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aaronshepperd's review against another edition
Very interesting, very long, mostly just interested in the Christianity chapters
raclausing's review against another edition
5.0
This was a wonderful account. I definitely learned a lot about religion, which I needed. This book was informative, hilarious, ridiculous, and thoughtful. I loved it. I mostly loved how crazy Christianity actually is. I think that all religions are ridiculous, but even if religion isn't hilarious, Christianity still is. Christianity is blasphemous to the name of monotheism and has always had the most radical ideas. I was laughing out loud for a lot of this book.
inquisitiveterrestrian's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
3.5
An old quip goes “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.” Armstrong does repeat herself, and with little of the poetic value. The chapters are a labyrinth to get through, and you flip back and forth between pages so much that the volume could double as a “choose your own adventure” book if you played your cards right with annotations. Still, after hours per chapter, I was left with tremendous insight into the history and developments of Abrahamic religions. I’d definitely read it again, but take notes from the start and write at the top of each few pages what Armstrong is talking about.
mcwv's review against another edition
3.0
Very dense, so took me a looonnng time to finish. Thought-provoking throughout, and that's tough to do, given how much I've read on the world religions.
dialhforhgai's review against another edition
5.0
Human beings cannot endure emptiness and desolation; they will fill the vacuum by creating a new focus of meaning.
marcymurli's review against another edition
2.0
The first few chapters were quite interesting and I certainly learned a lot from this book. However, once she gets deep into philosophy, most of which centers on Christian philosophy, the book dragged. It became much less about the history and far more about the idea of god, something that I was not as interest in reading. Plus she seems to have elided pretty important details in the history of monotheism: 1) she barely mentions Zorastrianism, the first monotheism; 2) she does not speak at all about Jewish conversion, which is what really led to the number of Jews around the world; 3) she has almost nothing to say about the forced conversions of all the major three monotheisms she discusses around the world and makes it seem as if it was all rather benign. Her sense of Islam and Christianity is deeply misguided, for example, as there were quite brutal forced conversions here. Also, while she does talk about the Palestinian nakba created by Zionism, she dates its inception to 1920--something that certainly could be considered accurate given how far back Zionist colonialism of Palestine dates. However, that doesn't seem to be what she's doing. She seems to be confusing the Sykes-Picot agreement with the nakba and gets her dates wrong. Finally, she practically salivates over two unsavoury characters, neither of whom seem to me to have much to do with the history of a monotheistic god: David Ben-Gurion (architect of the nakba, although she fails to mention this) and Elie Wiesel. If she had done that earlier in the book, I would not have made the effort to finish it.
hirvimaki's review against another edition
4.0
Bravo Karen Armstrong! A wonderful, compelling and thorough work! This is a must read for anyone interested to know more about the roots of monotheistic religion, and especially to understand some of the differences between the Western and Eastern churches.
This is a work that is extremely well documented; each averment is backed by historical documents and/or historical evidence. The glossary is a treasure in itself.
For the Western Christian, Ms. Armstrong presents an insightful view of the other two monotheistic traditions, i.e. Judaism and Islam. She performs this task admirably, and contrary to some critics, I believe, in a balanced way.
Ms. Armstrong places the evolution of the God-concept into its various cultural and political contexts, which brings a further depth to the understanding of why people view God in a particular way, and without which, those beliefs appear to be merely wholesale superstition.
Don't pick this up if you do not want to question your personal conceptions of God. Do give it it a read if you want to know know about the rich cultural history of the monotheistic religions and grow your appreciation and understanding of the ineffable God.
This is a work that is extremely well documented; each averment is backed by historical documents and/or historical evidence. The glossary is a treasure in itself.
For the Western Christian, Ms. Armstrong presents an insightful view of the other two monotheistic traditions, i.e. Judaism and Islam. She performs this task admirably, and contrary to some critics, I believe, in a balanced way.
Ms. Armstrong places the evolution of the God-concept into its various cultural and political contexts, which brings a further depth to the understanding of why people view God in a particular way, and without which, those beliefs appear to be merely wholesale superstition.
Don't pick this up if you do not want to question your personal conceptions of God. Do give it it a read if you want to know know about the rich cultural history of the monotheistic religions and grow your appreciation and understanding of the ineffable God.