I've become really interested in the history and evolution of religion. I would like to get a basic understanding of all the major religions in the world. What books should I read?
That is a good way to get some ancient wisdom, and sometimes some incidental history, but it's surprising how little it will inform you about what those religions teach in contemporary practice. I don't think I could read the Bible and derive from it anything like the range of modern Christian belief and practice.
IME seeking wisdom from ancient scriptures is like seeking the time from a broken clock. It'll be right twice a day yet useless since you need better sources, methodology, or reasoning anyway.
Having done this myself (at least for the Bible) I would disagree with this advice. The texts are very old and were written in the context of a very different culture. There is a lot of important context that the authors assume the reader has, and a modern reader simply lacks that context. Without a good commentary a lot of it will just go over your head and some parts will be misinterpreted.
I don't think that reading scripture is actually all that helpful in understanding the "history and evolution of religion", which is what was asked for. The bible has remained mostly unchanged for 1,600 years or so, but interpretations have varied substantially (also note: there was no "bible" for the first 400 years of Christianity, at last not how we understand it today).
Of course, it helps to be familiar with scripture, but there's quite a bit of it and it's quite frankly not a particularly easy read (New Testament is a bit better than the Old). It's not where I would start – understanding the history of religion is more about history than religion.
Jaroslav Pelikan wrote a five-volume series on the history of Christian doctrine. It is short on sociology, but long on creeds. Really I don't know enough about other religions to make suggestions.
I like this book but I don't think it's a good fit for what the OP is looking for. James is interested in the religious experiences that individuals have, and writes from a Protestant Christian point of view. It doesn't have much to say about the history or evolution of religion as a general global phenomenon.
I guess I took the word evolution to mean he was interested in how religions develop at all, and maybe James has some insight by showing how the human animal has similar religious beliefs around the world. Maybe the reason humans develop religion, is because they all have a neural network that provides a similar 'religious experience'.
William James was a Theosophist (no religion higher than truth). Theosophy is another mystery school, like Masonry which preceded it (look into Leadbeater & Olcott, Blavatsky's handlers), and like Anthroposophy, which splintered from it in-turn. These schools seem to have been undertaking the syncretization of all world religions known at the time. Immediately after the fall of the Knights Templar, we get the Masons--mixing the Abrahamic with the Egyptian and Mithraic. Then, as the Hindu and Buddhist doctrines made their ways into western consciousness in the 19th c., these also had to be retconned into the mix, ergo Theosophy.
So, of course James would be one to write about such things, but he was standing on the shoulders of giants; a disclosure of received wisdom more than personal insight. And if you are interested in such things, the more recent mystery schools--Theosophy (Blavatsky), Anthroposophy (Steiner), Perennialism (Guenon), Esalen (Huxley, "The Perennial Philosophy")--are all good places to start.
Zen Buddhism Selected Writings by DT Suzuki is really good. Seeing Zen as an organic mixture of Indian Hinduism, Buddhism and Chinese Taoism which then arrived on the West Coast of the US is really interesting.
'How To Read The Bible' by James Kugel (of Harvard University) is great for Judaism and Christianity. It goes through the history of how the text was interpreted - both critically/historically and how religious people interpret it.
For Christianity I highly recommend Saint Augustine’s Confessions. It is very readable and the author’s intellect shines throughout.
Edit: I hear very good things about C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity too, but I've never read it.
Also there's always Aristotle. Thanks to him we know there is not really a clear line between theology and philosophy. It's fascinating to me that an ancient Greek pagan derived a kind of classical monotheism as being philosophically necessary. One may disagree, but I don't think anyone seriously interested in the subject denies the importance of his contributions.
Others have already suggested the various holy and foundational texts as being worth reading. I'm inclined to agree on account of for thousands of years before printing when keeping a book extant was extremely laborious people from every culture chose some writings as being particularly precious. Surely they had what seemed to them at least to be good reason.
And casting a broader net, reading the myths and stories of the religions can give you a good feel for how believers see it. I'm mostly familiar with Viking and Greek myth, but there is a rich tradition of mythology in the east too. I've never made a serious study of the Vedic stories, but I've read a few adaptations and there is a lot of interest there too.
Confessions is a bit of a slog and not very accessible IMO. It's also chock full of bible references that are probably going to fly over your head if you aren't already deep into Christianity.
I'm a big fan of the "Very Short Introductions" series from Oxford University Press. They're usually brief and gives a wide starting point to a lot of different viewpoints of a subject, useful as a starting point into a topic. Seems there are about 730 books published in the series so far, with a wide range of topics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Short_Introductions
I personally haven't read it, but there is one for religion as well, "Religion: A Very Short Introduction" (9780190064679). Then there are a bunch of them around specific subjects in religion as well, browse the list in the Wikipedia article and you'll find them.
I've read maybe ~20 books from the series and all besides two or three have been of utmost quality, so probably this one is at least a good starting point.
I have had the opposite experience and don’t recommend this series at all. Every book I’ve read from it is either rambling and hard to follow or simply not written for a beginner audience. You’re better off reading the Wikipedia page.
I'm an Anglican (Episcopalian) deacon – your question is perhaps slightly problematic, in that "religion" is extremely difficult to define. Westerners (confessional Christians or not) tend to have in mind something that looks a bit like protestant Christianity. Faith traditions intersect with culture and history and everything else.
Brent Nongbri's "Before Religion" is good on this; he engages with the whole concept of "religion" and pulls it apart; you mention the idea of evolution of religion, which is itself an idea he critiques. You might find it very interesting.
I can't speak for any other major faith, but if you want a thousand-mile in the sky view of the history of Christianity, Alister McGrath's "Christian History" is a decent start. You might find short courses being run at a local university or theological college.
And for Islam, I recommend Karen Armstrong’s “Islam: A Short History”. This book gives context to Muhammad as a Man in addition to the influential religion he adapted/created (for most major religions are adaptations, “modernizations” of what came before.)
Is this a book that adherents of Islam would be cool with?
I ask because…
From my experience as a reader and an adherent to a slightly-less-than-mainstream Christian, I’ve observed that books about religion come in three general flavors:
- extra extra! Read all about our awesome religion!
- have you heard about that religion over there? Read here to learn ingesting tidbits that are inclined to make sure it remains that religion, out of your circle
- here’s just an honest attempt to shed light without an agenda, make of it what you will, practitioners and non-adherents are mostly cool with the content
My experience is that first two categories dominate; the third is harder to come by. Always interested in that third kind.
Did you know Muhammad was a [land] privateer? When blackballed by the corrupt regime of his day, he resorted to laying moral and rightful siege upon supply lines to feed his tribes who were otherwise pushed to starvation.
Sometimes facts rival fiction in their intrigues, love him or hate him, his is one such story.
(And I cannot speak for adherents, only as one interested in history of peoples throughout the world.)
If you are not an adherent, how can you be confident it is of the third type?
For me the litmus test goes something like this: “I understand you’re an adherent of X. I read this book about X called… it led me to empathize with practitioners of your faith in ways A, B, C and D. I hope that is mostly correct?” If the respondent is relatively open minded and says “yeah, I think those are fair points. It’s nice to be understood a little better”, then the book passes muster.
As a muslim man, introducing the concept of prophets to a lot of people, including muslims themselves is always an exercise in inducing surprise or even shock.
I think most people like to think of prophets through analogies of modern day or at least a stereotype of monks, saints or ascetics. There is a certain cookie cut stereotype definitions and marking that people think prophets have to fit through. In reality the prophets in Islam have come in all personality and character ranges. From Kings, to shepherds, to warriors, to carpenters. Muhammad was mostly all of this.
A neutral treatment of the subject without bias of course also needs a very similar treatment of the subject from the reader. Any prior bias while reading a subject this complicated, that spawns across millennia, with the prophets with such diverse cultural, linguistic, political etc settings is not likely to be anything like a stereotypical all weather saint life.
Islam, the definition itself, is a strictly monotheistic religion. You worship one god(Allah) alone, and the way you worship that one god is how the prophet(s) asked you to worship. Allah defines what Allah is in various parts of the Quran(eg 2:25, Chapter 112). The worship itself, 5 times a day, fasting during Ramadan, pilgrimage to Mecca, Charity, Animal sacrifice is all to be done for Allah and Allah alone(no partners, or any other extra deity allowed). You are also expected to believe in angels, books sent before, prophets before Muhammad, Day of judgement and divine destiny written by Allah. Like you are actually supposed to believe in them. Which reduces the whole activity to be free of forcing it, or coercing some body to just verbally state them. Above this is the last level, like you worship god like god is in front of you.
There are other laws related to diet, purity and inheritance. In general you are advised to enjoin good and forbid evil. The lives of the prophet(s), therefore serves as a useful guidance in this regard and is called (Sunnah).
In general the Quran is good starting point to learn more Islam. Its like the defining text.
This is like the basic structure. And then of course when you meet muslims you now deal with a community, and like all communities they come with all your shades of human behaviour.
I second the recommendation for Nongbri's "Before Religion". It definitely improved my understanding of what it is we even mean / have meant by "religion".
For a more evolutionary understanding of religion, I'd recommend Joseph Henrich's "The WEIRDest People in the World" and "The Secret of our Success".
Finally though certainly not least importantly, I'd recommend Iain McGilchrist's "The Master and His Emissary" and "The Matter with Things". Both touch on how it is we see and understand the world and how the current default perspective differs from those of other times and places.
It’s a huge book and not particularly well-written, but I recommend Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age. It helped clarify a lot of things about the modern Western world and our relationship with religion and secularity.
She has published all kinds of different work: comprehensive surveys, biographies of key figures, memoir, the works. She’s so prolific, clear, and consistent that you can just follow your nose to whichever entry point strikes your fancy.
Yet despite being a several hundred pages long dedicates barely more than a few sentences to reports of personal religious experiences. This is unforgivable in such a book and discredits it as not serious in my eyes.
Not really, because one person's personal experience can't be verified and is no different from delusion. It's also not what the book is looking at or talking about, and personal experiences don't weigh in on the argument Dawkins is making.
If he was serious he'd have performed a study comparing personal religious experiences in aggregate across cultures and time periods. No need to rely on a single experience, that'd obviously be silly.
Since he didn't bother to do this, he didn't refute them, eg as quirks of biology or whatever. As such, it's impossible to take him seriously as he failed to consider all angles.
If he ignores personal experience he must buy into the western-centric son of God story, further biasing and undermining his argument. It's precisely because personal experiences don't weigh in on the argument he's making that his argument is flawed.
The rest of his argument, for all it's plausibility, may simply be wrong.
No, man. What you're talking about is not in scope for the argument he is making or what he is writing about. It's basically entirely irrelevant. His book isn't a comprehensive argument against religion, it is very specific and makes specific points, and people's personal anecdotes are simply irrelevant. They wouldn't be to many other arguments, but they are to his in that book.
The book is the "God delusion", in which (from memory), he explains that no God is required to keep the universe running. Well, no person is responsible for continually moving pool balls around a table, but someone does start the process. So he might be right, or he might be wrong, who knows? He argues against organised religion which is pretty easy to do given their obvious abuses, but organised religion isn't God, so this adds little.
The bible says things like e.g. God's kingdom is within you, which suggests personal experience is of primary importance, since how else would you explore inside yourself?
Ignoring personal experience in that book is like not seeking witness statements for an investigation. It's impossible to develop a convincing argument without considering all the evidence. And as with any investigation, a witness statement isn't necessarily treated as factual on its own, but should be evaluated within the contexts of other known facts and corroborating reports.
An argument about why something doesn't exist, no matter how convincing, becomes invalidated if conclusive evidence emerges demonstrating that it does. Not bothering to look for all relevant evidence doesn't make your argument right, it simply makes it flawed.
Why don't you think personal experience is relevant to a discussion of why God exists?
The book covers science based theories that are alternatives to creationism, but talks more about why and how religion formed as a self-propagating meme. People's individual experiences just don't add much to that argument, and he isn't trying to refute individual experiences. It's just out of place.
> An argument about why something doesn't exist, no matter how convincing, becomes invalidated if conclusive evidence emerges demonstrating that it does.
Personal experience would never, ever qualify as conclusive evidence, because there is no way to test or verify any of the claims made.
> Why don't you think personal experience is relevant to a discussion of why God exists?
My claim as that it was not relevant to the scope of the book specifically, but I'll answer that question. You may find it offensive, but since you're asking...
I think every single person that believes in religion does so only due to indoctrination, or because they are seeking to fill some void in their life. That's it. And so I dismiss their accounts entirely. In fact, I feel a degree of pity for them.
Organized religions are nonsense for many reasons, and if we remove them, then all we are left with is an unprovable, untestable claim based on absolutely nothing, which is more complex than the alternative which means Occam is sufficient reason to dismiss until there is reason not to do so.
But this is just restrictive. Regardless of your own opinions you should consider all evidence.
By refusing to consider such claims you close yourself off to the possibility there may in fact be ways to verify them for yourself. Yet this won't ever be entertained due to bias. Perhaps some of those who claim god exists followed some reproducible method that convinced them. Ignoring the personal experience dimension would never uncover such information.
Even a discussion of religion as memes, while it may be true, wouldn't make one deluded to believe in God if a way to verify its existence for oneself could be found. Ie religion spreading as a meme doesn't prove God doesn't exist. It may just be that the majority of people believe without discovering it (if it exists), but that in itself doesn't preclude its existence. Perhaps it only reveals its existence under certain circumstances for example.
As to your final paragraph there seems to be a general conflation between organised religion and God. The book is the God delusion, not the organised religion delusion. It's this conflation and obvious bias that makes the book's argument weak.
It's not directly answering the question, but I really appreciated "The heart of Christianity", which offers an interesting philosophical analysis of the three "interpretations" of Christianity, and which I would think is applicable to a lot of religions.
I was surprised at how interested I got in “the history of god”, which covers the 3 big Abrahamic religions.
It’s very informative, I’ve actually learnt a lot of useful things to understand cultural stuff I’m actually encountering often (what does the trinity _means_? Whats do the ancient greeks have to do with Christianity? What’s mysticism? What are Sufis?).
"The Sacred and The Profane: The Nature of Religion" by Mircea Eliade and "Eight Theories of Religion" by Daniel Pals aren't focused on a single religion but provide nice overviews on its history and evolution.
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[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 43.5 ms ] threadConsidering many were written by or about grifters I would also not recommend them.
Of course, it helps to be familiar with scripture, but there's quite a bit of it and it's quite frankly not a particularly easy read (New Testament is a bit better than the Old). It's not where I would start – understanding the history of religion is more about history than religion.
The Swerve - Greenblatt
The Kingdom - Carrére
Both very much in the sense of historical development of the religion.
So, of course James would be one to write about such things, but he was standing on the shoulders of giants; a disclosure of received wisdom more than personal insight. And if you are interested in such things, the more recent mystery schools--Theosophy (Blavatsky), Anthroposophy (Steiner), Perennialism (Guenon), Esalen (Huxley, "The Perennial Philosophy")--are all good places to start.
1. https://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-145 2. https://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-152
They are also available in book form.
For Buddhism, A History of Indian Buddhism: From Sakyamuni to Early Mahayana (インド仏教史) by Akira Hirakawa is the best one I ever read.
https://youtu.be/54l8_ewcOlY
Edit: I hear very good things about C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity too, but I've never read it.
Also there's always Aristotle. Thanks to him we know there is not really a clear line between theology and philosophy. It's fascinating to me that an ancient Greek pagan derived a kind of classical monotheism as being philosophically necessary. One may disagree, but I don't think anyone seriously interested in the subject denies the importance of his contributions.
Others have already suggested the various holy and foundational texts as being worth reading. I'm inclined to agree on account of for thousands of years before printing when keeping a book extant was extremely laborious people from every culture chose some writings as being particularly precious. Surely they had what seemed to them at least to be good reason.
And casting a broader net, reading the myths and stories of the religions can give you a good feel for how believers see it. I'm mostly familiar with Viking and Greek myth, but there is a rich tradition of mythology in the east too. I've never made a serious study of the Vedic stories, but I've read a few adaptations and there is a lot of interest there too.
I personally haven't read it, but there is one for religion as well, "Religion: A Very Short Introduction" (9780190064679). Then there are a bunch of them around specific subjects in religion as well, browse the list in the Wikipedia article and you'll find them.
I've read maybe ~20 books from the series and all besides two or three have been of utmost quality, so probably this one is at least a good starting point.
Brent Nongbri's "Before Religion" is good on this; he engages with the whole concept of "religion" and pulls it apart; you mention the idea of evolution of religion, which is itself an idea he critiques. You might find it very interesting.
I can't speak for any other major faith, but if you want a thousand-mile in the sky view of the history of Christianity, Alister McGrath's "Christian History" is a decent start. You might find short courses being run at a local university or theological college.
I ask because…
From my experience as a reader and an adherent to a slightly-less-than-mainstream Christian, I’ve observed that books about religion come in three general flavors:
- extra extra! Read all about our awesome religion!
- have you heard about that religion over there? Read here to learn ingesting tidbits that are inclined to make sure it remains that religion, out of your circle
- here’s just an honest attempt to shed light without an agenda, make of it what you will, practitioners and non-adherents are mostly cool with the content
My experience is that first two categories dominate; the third is harder to come by. Always interested in that third kind.
Did you know Muhammad was a [land] privateer? When blackballed by the corrupt regime of his day, he resorted to laying moral and rightful siege upon supply lines to feed his tribes who were otherwise pushed to starvation.
Sometimes facts rival fiction in their intrigues, love him or hate him, his is one such story.
(And I cannot speak for adherents, only as one interested in history of peoples throughout the world.)
For me the litmus test goes something like this: “I understand you’re an adherent of X. I read this book about X called… it led me to empathize with practitioners of your faith in ways A, B, C and D. I hope that is mostly correct?” If the respondent is relatively open minded and says “yeah, I think those are fair points. It’s nice to be understood a little better”, then the book passes muster.
I think most people like to think of prophets through analogies of modern day or at least a stereotype of monks, saints or ascetics. There is a certain cookie cut stereotype definitions and marking that people think prophets have to fit through. In reality the prophets in Islam have come in all personality and character ranges. From Kings, to shepherds, to warriors, to carpenters. Muhammad was mostly all of this.
A neutral treatment of the subject without bias of course also needs a very similar treatment of the subject from the reader. Any prior bias while reading a subject this complicated, that spawns across millennia, with the prophets with such diverse cultural, linguistic, political etc settings is not likely to be anything like a stereotypical all weather saint life.
Islam, the definition itself, is a strictly monotheistic religion. You worship one god(Allah) alone, and the way you worship that one god is how the prophet(s) asked you to worship. Allah defines what Allah is in various parts of the Quran(eg 2:25, Chapter 112). The worship itself, 5 times a day, fasting during Ramadan, pilgrimage to Mecca, Charity, Animal sacrifice is all to be done for Allah and Allah alone(no partners, or any other extra deity allowed). You are also expected to believe in angels, books sent before, prophets before Muhammad, Day of judgement and divine destiny written by Allah. Like you are actually supposed to believe in them. Which reduces the whole activity to be free of forcing it, or coercing some body to just verbally state them. Above this is the last level, like you worship god like god is in front of you.
There are other laws related to diet, purity and inheritance. In general you are advised to enjoin good and forbid evil. The lives of the prophet(s), therefore serves as a useful guidance in this regard and is called (Sunnah).
In general the Quran is good starting point to learn more Islam. Its like the defining text.
This is like the basic structure. And then of course when you meet muslims you now deal with a community, and like all communities they come with all your shades of human behaviour.
For a more evolutionary understanding of religion, I'd recommend Joseph Henrich's "The WEIRDest People in the World" and "The Secret of our Success".
Finally though certainly not least importantly, I'd recommend Iain McGilchrist's "The Master and His Emissary" and "The Matter with Things". Both touch on how it is we see and understand the world and how the current default perspective differs from those of other times and places.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Armstrong
She has published all kinds of different work: comprehensive surveys, biographies of key figures, memoir, the works. She’s so prolific, clear, and consistent that you can just follow your nose to whichever entry point strikes your fancy.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Source_(novel)
I'm also a big fan of the Cartoon History of the Universe series.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cartoon_History_of_the_U...
Since he didn't bother to do this, he didn't refute them, eg as quirks of biology or whatever. As such, it's impossible to take him seriously as he failed to consider all angles.
If he ignores personal experience he must buy into the western-centric son of God story, further biasing and undermining his argument. It's precisely because personal experiences don't weigh in on the argument he's making that his argument is flawed.
The rest of his argument, for all it's plausibility, may simply be wrong.
The bible says things like e.g. God's kingdom is within you, which suggests personal experience is of primary importance, since how else would you explore inside yourself?
Ignoring personal experience in that book is like not seeking witness statements for an investigation. It's impossible to develop a convincing argument without considering all the evidence. And as with any investigation, a witness statement isn't necessarily treated as factual on its own, but should be evaluated within the contexts of other known facts and corroborating reports.
An argument about why something doesn't exist, no matter how convincing, becomes invalidated if conclusive evidence emerges demonstrating that it does. Not bothering to look for all relevant evidence doesn't make your argument right, it simply makes it flawed.
Why don't you think personal experience is relevant to a discussion of why God exists?
> An argument about why something doesn't exist, no matter how convincing, becomes invalidated if conclusive evidence emerges demonstrating that it does.
Personal experience would never, ever qualify as conclusive evidence, because there is no way to test or verify any of the claims made.
> Why don't you think personal experience is relevant to a discussion of why God exists?
My claim as that it was not relevant to the scope of the book specifically, but I'll answer that question. You may find it offensive, but since you're asking...
I think every single person that believes in religion does so only due to indoctrination, or because they are seeking to fill some void in their life. That's it. And so I dismiss their accounts entirely. In fact, I feel a degree of pity for them.
Organized religions are nonsense for many reasons, and if we remove them, then all we are left with is an unprovable, untestable claim based on absolutely nothing, which is more complex than the alternative which means Occam is sufficient reason to dismiss until there is reason not to do so.
By refusing to consider such claims you close yourself off to the possibility there may in fact be ways to verify them for yourself. Yet this won't ever be entertained due to bias. Perhaps some of those who claim god exists followed some reproducible method that convinced them. Ignoring the personal experience dimension would never uncover such information.
Even a discussion of religion as memes, while it may be true, wouldn't make one deluded to believe in God if a way to verify its existence for oneself could be found. Ie religion spreading as a meme doesn't prove God doesn't exist. It may just be that the majority of people believe without discovering it (if it exists), but that in itself doesn't preclude its existence. Perhaps it only reveals its existence under certain circumstances for example.
As to your final paragraph there seems to be a general conflation between organised religion and God. The book is the God delusion, not the organised religion delusion. It's this conflation and obvious bias that makes the book's argument weak.
Anyway, let's leave it there.
https://www.samharris.org/books/the-end-of-faith
It’s very informative, I’ve actually learnt a lot of useful things to understand cultural stuff I’m actually encountering often (what does the trinity _means_? Whats do the ancient greeks have to do with Christianity? What’s mysticism? What are Sufis?).
Max Weber's book on Protestantism is good.
Might be „Religion and Nothingness“ in your translation.
Nishitani describes religion as a phenomenon from the philosophical Zen Buddhist perspective of the Kyoto School.