by Karen Armstrong
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Product Description
"Strange as it may seem, the idea of 'God' developed in a market economy in a spirit of aggressive capitalism," Karen Armstrong asserts in her fascinating work A History of God. Armstrong considers herself a "historian of ideas," and with this broad view she gives a compelling account of the correspondences among Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and the historical, philosophical, intellectual, and social developments through the ages that both shaped them and were shaped by them. Religion is "highly pragmatic," Armstrong finds. Any particular idea of God must work for the people who develop it. Consequently, as the times have changed, so have our ideas about God. "Understanding the ever-changing ideas of God in the past and their relevance and usefulness in their time," she says, "will help us to develop a new concept for the future." Today an increasing number of people have difficulty with the idea of a God that behaves as a larger version of themselves. Armstrong sees this as inevitable, and welcomes believers to a notion of God that "works for us in the empirical age."
Amazon.com Review
Armstrong, a British journalist and former nun, guides us along one of the most elusive and fascinating quests of all time--the search for God. Like all beloved historians, Armstrong entertains us with deft storytelling, astounding research, and makes us feel a greater appreciation for the present because we better understand our past. Be warned: A History of God is not a tidy linear history. Rather, we learn that the definition of God is constantly being repeated, altered, discarded, and resurrected through the ages, responding to its followers' practical concerns rather than to mystical mandates. Armstrong also shows us how Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have overlapped and influenced one another, gently challenging the secularist history of each of these religions. --Gail Hudson
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 If you want to learn about man's journey to discover GOD., 2008-06-26
You can learn a lot about man's search for GOD from the beginning. 14,000 years ago.
3 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
 Obscure scholarship., 2008-06-17
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"A History of God" by Karen Armstrong
The omissions and distortions of this author's other work, "The Battle for God" made me skeptical of this book also. If Karen Armstrong titles a book "A History of God," you can be sure that GOD, in any normative manner of understanding, is not going to be the subject of her book.
From the very beginning, the author begins to play fast and loose with both facts and language. For example, on page xx of the INTRODUCTION, despite the coy proclamation of the title, the author announces:
"This book will not be a history of the ineffable reality of God itself, which is beyond time and change."---page xx, INTRODUCTION, "A History of God" by Karen Armstrong
One has to watch carefully for such contradictions with Armstrong. When she makes an assertion, you can almost invariably depend upon it to have either of two failings.
(1) The author will usually not support any claims with facts, evidence, or even a rationalism. The author simply declares a thing to be SO, because the author writes that it is SO. [CARTESIAN AFFLICTION]
(2) The author uses language in contradictory contexts. Subjective terminology is presented as though it were Objective evidence.
For example, what does the author mean by the following statement?
"Jesus Christ, about whom we talked far more than about "God," seemed a purely historical figure, inextricably embedded in late antiquity."---page xviii, INTRODUCTION, "A History of God" by author Karen Armstrong
What is the meaning by the term "HISTORICAL FIGURE"; and indeed, what is the rational distinction between a:
"HISTORICAL FIGURE" and a "PURELY HISTORICAL FIGURE"?
This is nonsense verbiage at its best. It doesn't mean anything.
What is the meaning of the terms: "LATE ANTIQUITY" or even, "EMBEDDED IN LATE ANTIQUITY". Armstrong's book is rife with such irrational sentences.
The nonsensicality is not apparent on a page here or there, willy-nilly. Such irrationalisms appear on nearly every page. For example:
"As I grew up, I realized that there was more to religion than fear."---page xvii, INTRODUCTION, "A History of God" by author Karen Armstrong
This is the kind of redundancy, which, if produced in another context, such as an athletic event like baseball, would read something like:
AS I GREW UP, I REALIZED THAT THERE WAS MORE TO BASEBALL, THAN GETTING RIPPED OFF AT THE TICKET OFFICE!
With Armstrong however, the reader is in for the ultimate course in rocket surgery. There's more.
"My ideas about God were formed in childhood and did not keep abreast of my growing knowledge in other disciplines."---page xix, INTRODUCTION, "A History of God" by Author Karen Armstrong
Perhaps the author could find a more private and therapeutic medium to admit ideological development ended at childhood.
"Yet my study of the history of religion has revealed that human beings are spiritual animals."--page xix, "A History of God" by author Karen Armstrong
The proposition, by reason, that an "ANIMAL" is "SPIRITUAL" is a contradiction in terms. It also serves as evidence for the Error of Eclecticism. The author has a confused understanding of the principle of the GENUS, and is guilty of combining Religious assumptions and Science assumptions regarding the Natural Order which are both inimical and contradictory.
Then there are the quantum leaps, in which the author begins writing of herself as a PLURALITY. For example:
"Our ethical secular ideal has its own disciplines of mind and heart and gives people the means of finding faith in the ultimate meaning of human life that once were provided by the more conventional religions."--page xix, INTRODUCTION, "A History of God" by author Karen Armstrong
This is about as FLUFFY and meaningless as language can get. It utterly begs questions. For example:
(1) Who is identified by the PLURAL possessive pronoun "OUR"?
(2) What is the meaning of the phrase, "ETHICAL SECULAR IDEAL"? What exactly is it, and where can it be studied?
(3) What indeed are the "DISCIPLINES OF MIND AND HEART? Where are these DISCIPLINES objectively identified?
(4) In the context of the author's "ETHICAL SECULAR IDEAL" what are the "MEANS OF FINDING FAITH" and how are the MEANS objectively identified?
(5) In regard to the terminology in (4), the author indicates the existence of something referred to as "THE ULTIMATE MEANING OF HUMAN LIFE" but the author fails to objectively identify what that is, or where it is identified and studied.
(6) If the author is a member of a LESS "conventional religion," does good scholarship not require that the subject be clarified? Of course it does; but Karen Armstrong reveals nothing of this. The author has mastered DOUBLE-SPEAK.
You see, Armstrong writes long about the most mundane issues of religion, and yet it obviously is not in the author's interest to bring objective clarity to her own assumptions; for if she did, it would be seen to indicate a most egregious irrationality.
The author has an almost overwhelming ability to generate a never-ending stream of nonsense verbiage. Here's an example:
"We shall see that it is far more important for a particular idea of God to work than for it to be logically or scientifically sound."---page xxi, INTRODUCTION, "A History of God" by author Karen Armstrong
Armstrong never indicates where we are to find a "SCIENTIFICALLY SOUND" idea for God; but then, Armstrong never seems clear about the inablity of SCIENCE to identify the boundaries of God, the subject of which Armstrong herself identified on page xx of the INTRODUCTION as..."beyond time and change".
So this entire book is like the Three Card Monte card game, in which the assumptions of Science, Religion, and Philosophy are all constantly shuffled in context, masquerading as some kind of HYPER-INTELLECTUALITY, which for the lack of any distinct sensibility or underpinning, runs rampant through the alleyways of confused ideation.
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*CONCLUSION*
Armstrong fails in the field of scholarship on several identifiable issues:
(1) Failure to define her subject. No clear delineation is offered to distinguish between GOD and RELIGION.
(2) Failure to establish specific SCOPE & BOUNDARY of her subject.
(3) Failure to explain CONFUSING the classification order of GENUS. The author defines man as a "spiritual animal" which is a confusion of the orders of METAPHYSICS and the NATURAL SCIENCES
(4) Failure to qualify shifts in writing in the First Person Singular to writing Third Person Plural; e.g. shifting from writing "I" to writing "WE" and "OUR" without qualification or specification.
(5) Failure to elevate her core assumptions beyond the CARTESIAN AFFLICTION.
[ It-Is-So-Because-I-Say-It-Is-So.] This is the common error in New Age authorship, and Armstrong provides a plethora of conclusions that are reached only by way of SELF-AUTHENTICATION.
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3 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
good idea wrong auth, 2008-06-04
please contact me if you really want a page by page breakdown, Karen just is not educated enough to write this book. She comes off as a disgruntled Nun which she actually is. every other page represents a outdated theory, popular when she wrote the book as the mainstream concensus. Also the entire thing is a work of Teleological tunnel vision and is ridden with anachronism. If you wish to learn more about religion consult authors like Pagels and Pelikan, doctors and eminant scholars in their fields. please do not hesitate to contact for additional information, aim = hendrixangus. I do not give this book a one lightly!
8 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
Pathetic scholarship, 2008-04-21
The utter, seemingly perpetual redundancy of this book is enough to make me nauseous. The fact that she can't explicate a single religious or philosophical subject without concluding that its proponents originally saw it merely as some "expression of his or her inner notions of God and self" makes this waste of perfectly good paper virtually unreadable. But that she completely destroys Plato (!!!) for the sake of her own little "inner self" fancy is enough to convince me that she has no business even talking about philosophical, historical, or theological subjects. I read this book with an open mind, thinking it would be a postmodern revisionistic history, but history nonetheless. No. It's not. It's her own pathetic, unrefined reflection posing as a well researched deconstructive analysis. If you're a religious skeptic or atheist, you should be let down by this book. If you're a philosopher you should feel extremely irritated. If you're a historian, you should raise an eyebrow and scratch your head. If you're a theologian, you should say "WHAT?!". If you're a mystic, you should be really confused. If you're a Christian thinking that this book will undo your faith...you probably don't even know what you believe or why you believe it.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
A must own for any serious historian, 2008-03-23
What I love and respect about the author, is how she is open minded and honest enough to challenge the reader to think outside their comfort zone and all they have been taught to believe based on faith and not a serious study of history and how religion whatever the belief system, is something that has evolved and changed over the centuries.
She challenges the reader to study and dissect myth from fact. To stop and ponder why we as humans have been given a brain, as well as how over the centuries, a select few have known human weaknesses and the whole herd mentality, and thus, have sought to demean certain groups while building up or making special, other groups.
And how many if not most of the conflicts the world have seen, have been based on made up myths concerning people of other races and regions. Or as Darwin would note, the survival of the fittest or in the case of religions, the religions with the most charismatic leaders. Right or wrong.
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