A must read! Sadly politicians and the current administration has managed to divide this country on too many levels. We have become a nation deeply divided. Too much anger of the other. Karen Armstrong gives us much needed insight to these three religions. Bernadette

I still can't decide if it's good or not. That's that problem with being kinda dumb.

What if there was only one God? And what if the endlessly variegated religions of the world merely reflect rival visions of that same God? What if the innumerable conceptions humans hold to be true are representative of the immense gulf which exists between our inevitably finite mental faculties and the full, ineffable reality of God?

Such is the case advanced by comparative religion scholar Karen Armstrong in her 1993 manifesto. Here she takes us on a sweeping tour of the Abrahamic religions, that triumvirate of faiths which has irretrievably shaped Western culture into the modern era. Any account of such a dense and nuanced topic as this is destined to be compendiary, but Armstrong's formula is effective. She introduces us to the vast history of the Judeo-Christian tradition, both laying the cultural context for its emergence and proliferation and mapping the evolution of religious thought within each of the interconnected traditions. While sufficient space is allocated to geographical backdrop, her work is clearly tilted toward the latter.

Over the years, man and in particular the ruling class has co-opted religion as a pathway to power. This much is clear. However, it is also the case that many others have undertaken religion in an honest attempt at discovering who and what God is. It is this genuine engagement with which Armstrong takes a special interest, veining the coterminous transitions from animism to paganism and later paganism to monotheism, tracing the trajectory of these human ideas. Armstrong latently contends that while religious faith has historically been among the most divisive, rather than unifying, of human projections, it need not be this way.

The one word she uses most to describe this being is ‘ineffable.’ That is, the nature or essence of God is something which lies beyond the reach of human intellect and apprehension. She claims the concept of God is too abstruse to be confined to mere human abstractions. Alas, many religions attempt to do just that by codifying their own unique but inescapably humanized conceptions of an external reality. Organized religion is, in embryo, the declaration of claims (and the reciprocal gainsaying of competing claims) that could not possibly be substantiated.

These anthropomorphic notions are relatively harmless when they are solely a matter of personal belief. The problem arises when those conceptions are elevated to dogma and adherents of other faiths or non-faiths are rebuked for doubting, asking questions or otherwise dissenting from those beliefs, and when our internal religion bleeds into the sociopolitical sphere. Attempts to fuse religious iconography with American or national iconography have historically been a toxic mix. It is this tension that may forever persist between those who value skepticism and those who think faith is its cure.

Some poignant selections:

"Reason is not an appropriate tool for exploring the inscrutable God."

“The Trinity, therefore, should not be seen as a literal fact but as a paradigm that corresponds to real facts in the hidden life of God.”

The Tendencies of Religions

A facebook conversation:

Started with this post, with the following Ambedkar quote:

"The Hindus criticise the Mahomedans for having spread their religion by the use of the sword. They also ridicule Christianity on the score of the Inquisition.

But really speaking, who is better and more worthy of our respect—the Mahomedans and Christians who attempted to thrust down the throats of unwilling persons what they regarded as necessary for their salvation, or the Hindu who would not spread the light, who would endeavour to keep others in darkness, who would not consent to share his intellectual and social inheritance with those who are ready and willing to make it a part of their own make-up?

I have no hesitation in saying that if the Mahomedan has been cruel, the Hindu has been mean; and meanness is worse than cruelty."

Response (Professor X):What is worse?
A. Use force to make others join your faith
B. Use force to keep out of those who want to join your faith

Me: an additional dimension is there: you keep them out and then you discriminate and degrade based on religion.

Professor X: I wanted to strip the discussion of dalit angle, but, YES, this has got me thinking.

Me: ah. okay. wouldn't majority of early religions (tribal) been exclusivist? missionary religions were probably an innovation. which is the more natural tendency? need to study more :)

Professor X: No. This man has hit the nail on the head. Hinduism is the only one that opted to have exclusion as a theme and that, I suspect, because there was no occupation effort.

The same religion in south east asia saw the need to absorb locals in :)

Me: Ambedkar claims elsewhere that early Hinduism was an evangelizing religion and that once caste and varna systems were hardened, it had to stop being one.

if a religion obsessed with purity starts absorbing, it will also try to exclude at the same time. this will have to give rise to a varna and then even a caste system as more and more walls are erected for more and more minute exclusions. eventually the evangelizing had to stop and thus occupation. that is the chain of causation i glean from reading ambedkar, not the other ay round. what say?

now, if i assume that tribal religions are exclusivist and accept this line of reasoning, it would seem to imply that religions once they pass a critical mass, will become missionary in nature (religion and politics going together). however if they do not reinvent themselves to lose completely their exclusivist tendencies (as happened with islam etc), then they will eventually reach another critical mass when they harden and cant expand anymore. with that both religious evangelism and political expansion will end. [simplistic, i know. but seems to make some sense to me...]

Me: btw, Hinduism is not the only such religion. there are other religions too that are exclusivist. a good example to prop up my case would be Judaism, a more or less tribal religion which probably never reached the first critical mass point. Judaism discourages missionary activities and maintains an exclusivist doctrine, again based on purity of the chosen people.

we could say that Judaism once it came close to the first critical mass reinvented itself as Christianity - an evangelist religion but with no exclusivist tendencies - and hence it didnt have to hit the second point. could spread and spread :) islam too - another variation of the same theme.

Does this seem like a useful line of enquiry? Are there any books that explore the tendencies of religions? Would love to read a few.

The most important thing I learned from this book is that the notion of God changes throughout history due to philosophical or, most of the time, political reasons. The God that I, alongside other atheists, rejected is only the God of literal interpretation of the Bible. And this God is not the only "God" worshipped by monotheists.

The book contains tons and tons of valuable information and introduced me different perspectives of how religions appeared and observed reformation as well as a history of human in relation to religions. Not an easy book to read but a book worth reading.

Men always believed in god – some god, be it a force of nature, one among a pantheon, a personal one or a universal one. It helped mankind find solace among the manifest evil of their day to day lives. They thought him to be an arbiter of human affairs providing justice and fairness in all transactions. Many attributes were added to him in due course, like omnipotence and omniscience. This obviously created practical difficulties. How can an omnipotent god allow evil to thrive in the midst of his followers? Citing a case from recent memory, many Jews thought that god was dead in the gas chambers and torture rooms of Auschwitz. Philosophers stepped in to provide a way out of the paradox by traditionally assigning transcendence to god and making him detached from this world. Armstrong traces the story of the birth and development of the concept of divinity from ancient Sumer to the end of the last century. The book is very relevant to our society which is racked with suicide bombers encouraged to waste their own as well as of a good many innocent ones, by the misguided conception of a god. The author opines that in order to face the spiritual challenges of a new century, we need to have a look at the history of god and hence the relevance of this book. Coming from an author who had been a nun once, this book is written with the sharpness one would associate with a person of the priestly class. Though she has lost faith in god, the book is written in an objective way – never once allowing the author’s personal faith stand in the way of narration.

An excellent coverage of the origin of the concept of divinity in the middle-eastern region is presented. Earliest civilizations came up with a belief system that was thankful to the godhead for creating order by dispelling chaos. Sumerian origin myths appearing in the litany of Enuma Elish speak about a featureless watery realm existing in the beginning, on to which life forms and geographical features were created by god. Armstrong argues that this is a distant memory of the swampy land of the ancestors of the Sumerian people. Their brave act of creating a civilization from the primal disorder is projected on to a god who is credited with creation of the world. Paganism ruled the world in that distant era. They surmised a bewildering multiplicity of gods who were worshiped in the form of idols, poles, trees or mountains and others. Contrary to popular belief that the pagans considered the idols to be gods, the author asserts that it was a monotheist conceit to accuse their rivals of worshiping material objects. The devotee offers his prayers to the divinity who is ‘represented’ in the idol and not the material itself. Ask any practicing Hindu even now, and he will cheerfully declare that he is only worshiping an aspect of the god which transcends the material world. Similarly, paganism is inherently tolerant as there is always room for another god. Then comes the contrast with monotheism, as represented by its oldest representative, Judaism. The world first glimpsed a vengeful god full of jealousy against other gods and his prophets steeped in intolerance and violent usurpation of other religions. We read about Yahweh asking his followers to attack pagans and to ‘tear down their altars, smash their standing stones, cut down their sacred poles and set fire to their idols’ (Exodus 34:13). The modern world is still reeling under the harmful effects of strict monotheism in the form of terrorism. But the author, writing before the onset of suicidal jihad, does not make this logical conclusion, which is apparent now. Armstrong also notes that the status of women went down as monotheistic religions having a male divinity gained ground. Gone were the days when pagan gods and goddesses shared their fortunes with their followers.

The book gives an enlightening discussion on the development of the concept and nature of divinity ascribed on Jesus in the first four centuries of the Common Era. He is described as a man without the trappings of being a god in the gospel according to Mark, which was the oldest. It is curious to note that as the further gospels came along, more miracles and deification had taken place on the person of the revolutionary carpenter of Galilee. Early Christian fathers found it difficult to sell the Jewish god to gentiles from across the Roman world. St. Paul took Christianity out of the confines of Judaism as a replacement to pagan beliefs of Rome. Clement of Alexandria and Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, adapted the Jewish god to Roman sensibilities by cloaking him with Greek philosophy. Concepts of trinity and divinity of Jesus seemed to contradict the fundamental precept of monotheism. In response to theological counter-arguments, Church developed its dogma. The first clash of belief systems occurred in 325 CE at the First Council of Nicaea, when the heresy of Arrius was soundly defeated by Athanasius. With the conversion of Emperor Constantine, Christianity became the official religion. The philosophy of god in the religion was further enriched by Augustine, and after the end of the first four centuries, it had solidified beyond revision or redemption.

When it comes to Islam, we see the author shedding all traces of disinterested skepticism and approving its tenets wholeheartedly, at face value. The uncritical acceptance of Islamic ideas is in marked contrast to the attitude shown towards Judaic and Christian precepts. We see verbatim reproductions about the beauty of structure and poetic nature of the Arabic language expressed in the Koran, as seen in propaganda literature handed out by Islamic proselytes. She even goes to the extreme as saying that “Muhammad preached an ethic we might call socialist” (p.167). In a bid to stress on the universal acceptance of religious truth by Islam, Armstrong argues that if Muhammad had known about Hinduism and Buddhism, he’d have included their religious sages as prophets (p.178). This is far from convincing and may even be shown to be entirely false. Seventh-century Arabia had a flourishing trade with India, and Mecca was a prominent trading post in Hijaz. Even if he was not aware of these Indian religions, the Koran is not Muhammad’s word – it is the word of god revealed through the Prophet. Surely, god knew about the existence of these religions? Another outrageous suggestion is that the Koran grants women equal status! This is thrust into our throats with a pinch of salt in the assertion that veiling of women was a Persian custom adopted by their Muslim conquerors. Nobody was said to be forced into accepting Islam, but its rapid spread to North Africa is offhandedly explained away as the result of Arab imperialism. Why this hypocrisy is hard to imagine.

If the readers had any doubts about what is in religion in addition to an all-pervading god, an exhaustive discussion on what happened in philosophical discourses that run from dark ages to the present is given. Most of the readers would find this tedious and boring. This is definitely not due to any incompetence or lack of preparation on the part of the author. On the contrary, every effort has been made to condense the arguments in a few paragraphs and in lucid style. Salient points of the systems proposed by a lot of philosophers over the centuries are neatly catalogued. But lengthy narratives on god, transcendence and spirit are bound to elicit a yawn from most of us lay men. The failasufs (practitioners of Falsafah, from which the word philosophy came into vogue) made deep study on every aspect of Islam’s seemingly straightforward monotheism. Muid ad-Din ibn al-Arabi, a Spanish mystic in the Umayyad period, is noted for the tolerance advocated in his works. Sufism also tried to make Islam mellow. The physical success made possible by its armies made Islam accommodative and poised to conquer Europe when the axe fell in the form of Renaissance. The Reformation and Enlightenment that followed it, made Europe at the forefront of material development. Discovery and conquest of the New World made it vigorous. Islam suddenly found itself on the back foot. It succumbed to fundamentalist doctrines like Wahhabism propounded by Mohammed ibn al-Wahhab in Saudi Arabia. Exactly at this point, Europe turned to reason and secularism. Whereas the word ‘atheist’ was used disparagingly as a nasty slur even till the Middle Ages, it acquired the overtones of a badge of honour. It is curious to compare atheists of today with Christians and Jews who were called atheists by pagan Romans.

The book’s extensive coverage is limited to the Semitic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Some traces of Buddhist philosophy is included, which is more of a comparative nature. It gives undue significance to medieval practices like mysticism by giving it a good press in assertions like “even though there are obvious differences between medieval mysticism and modern psychiatric therapy, both disciplines have evolved similar techniques to achieve healing and personal integration” (p.290). The book is adorned with an extensive index and a thorough bibliography.

The book is recommended only to serious readers.

If I could give a book six stars, I would give them to this book. I feel like I learned something new on nearly every page.

This book is truly a history book on a grand scale. It reminds me of the type of history Will Durrant wrote, where he would take a period of time and write extensively about all the facets of history within that time. Armstrong, on the other hand, takes just one facet of history and writes extensively about it over a long (4000 year) period of time. Reading it has allowed me to see patterns and connections in history that I never considered before. I know I will continue to think upon what she said and use it as I try to make sense of the world.


And, to make it even better, I learned recently that Karen Armstrong was a winner of the 2008 TED prize. I highly recommend her talk where she makes her wish. (I highly recommend all the TED prize winners' talks!)

I hated this book’s writing style and format. It’s written in 1994 and goes through 4000 years of history. The problem is that the author is really just retelling this history. In today’s day and age of tough editors and sound bits, you wouldn’t be allowed to do that. You’d have to have … like a point.

In so much of the book, it’s a series of names and stuff they did. But there is just no why to latch on to in any sort of meaningful way. That makes it utterly hard to last through the nearly 400 pages of it without wanting to drift off. And this is a travesty, because at various point she does say stuff that’s pretty insightful. For example, I love the section where she talks about how the way that religion was in the Greek times, the idea of the logus and the way in which Theory has transformed as a word into the English language vs. what it was during Roman times. Very fascinating. The transformations that then came to pass when Atheisim took hold, very cool. But my goodness if she could have actually structured around WHY vs. What, she would have had a better book.

The book does go through the 4000 years of history. It presents mostly the mono-god faiths dividing the world into various periods. I would say that in each section there is slightly a bit more than you would have gotten in your AP Euro History and college level religion classes. Slightly. For example, I like the section on Thomas Aquainas and the translations to Latin from the Arabic world. I had not before heard the anecdotal about how he felt utterly outsmarted after hearing what Aristotle had written.

I enjoyed the sections where he goes through and talks about the transformations that came to pass in philosophy and how over time that transformed as the thinking of the periods changed. Really makes you think about how science and societal advancement have an effect on things.

The thing with this book is that it’s not the history of God. It’s the history of Judio-Christianity as relates to other stuff going on around it, some of which is religion. I mean, a true history of god would have to say a whole lot more about the other religions. But even what is said about Islam is from – IMO the point of view of a Christian. In that regard, I just don’t quite feel this book. I mean, I get that the subtitle has the first two and islam is last. Buddhism is completely ignored. But I think it loses something in it's "why" and analysis as a result. Just saying.

So for writing style and for this bias, I’m a 3. That said, quite frankly, the sheer raw amount of work this likely took to write, means that if you are researching this subject, you probably should read this one. Just get a really good cup of coffee before you get into it as you will need to slug through a pretty painful writing style.

This book is an amazingly detailed history by one of the major religious scholars of our century. But it's not the final chapter for Armstrong and I was really captivated by her change in view in her subsequent book, The Case for God. I recommend starting with this one, but definitely follow it with (the unfortunately very long) The Case for God.

There is a sense of lightness to Armstrong’s exploration of the concept of god which contrasts with the heaviness of the topic. In many ways this is reflective of Armstrong’s humanistic stance towards religion; Armstrong constantly upends the arguments of the literalists who dogmatically impose their interpretation of scripture on others, instead she promotes the idea that religion is fundamentally an internalization of our spiritualization, which we experience in our own individual ways and on in which scripture guides, but does not define, our beliefs.

Armstrong mainly explores religion via the lens of the three great Abrahamic faiths-Judaism, Christianity and Islam-and so starts with the incipient flowering of religious thought in the Middle East and Northern Africa, where various paganistic beliefs ended up flowering in monotheist faiths which ended up dominating the world. Armstrong emphasises how all three religions had several things in commo: the beneficence of historical good fortune as they all took advantage of wider cultural upheavals to grow, a strong sense of social justice and compassion for people, especially the poor and a degree of flexibility and adaptation which enabled them to absorb the practices, values and beliefs of dominant religious practices of the time. The key thing they all had in common however is their desire to question and change the status quo, a trait which evaporated as they became the status quo. Armstrong also explores the tension between rationality and spirituality, between the expectation that people have faith and believe in a good which they cannot prove exists and to define their lives on what is a cosmic shot in the dark. Armstrong also demonstrates the somewhat paradoxical link between the rise in rationalism with the increase in intolerance and scriptures were increasingly seen as a set of literal rules and how the seeds of the enlightenment grew from this narrow minded literalism.

‘A History of God’ is a brilliant exploration of monotheism and god, of the essentiality of god in allowing us to resolve fundamental questions about our sense of humanity and mortality.

Advertisements

Without a doubt, one of the most exhausting books I've ever read. I could, rarely, read more than 12-15 pages at a time. There was such a deep richness of thought that my brain could not help but 'shut down' its reading mode after those dozen or so pages as if it knew it needed time - time to process & internalize Armstrong's work. Over & over, prompted by the text, I would recite in my mind the opening lines to Alexander Pope's "Essay on Man":
"Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
The proper study of mankind is Man."
From the back of the book:
" How have the three dominant monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity & Islam - shaped & altered the conception of God?"
Inspired by this question, Armstrong begins at the beginning and braids these three belief cultures through history to the late 20th Century.
Throughout recorded time, humankind has searched for something, anything, that would 'explain the mystery & tragedy of life' (from this book) which echoes the last 2 lines of John Milton's 26 line invocation that drives the 10, 000 line poem, "Paradise Lost":
"I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to man."
In other words, "Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?" (The title of a book by a rabbi that has sold zillions of copies - along side a zillion more books that begin with "Chicken Soup for the (fill in any age/type of person/people here)
The darkness of all plagues: the Holocaust, Hiroshima, the death of a child, oppression & the violence that gives it life, the sum of 'man's inhumanity to man' - are not ignored - on the contrary - this book lays the foundation of a common denominator.
Compassion and justice are noted through all 3 religions - through all time - to be the Way for God to Be here.
Christian Fundamentalism and 'extremes' of any faith used in political and social terrorism are - appropriately - denounced.
I know this book has changed the internal me for the better. Time will tell if it will improve the external me in the world. I am filled with joy & hope at that prospect!

Ótimo livro sobre os monoteísmos. É voltado para o público em geral e, portanto, fácil de ler (apesar das 600 páginas), mas é também muito rico em detalhes e referências. Tem ainda um ótimo glossário e uma boa lista de livros para aprofundamento. É verdade que a ex-freira católica Karen Armstrong é muito mais crítica ao cristianismo ocidental do que, digamos, ao islamismo. Por outro lado, me parece certeira a análise dela a respeito de como o ocidente "racionalizou" e transformou Deus num ser, pesssoal e antropomórfico, dando ensejo tanto à "morte de Deus" quanto aos fundamentalismos contemporâneos. Acho que é um livro especialmente rico para nós, agnósticos mais ou menos místicos, que não nos encaixamos nem nas grandes religiões organizadas, nem num ateísmo militante e raivoso.