I've finally finished this book, which I've been working on for a little over a month. A review of any meaning would prove difficult and lengthy, so I'll simply post some of the notes I made for myself while reading. I found the book to be well-researched and carefully thought out. Karen Armstrong is the voice of reason, but also the voice of hope..
"Effectiveness rather than philosophical or historical demonstration has always been the hallmark of a successful religion."
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God is beyond thought and cannot be attained by thought. It is only possible to know God when one becomes aware that God is unknowable.
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Humans create gods that resemble themselves.
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The roots of monotheism are steeped in pantheism.
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Because God is essentially unique, he cannot be compared to anything.
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"A compassionate and commited atheism can be more religious than a weary or inadequate theism."
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I am left to continue my journey of spiritual exploration and discovery. I do so with the expectation that there is more to find. I am confident that the belief system I have left behind has great lack. I am open to learning from any source. I find myself growing from the despair I felt when I first questioned my beliefs and the consequent insecurity in expressing myself to a new confidence and curiosity, and yes, a certainty that there is something out there for me to believe.
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Rose
2 comments:
"A compassionate and commited atheism can be more religious than a weary or inadequate theism."
That ones speaks volumes.
"God is beyond thought and cannot be attained by thought. It is only possible to know God when one becomes aware that God is unknowable."
This is true due to the finiteness of the human mind/soul, however, this does not in fact mean that God strives to dissociate from humanity, He wants people to know Him, and has given us tools and hints of Him, but we can never truly understand Him, and He knows that, the point is to try, to *strive* not to give up when we feel our faith wane and not to give up when an argument comes our way that we don't know how to combat or refute.
"Humans create gods that resemble themselves."
For the most part true (Greeks, Romans, even some Eastern religions), but in a Biblical perspective, the only way that finite beings could write about an infinite Being was to use language that is used to describe ourselves, thus it appears when one reads the Bible that the writers made a god in their image as opposed to the alternate, with anthropomorphic terms that try and relate the actions of Divinity to us humans.
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