Sunday, February 10, 2013

Book Review [55] : A History of God

Karen Armstrong has a great name in 'theological works and history of religions', she has written good books on Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism and her treatment to all these religions appears very liberal and unbiased to a layman like me. Its a not a categorical denial that she is devoid of any prejudices or biases. 'A History Of God' is one of her classical works but being a Hindu i could not appreciate this work to a great extent because she did not write anything significant on oriental religions or Gods in this book so the comparison that i was looking for was not there in detail. 
A History of God is a well researched (with some embedded inaccuracy as well, like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was written as Pakistani in this book) work on the history of three great religions Judaism, Christianity and Islam, it also gives attention to a large number of theologians of these creeds, philosophers and scientists. The only problem with this work is that you need to know in advance the philosophies of Aristotle, Plato, Hegel, Pascal, Descartes, Nietzsche, Freud, Calvin, Luther, al-Ghazali, Voltaire, Kant, al-Kindi, ibn-Arabi, al-Wahab etc else you will not appreciate the essence of this book. I am deeply impressed by the Aristotle, ibn-Arabi, al-Ghazali, Voltaire and Freudian concept of God in western and semitic philosophy. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) says that Religion has already played its role in the development or evolution of mankind and now mankind has reached a stage of maturity its the time to kill the God and Religion. He further adds that every society has its own pace to reach to that mature stage and any attempt to accelerate that pace would be destructive. This can be seen in the case of Iran when Shah of Iran tried to impose western values the people revolted and became more conservative instead.
Overall its a good book and should be read to do an objective inquiry in the universe of religion  
Recommended (7/10) 

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