignorance. I avoid asking what a friend truly thinks of me, though it is perfectly evident there are strong feelings involved. We are aware that our teenage children have a full world outside our own, but we deliberately shield ourselves from it.

That’s 90 dense words about willful ignorance. Beautiful? Yes. Accessible? Less so.

Artificial Intelligence #

Enter Joshua Pritikin, who decided Carse’s wisdom prompted wider circulation. Armed with large language models (LLMs) and his own editorial judgment, Pritikin undertook a radical simplification project.

The result is striking. The second edition replaces complex sentences with shorter, clearer alternatives. Abstract sections have been ruthlessly pruned. The book’s scholarly voice has been transformed into something more conversational.

Returning to the passage about willful ignorance, Pritikin’s version reads:

Willful ignorance happens when someone knows a truth but chooses to ignore it. We see this often in daily life. You might avoid asking a friend for honest feedback about yourself. Parents may ignore signs of their teen’s complex social life outside the home.

The change is subtle but significant. The same ideas are conveyed with about half the words.

Other passages receive more dramatic treatment. Pritikin entirely eliminated the chapters “Religion Beyond Belief” and “Coda,” judging them less essential to Carse’s core argument. Elsewhere, he condensed Carse’s labyrinthine paragraphs into bullet points and simplified complex theological concepts.

To many literary purists, including this initially skeptical reviewer, such alterations feel like desecration. Carse’s original complexity seemed integral to his project. His philosophical depth and careful nuance appeared inseparable from his linguistic style.

Literary Sacrilege? #

I arrived at Pritikin’s version predisposed to dislike it. There’s something unsettling about taking a deceased author’s carefully crafted text and rewriting it without permission. It smacks of presumption, perhaps even arrogance.

Moreover, complexity has its virtues. Difficult texts demand more from readers. They slow us down, force careful consideration, and resist easy consumption. In our age of TikTok tutorials and five-minute book summaries, shouldn’t we preserve spaces for intellectual challenge?

“A belief system that is presented in graceful, nonantagonistic language, also learned and reasonable, is Richard John Neuhaus’s Catholic Matters,” wrote Carse in the original. Pritikin reproduces this passage almost verbatim. But elsewhere, he transforms Carse’s elegant, complex observations into something more digestible—sometimes at the cost of nuance.

Yet as I compared the editions side by side, my initial resistance began to soften. What Pritikin sacrificed in linguistic beauty, he often gained in clarity. Carse’s central insights remain intact, but they become more accessible.

Consider Carse’s exploration of “higher ignorance,” perhaps his most original contribution. In the original, he wrote:

By stressing the matter of unknowability in belief in all its secular as well as religious forms, I want to make it clear that this is not an indirect way of penciling God back into the picture— as some would have it, such as saying that since the world is the way it is, there must be something or someone who made it that way. The unknowability stressed here remains unknowability. It is the very essence of higher ignorance.

Pritikin renders this as:

Throughout history, people have used mysteries in our world to argue that God exists.

This transformation reveals both the strength and weakness of Pritikin’s approach. He makes Carse’s dense philosophical statement instantly graspable by replacing academic terms with everyday words. A 79-word sentence becomes only 14 words. But this simplification strips away Carse’s careful positioning and intellectual nuance. The trade-off is clear: broader accessibility at the cost of philosophical depth.

The Unauthorized Editor #

Who is Joshua Pritikin, and what drove him to rewrite a deceased philosopher’s masterwork?

According to his sparse online presence, Pritikin has interests spanning computational statistics, religious studies, and Internal Family Systems. His GitHub profile reveals contributions to various open-source projects. He appears to be that increasingly common figure: a technically skilled professional with humanistic passions.

When I reached out to Pritikin for comment, he explained that he had contacted Penguin Random House on February 7, 2025, requesting permission to create a derivative work. Sherri Marmon denied his request.

“Though I cannot distribute this simplified version publicly, under the Fair Use exception, I can share it privately,” Pritikin told me. “I shared a draft conspicuously marked ‘Draft not for public release’ with my religious communities to invite feedback. I shared it with Sacred Garden Community via Signal chat and Church of the Sacred Synthesis via a members-only Discord.”

• Sacred Garden Community embraces a core principle that sets it apart from more dogmatic traditions. Their least dogma states: “We are open to the possibility that respectful practice with the Sacraments of our Church can bring about a direct experience of the Divine, within this lifetime.” This perspective aligns with Carse’s perspective that true religion transcends belief systems. It focuses instead on mystery and ongoing inquiry. Sacred Garden’s approach embodies this distinction—they invite direct experience rather than insisting on fixed doctrines. Like Carse’s vision of religion as an open, expanding conversation, Sacred Garden creates space for personal divine encounters without confining them to rigid interpretations.

• The Church of Sacred Synthesis, founded in 2022 (formerly known as the Church of Psilomethoxin), has sparked considerable controversy in both religious and scientific communities. The organization claims to use psilomethoxin as its sacrament, which they say is produced by feeding 5-MeO-DMT to psilocybin mushrooms. But prominent psychedelic researcher David E. Nichols has dismissed the church’s claims as “nonsensical and nonscientific.” The controversy escalated in April 2024 when the church filed defamation lawsuits against several critics.

Pritikin continued, “About a week later, I noticed that the 2nd edition was hosted on Ethswarm.² I have no idea who published the work.”

Ethswarm is a decentralized storage system—similar to BitTorrent but with stronger privacy protections. Once content enters such systems, it is impossible to remove.

Both Sacred Garden Community and Church of Sacred Synthesis represent emerging psychedelic religions. Their members navigate complex legal territories around Schedule I substances. These communities invoke religious freedom protections while structuring their practices to minimize legal exposure.

This familiarity with legal gray zones may help explain the unauthorized publication. Members accustomed to challenging boundaries between legal and illegal, sacred and profane, might view copyright differently than the general public. Their cultural ethos values direct experience over authority. This mindset could extend to information sharing, perhaps leading someone to upload Pritikin’s text despite clear warnings against public distribution.

Pritikin added, “My goal in sharing wasn’t only to invite feedback on the text. I also hoped to get feedback on the religious use legal theory. It was largely generated by an LLM. I’m not a lawyer. So I wasn’t sure how much credence to give it. Then, out of the blue, I felt blindsided by the rogue publication.”

A Religious Freedom Defense #

What makes this case particularly interesting is the legal theory Pritikin advances in the second edition’s front matter. In a detailed section titled “Legal Theory,” he argues that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) preempts copyright restrictions when applied to “the non-commercial distribution of religiously significant derivative works.”

The RFRA, passed in 1993, prevents the government from “substantially burdening a person’s exercise of religion” unless it demonstrates a “compelling governmental interest” achieved through the “least restrictive means.”

Pritikin’s argument runs as follows: Creating a more accessible version of a spiritually transformative text constitutes a religious exercise. Copyright enforcement against such activity represents a substantial burden on this exercise. While copyright protection serves important governmental interests, these interests focus primarily on economic incentives and commercial exploitation.

Since Pritikin’s derivative work is distributed without profit, provides proper attribution, and serves religious purposes by making spiritual content more accessible, he argues that the government’s interest in strict copyright enforcement is diminished. Furthermore, he contends that completely prohibiting such adaptations isn’t the “least restrictive means” required by RFRA, particularly when Penguin has shown no interest in creating accessible versions.

Legal experts have expressed skepticism about this argument’s viability in court.³

Whether or not the legal theory holds water, the second edition contains an intriguing argument about the nature of sacred texts in contemporary context.

“Traditional legal frameworks often distinguish between sacred texts, commentaries, and academic works about religion,” Pritikin wrote. “But this taxonomy fails to capture how religious revelation manifests in contemporary spiritual life.”

He goes on to argue that Carse’s book functions as genuinely sacred in nature—not merely academic analysis—and that making such texts accessible constitutes a religious duty comparable to translation efforts across religious history.

Textual Comparison #

How different are the two editions? Let’s examine a key passage where Carse discusses the formation of “communitas”—his term for the spontaneous gathering of people who identify themselves as members of a unified body.

In the original, Carse wrote:

Communitas cannot be created. It evolves spontaneously out of the desire of its participants to get to the bottom of the very mystery that brings them together. It matters little where that desire is directed—to the quest for the “real” Jesus, or the final interpretation of the Mosaic law, or the true dharma, or the correct reading of the Quran, or the perfect socialist society. Civitas can only be intentionally created from without. It is an artifact of monarchs, or philosophers, or elected parliaments, or revolutionaries. It can exist only within carefully devised boundaries. It functions most successfully when its belief system is both clear and broadly held. Communitas, because it is spontaneous, organizes from the bottom up, its structure accidental, its future open, its beliefs unformed.

Pritikin renders this as:

Civitas is a top-down, formal structure created by rulers or governments. Think of it like a carefully designed building with clear boundaries, rules, and leadership. Ancient Rome was a good example of civitas, with its emperors, laws, and defined territories. Civitas needs authority figures to protect it and guide its beliefs.

Communitas emerges when people come together around shared interests or beliefs. Unlike civitas, communitas is bottom-up; no one person creates or controls it. It’s more like a garden that grows on its own–taking different shapes as it develops.

The differences between the editions are striking yet purposeful. In the passage about communitas, Pritikin completely restructures Carse’s dense philosophical explanation. Where Carse wrote a complex paragraph contrasting communitas with civitas through abstract concepts, Pritikin creates two distinct paragraphs with clear topic sentences.

Pritikin defines civitas first, adding a concrete analogy: “Think of it like a carefully designed building.” He includes the specific example of Ancient Rome to ground the abstract concept. For communitas, he uses everyday language rather than academic terminology, explaining it through the accessible metaphor of “a garden that grows on its own–taking different shapes as it develops.”

The transformation shortens sentences dramatically. Carse’s original uses complex sentence structures with multiple clauses and philosophical terminology. Pritikin breaks these into direct statements with concrete imagery. He maintains the core distinction between top-down (civitas) and bottom-up (communitas) organization while making the concepts immediately graspable for a broader audience.

And consider this passage on the decline of religions:

First, thoughts about “longevity,” then “unified people.”

Longevity is, of course, a relative term. There is no obvious point at which it has been achieved. It is only a measure of the difference between the histories of separate human institutions. I have singled out the “great” religions because nothing equals their temporal range. There are, however, other traditions and institutions that have sustained themselves, in some cases, for centuries. The Roman Empire and ancient Egypt, for example, each had an enduring identity, one for seven hundred years, the other more than three thousand. The Norse, the Mongols, the Olmecs, the Navajos, and any number of so-called native cultures have all had long histories. We do not always refer to these as religions but their power of endurance deserves attention. Therefore, the term “longevity” cannot be used as a substitute for religion. I am not proposing it as the definition that has long defied scholars of religion. I am suggesting rather that we reserve the term religion for those institutions that have shown extraordinary powers of endurance.

Pritikin transforms this into:

For our working definition, longevity is the first criterion. This is far from a perfect criterion because it excludes many potential new religions such as the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (2005). But we need to draw the line somewhere. Empires, nations, and ethnic cultures typically last only centuries. Some religions, though, have endured for millennia. Hinduism and Judaism have existed for at least 4,000 years, Buddhism for 2,500, Christianity for about 2,000, and Islam for 1,400. All continue to thrive today.

…

Of course there are exceptions. The Roman Empire’s 700-year reign and ancient Egypt’s 3,000-year civilization aren’t typically considered religions. The same applies to indigenous cultures like the Norse, Mongols, Olmecs, and Navajo. Their rich histories span generations, and in some cases, beyond recorded history. To maintain focus, we will examine groups commonly accepted as religions. Traditional religions stand out for their long histories. Sikhism is a religion. Fascism is not. But what about newer movements like Mormonism, the Bahá’í Faith, and Scientology? We will not set a specific age threshold. The status of these groups as religions will become clearer with time.

The differences in this edit are substantial and revealing. Pritikin completely restructures Carse’s philosophical meandering into a more practical, organized explanation. Where Carse offers a cautious, academic exploration of longevity as a concept, Pritikin boldly states it as “the first criterion” for defining religion.

Pritikin adds concrete examples absent from the original. He mentions specific religions with their approximate ages: “Hinduism and Judaism have existed for at least 4,000 years.” He even references modern phenomena like “the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (2005)” to illustrate his point about excluding newer movements.

The edit removes Carse’s abstract ruminations and replaces them with direct statements. Carse’s “I am not proposing it as the definition that has long defied scholars of religion” becomes the more decisive “we need to draw the line somewhere.” Pritikin also expands the discussion to address contemporary questions about newer religious movements like Mormonism and Scientology.

Organizational changes are significant. Pritikin breaks the content into multiple paragraphs with clearer thematic divisions. His approach is more systematic, moving from established religions to exceptions and then to borderline cases, creating a logical progression absent in Carse’s more circular reasoning. The transformation prioritizes accessibility and practical understanding over philosophical nuance, exchanging Carse’s tentative academic posture for a more confident, instructional voice.

Such interventions may offend literary purists, but they unquestionably make Carse’s ideas more accessible to general readers.

Accessibility Question #

As I spent more time with both editions, a realization gradually dawned: the unauthorized version might actually serve Carse’s mission better than the original.

Consider Carse’s central claim. He argues that true religion isn’t about belief systems but about cultivating a sense of wonder and openness to mystery. It’s about recognizing the limits of what we can know rather than building rigid ideological structures.

The barrier of complex prose ironically limits access to these liberating ideas. If Carse’s insights are indeed spiritually valuable—as both he and Pritikin clearly believe—then shouldn’t they be available to those without graduate degrees in philosophy?

Pritikin makes this argument explicit in his exploratory legal defense:

The act of simplifying complex religious wisdom has deep roots in religious traditions. Luther translated the Bible into vernacular German. Modern efforts like The Chosen streaming TV series make religious teachings accessible. The author’s work continues this sacred tradition. He aims to make divine wisdom available to all, regardless of educational background.

Of course, translation differs from unauthorized revision. But the comparison raises provocative questions about how sacred knowledge might circulate in contemporary society. Word count statistics tell the accessibility story clearly. Overall, Pritikin cut the total from 62k words to 33k words—a 46% reduction.

The Professor’s Intentions #

What would James Carse think about this unauthorized edition?

In the acknowledgments to the first edition, Carse wrote that his colleague Tom Driver was “unrestrained in his critical review of the book’s intellectual content, and relentless in his repeated demands for greater clarity and accuracy. It was a high challenge I fear was not fully met.”

This suggests Carse himself recognized his work’s accessibility challenges. While we can’t know whether he would have approved Pritikin’s approach, his acknowledgment at least hints at awareness that the original could have been clearer.

Pritikin, for his part, believes Carse would have supported the project: “Would Carse have approved of my choices? We can never know, but I believe he would have supported the project.”

This claim initially struck me as self-serving. But reading Carse’s other works reveals a thinker deeply committed to breaking down barriers between people. His Finite and Infinite Games celebrates open-ended play rather than rigid structures—a philosophy that might embrace intellectual accessibility.

A Growing Appreciation #

As I alternated between editions over several weeks, my initial resistance to Pritikin’s version gradually dissolved.

Yes, something is lost in simplification. Carse’s original prose has a poetic density that rewards careful study. His complex sentences mirror the intricate philosophical terrain he navigates.

But something is gained too. Pritikin’s version preserves Carse’s core insights while making them available to readers who might bounce off the original’s demanding prose. It serves as an entry point, inviting more people into Carse’s intellectual world.

The situation reminds me of music adaptations. A pianist might perform Bach’s Goldberg Variations with absolute fidelity to the score, capturing every nuance of the composer’s intention. Another might arrange the piece for jazz ensemble, sacrificing strict adherence for broader appeal. Both approaches have value. Both can honor the original while serving different audiences.

Reading the unauthorized edition began to feel less like encountering a degraded copy and more like experiencing a thoughtful adaptation. Pritikin hasn’t dumbed down Carse; he’s clarified him, making his wisdom more accessible without sacrificing its essence.

The Legacy Question #

This unauthorized edition raises profound questions about intellectual property and religious freedom.

If we accept Pritikin’s premise that Carse’s book functions as a sacred text—at least for some readers—then his project exists within a long tradition of adapting such texts for broader accessibility. The history of religion is filled with translations, commentaries, and adaptations that made sacred wisdom available to new audiences.

Yet unlike traditional sacred texts, which often circulated before modern copyright regimes, Carse’s work remains under copyright protection. Penguin Random House holds rights to his intellectual property, and they explicitly denied permission for Pritikin’s adaptation.

The legal questions remain unresolved. But the ethical and spiritual questions deserve consideration.

If knowledge that helps people understand religion more clearly remains locked behind intellectual barriers—whether linguistic complexity or copyright restrictions—is something essential being lost? Does spiritual wisdom belong to anyone, or should it circulate freely?

These questions have no easy answers. But they point to tensions in how we treat knowledge in our society—tensions between intellectual property and intellectual freedom, between the rights of creators and the needs of communities.

A Practical Compromise #

As this controversy winds its way through legal and ethical discourse, a practical middle path seems possible.

Penguin Random House could commission an authorized simplified edition of Carse’s work—perhaps even employing Pritikin as editor. This would preserve their intellectual property rights while making Carse’s insights more widely available.

Such a compromise would honor both the letter of copyright law and the spirit of Carse’s project. It would acknowledge both the publisher’s rights and the community’s needs.

Until then, Carse’s work exists in two forms: the authorized original with its rich complexity, and the unauthorized adaptation with its accessible clarity. Each serves different purposes. Each reaches different audiences.

The Verdict #

After weeks spent between these two versions, I’ve come to an unexpected conclusion: both editions have merit. The original remains essential for serious scholars and those who appreciate philosophical density. The simplified version serves as a gateway for general readers seeking spiritual insight without academic prerequisites.

Were I forced to choose just one, however, I’d reluctantly surrender my dog-eared first edition for Pritikin’s streamlined second. Not because it’s better in every way—it isn’t—but because it better fulfills Carse’s mission of making higher ignorance accessible to those struggling under the weight of rigid belief systems.

In a world increasingly divided by ideological certainties, Carse’s message about the value of wonder and openness grows more urgent. If simplified language helps that message reach more people, the tradeoff seems worthwhile.

Perhaps the highest compliment I can pay Pritikin’s adaptation is this: after reading it, I returned to Carse’s original with renewed appreciation for its depth and subtlety. The simplified version didn’t replace the original; it created a new path into it.

In the end, that may be what matters most—not which edition is definitive, but how many people encounter Carse’s liberating ideas about religion beyond belief. In our age of hardening certainties, we need his wisdom more than ever.

Notes #