The Case for God: What religion really means - Hardcover

Armstrong, Karen

3.85

9,024 ratings by Goodreads

9781847920348: The Case for God: What religion really means

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1847920349 ISBN 13: 9781847920348

Publisher: Bodley Head, 2009

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* The enormous popularity of books by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and others shows that despite the religious revival that is under way in many parts of the world, there is widespread confusion about the nature of religious truth. For the first time in history, a significantly large number of people want nothing to do with God. In the past people went to great lengths to experience a sacred reality that they called God, Brahman, Nirvana or Dao; indeed religion could be said to be the distinguishing characteristic of homo sapiens. But now militant atheists preach a gospel of godlessness with the zeal of Christian missionaries in the age of faith and find an eager audience. What has happened?

* Karen Armstrong argues that historically atheism has rarely been a denial of the sacred itself but has nearly always rejected a particular conception of God. During the modern period, the Christians of the West developed a theology that was radically different from that of the pre-modern age. Tracing the history of faith from the Palaeolithic Age to the present, Armstrong shows that until recently there was no warfare between science and religion. But science has changed the conversation. The meaning of words such as belief, faith, and mystery has been entirely altered, so that atheists and theists alike now think and speak about God - and, indeed, reason itself - in a way that our ancestors would have found astonishing.

* Why has the modern God become incredible? Has God a future in this age of aggressive scientific rationalism? Karen Armstrong suggests that if we draw creatively on the insights of the past, we can build a faith that speaks to the needs of our troubled and dangerously polarized world.

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Review:

"One of our best living writers on religion....prodigiously sourced, passionately written" (John Cornwell FT)

"Karen Armstrong invites us on a journey through religion that helps us to rescue what remains wise from so much that to many in Britain today no longer seems true....Armstrong is one of the the handful of wise and supremely intelligent commentators on religion" (Alain de Botton Observer)

"Comprehensive and measured" (Paul Vallely The Independent)

"This is a stunned appreciation of an 'otherness' beyond the reach of language, and for Armstrong, constitutes the heart of every religion" (Sholto Byrnes New Statesmen)

"It isn't an easy read - why should it be? - and at times her expertise in theology and its technical terms get in the way of layman's understanding. But at her best, she is wonderfully clear and insightful - and not out to convert anyone" (Peter Lewis Daily Mail)

Book Description:

An essential book for our times: Karen Armstrong answers bestselling atheists Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens and argues that faith still has a fundamental role in the modern world.

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