Reddit reviews The World's Religions (Plus)

tldr; There are millions of us that feel the same way. I hope you don't forsake Christ in name in response to those around you who are forsaking Christ in deed.

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I'm writing this during a break at work. Since I have to make it quick, I'll be recommending a lot of books. There is really too much here anyway to do justice to all of the questions you've put up, so even if I were to give a real, detailed response, I would probably have to resort to suggesting books anyway.

> 1.) I don't think that all of the Bible can be taken literally. I strongly believe in the sciences, so I think that Genesis was written either metaphorically or simply just to provide an explanation for creation. Are there others here that believe that or something similar? How do others respond to your beliefs?

There are many, many, many others who believe similarly. And not just recent people responding to evolution, there has long been a tradition of taking Genesis metaphorically. For a good group of scholars and prominent Christians that take a stand for a reading of Genesis that respects the way that science currently understands origins, see the Biologos Forum.

For a good book that shows the error of inerrancy, how it stunts your growth as a Christian and a moral agent, and how inerrancy limits either human free will or God's sovereignty see Thom Stark's excellent new book The Human Faces of God.

> 2.) Why does it seem that Christianity is such a hateful religion? I am very disappointed in many Christians because they spew hatred towards other instead of spreading love. I think that the energy that is going into the hatred that many spew could be used for good. Why aren't we putting these resources towards helping others? This would help bring people in instead of deter them away.

Again, millions of us feel the same way. It makes me sick as well. However, I don't think the answer is forsaking Christ in name in response to others forsaking Christ in deed.

There are many strands of the Christian faith that have strongly opposed violence of any sort. Look into the Anabaptists, the Mennonites. Podcasts from Trinity Mennonite are pretty good.

For a good book about Jesus and nonviolence see Jesus and Nonviolence by Walter Wink.

> 3.) How can people be against gay rights still? This is clearly religious issue and not an issue of morality. If you choose to follow the parts of the Bible that are against homosexuality, then why do you not feel the need to follow many of the other ridiculous laws that are in the Old Testament?

I'd like to stress that, again, there are millions of us that feel the same way. And many, many of those who still believe it's a sin think that we have no place emphasizing that in a world where LGBT teenagers are killing themselves from the humiliation. There are many, many of us that think that whether their lifestyle is "sinful" or not the only thing we should show them is love.

For more about interpreting the Bible in light of today's social issues, see Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis by William J. Webb and Sex and the Single Savior by Dale B. Martin.

> Do you believe that the government has the right to say who can and cannot get married? Why can't this just be left up to each individual church?

I'm actually strongly in favor of civil unions for everyone. I wholeheartedly agree that I don't want the government defining marriage... and the only way for the government not to define marriage is for the government to take its hands off marriage altogether; whatever the sexual orientation of those getting married.

> 4.) This was a question that I was asked in my other post that I was unable to answer.

Yes, the penal satisfaction view of atonement has its shortcomings. It's not a completely bankrupt idea, but it takes a lot of nuance to convey it in a way that isn't altogether abhorrent and senseless.

The first Christians believed something similar to what we call today "Christus Victor" atonement.

For a picture of the varied atonement theories available for understanding what Jesus did on the cross, see A Community Called Atonement by Scot McKnight. For a list of ways to understand atonement in a contemporary context, see Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross by Mark D. Baker. For more on a view of God that is consistent with the love of God as revealed in Jesus, see Rob Bell's Love Wins: A book about heaven, hell, and the fate of every person that ever lived.

> 5.) I asked this in the other post, so I feel that I should ask it here. How many of you do or will teach your children about other religions? Will you present them as options or will you completely write them off?

I'd be wholeheartedly open to exposing them to other religions. And I'd want to do it in a way that does them justice. Most Christian "worldviews" books frustrate me due to the way they portray other's religions. In the long run if you don't accurately portray the rest of the world and you try to shelter your children from it, they'll simply feel betrayed when they grow up and finally learn what's out there.

I believe Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. I actually believe this. Why wouldn't I try to raise my children as Christians?

But again, I wouldn't want to misrepresent the other religions and I certainly wouldn't want to shelter my children from them. For a book that I feel shows the good from many of the world's most prominent religions, see Huston Smith's The World's Religions.

Then question, search, and (hopefully) find. That doesn't mean discard.

I'd suggest starting with this book by Huston Smith which is a sympathetic overview of what the major religions are striving for. Just as an introduction, before you start delving into too much frustrating and often misrepresented material from each. Then, for Christianity, this book is a good read for an overview. Namer98 may be able to provide similar for Judaism, and somebody else for Islam?

Then decide if it matters. I'm of the mind that it doesn't matter that much, for various reasons.

Good luck!

Do you want to become a theist (start believing in one or more gods) or just find a community and set of rituals? I think you can have either one without the other, depending on what your goals are. There are things like the Unitarian church as well as Sunday Assembly (essentially church for atheists).

For me personally, I didn't feel like I had found purpose in life until after I became an atheist and had to discover for myself what I found important in life. Having a family also helps provide purpose :)

That all said, I really enjoyed the textbook we used in my World Religions course in college (note, I linked to the "smile" version of the Amazon link, which is a small way you can have 'purpose' by having Amazon contribute a portion of a purchase price to a charity of your choice)

>Or a book that compares religions thoroughly.

I'd suggest The World's Religions by Huston Smith.

A very good book on this (has been the most popular introduction to comparative religions for over 50 years now) is The World's Religions, by Huston Smith

Reading a bunch of Nietzsche and then psychology. He can be interpreted in support of that position too, so you have to be careful how you read him. Find some secondary sources and check them after coming up with your own interpretations so you're not too off base. Fundamentally he hated nihilism and saw it everywhere, and was trying to find ways around it. If you struggle with it at all, he's the go to guy. He gets the fundamental problem down really well. His solutions are a bit untenable, as he had this idea of creating your own values. That's pretty much impossible because you're biologically and culturally programmed to have specific arbitrary values and there's nothing you can do about it. That's where the psychology comes in, as you learn what they are and what to do with them. Specific books that helped a lot:

Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil, Genealogy of Morals, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Twilight of Idols

I'd also read some Kierkegaard for good measure. The west of western philosophy builds up to and later refutes Nietzsche's ideas. Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Aquinas and Hegel are probably the biggest people I can think of that he is responding to, so you'd want to be familiar with the gist of what they were saying or Nietzsche won't make much sense. After him you can go to Heidegger who expanded on a lot of his ideas. There are tons of good overviews of this stuff online if you don't feel like wading through primary texts for months. You just need to know enough to get the references.

Psychology books:

Interpretation of Dreams Freud;
The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker;
Man and His Symbols, and Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious by Jung; Maps of Meaning by Jordan Peterson

Also a book I really liked was Saving the Appearances by Owen Barfield. It's mostly psychology with a little christian apologetics tacked on, but it lays out a phenomenological case for what is real and what isn't in a way that's simple and unique. I think about that book pretty much all the time.

Also check out this book on religion. This book is dense and cuts right into the philosophy of each religion. A grounding in all the major religious philosophies does wonders for this kind of thinking. Buddhism only goes so far. Assuming you're a westerner I'd learn as much about Christian philosophy as possible, since most of your values (probably) come from there. It's a very dark religion and people have been thinking about these exact problems for a very long time. The book of Ecclesiastes and the book of Job in particular are insightful. The meditation practice of Christian monks also comes to the same conclusions as the Buddhists but with a little more philosophical sophistication. Read "The Cloud of Unknowing" if you're interested in that.

I think the gist of the position is just to take your own values seriously, since they're the fundamental makeup of reality. Your reaction against them is just a language game. The rest of the philosophical construct is just a way of refuting that language game. Eventually you get to the point where the thought process seems a bit absurd to you (since you spent hundreds of hours painstakingly figuring out why), and you wonder why you had any issue in the first place.

May I ask why use that book, and not the older and more popular one by Huston Smith? Your flair says you are a TA, so I suppose you just use whatever book the department instructs you to use, but would you know why they prefer that book?

The World's Religions (Plus) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0061660183/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_gR8CDbZGYCSRP
This is one of the better books of religions of the world. I have an older copy..... somewhere. This explains well and has great reviews. Check it out.

Very good book is Huston Smith's The World’s Religions.

It's "the definitive classic for introducing the essential elements and teachings of the world's predominant faiths, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, as well as regional native traditions".

I have this one and it's great if you don't know about other religions:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0061660183/

It was suggested I post here. I have to say it's pretty outside of my location and timeframe. Most of my reading is centered around Buddhism and what I know about India that's not political in nature is mostly centered around Buddhism. Even the concepts I know of Hinduism are usually through a Buddhist lens.

What I do know about the development I also can't provide a source. I studied at the Royal Thimphu College and once sat down with a Bengali professor who explained her own dissertation to me about the development of the Varna system in India, which ended up being a primer on "Brahmanism." (Which then led to a long discussion on the inaccuracy of the term "Hinduism" which was developed post-independence as a response to the development of Pakistan for Muslims, India for Hindus. When I presented the irony that "India" and "Hindu" both stem from the "Indus River" which is currently in Pakistan, Runa, aforementioned professor, winked at me and said "Exactly. Hindus are political, Brahmanists are religious." The logic being that Brahmanists derive religious authority from the Brahmin Varna, just as Christians derive religious authority from Christ, and Muslims from submission to God.)

Anyway, I'll just point out some of the books that have helped me in understanding this complex religion and maybe you can go on with your search from there.

Originally I was interested in Wendy Doniger's The Hindus: An Alternative History but found out it was full of selective information and skewed perspectives. I was more interested in a general history of India and fell upon John Keay's India: A History which he describes as "A historiography of India as well as a history." And he does go over developments of Brahmanism threaded with the rise and fall of conquerors through the region.

My introduction to Brahmanism (though he DOES refer to it as Hinduism) was Huston Smith's The World's Religions which doesn't go over the history as much of any of the religions, but is a nice starting point, especially when comparing say Buddhism with Brahmanism, which most people regularly do. It's also a good outliner for the different Brahmanist traditions (or at least the major trends in Brahmanism).

Finally, probably the most accurate to your original question though it has a broader focus and a point to make, Karen Armstrong's *The Great Transformation remains one of my favorite books on the Axial Age in which she covers the religious shifts that occurred more or less simultaneously in Greece, the Levant, India, and China. Of interest to you would be the Vedic response to the growth of Buddhism and Jainism, the development of the Mahabharata, and the changing understandings of the Vedas and Upanishads. It's a pretty great book, and Karen Armstrong can of course lead you further down the path of Indian religious history.

Hope that helps at all.

Exploring the world's many religions is a fun and enriching activity. I'll tell you what I tell everyone who makes this post here:

First, you should start out by perusing one or both of the following websites - [BBC Religions] (http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/) and [Harvard University's Pluralism Project] (http://pluralism.org/religions/). Both of these sites offer high-quality, scholarly yet accessible introductions to most of the world's major traditions. These sites alone can keep you occupied for days.

Once you're ready to jump into books, you have two options. Your first option is to find a book that offers an overview of what's called "comparative religions." The classic is Huston Smith's [The World's Religions] (https://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Religions-Plus-Huston-Smith/dp/0061660183/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1536540983&sr=8-2&keywords=huston+smith+the+world%27s+religions). There are others that are newer and probably more up-to-date, but this is a beloved book for a reason, and won't disappoint.

Your other option is to dig into one particular tradition that you've identified as of special interest from your internet search. If you go that route, which has its advantages and disadvantages, I'd encourage you to do some research online (including on the tradition's individual subreddit) to see what books are recommended. If you have specific questions on this, I may be able to help as well.

Hope this was helpful - good luck!

First thing that comes to mind is this: https://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Religions-Plus-Huston-Smith/dp/0061660183

But I'm sure there are other recommendations that other people could make.

You might also like reading The World's Religions by Huston Smith. It's used as a textbook in many university comparative religion classes and should help you understand the similarities and differences in the major world religions. (the good news is that its only $10 too :-) )

The World's Religions, by Huston Smith. It covers: Hinduism, Buddhism, Confusianism, Taoism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and various aboriginal religions. It comes in at under 400 pages for 11 bucks at Amazon.

Check out Huston Smith's The World's Religions.

Smith is not a Dawkins or a Hitchens. He's probably not even an atheist. What he is (as I remember the book anyway) is objective and fair.

The World's Religions is exactly that--a (light) history of major world religions with a more in-depth look at the tenets and practice of each. He's not out to convince anyone of anything, and for some people that's a very good thing.

When I read it (going on 10 years ago), it really gave me a lot of perspective and helped me step outside the bubble of christianity that I'd been raised in.

There's a pretty great book called "World Religions" by Houston Smith (not an affiliate link) that goes over all of the major faiths with a great deal of fairness. His empahsis is on foundational beliefs and not on 'church institutions'. I found it to be one of the most well-written books on the subject, ever.

Logged comment posted by /u/Genesisbook1 at 01/31/15 03:51:22:

> I believe in god not that kike Jesus was a savior

... in response to comment posted by /u/US_Hiker at 01/31/15 03:04:15:

> > Still love god though
>
> Jesus is God is a Jew. Still love God?

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Removed comment posted by /u/Genesisbook1 at 01/31/15 06:35:37:

> I don't know. I'm still going to go you church because I love church even though I don't fit in or talk to anybody but I don't know. I have to talk to god tonight. Appreciate it brother

... in response to comment posted by /u/US_Hiker at 01/31/15 04:54:23:

> >What do you mean by fringe beliefs?
>
> Well, anti-semitism isn't that rare, but it's not mainstream. It's less common yet to talk to somebody who unapologetically identifies with it, much less is willing to leave a religion for it.
>
> I suggest you get this book: http://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Religions-Plus-Huston-Smith/dp/0061660183
>
> A local library should have it if you can't afford it. It's a good, scholarly but sympathetic look at the major religions in the world.
>
> Many religions may give you solace for this personal hell of yours, but do remember that each demands much of you, often quite similar things.
>
> I'm off to bed for the night. I'd welcome any more details you're willing to share, by PM or otherwise. Cheers.

Huston Smith. He was the biggest influence in my walk back to faith. He was so passionate about teaching the world about religion; it was truly inspiring. His book, The World's Religions, is a wonderful primer for anyone looking to expand their knowledge of their own faith and the faiths of the world.

My "Philosophy of Asian Thought" class used this. The professor might've just been a fan of Smith, but it's a good book for your collection, regardless.

In case anyone is wondering this is from Huston Smith's "The World's Religions" in the section about Religious Taoism

i know a professor and she did give this multiple book series for history a pass, the author is not an orientalist as well, the Venture of Islam:

https://www.amazon.com/Venture-Islam-Classical-Age/dp/0226346838/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1523804477&sr=8-1&keywords=the+venture+of+islam&dpID=51KRFoNyv9L&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

Quran.com you can read, also see the text and listen as well.

Oh, a friend also used this when researching religions:


https://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Religions-Plus-Huston-Smith/dp/0061660183/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1523804928&sr=8-1&keywords=huston+smith+world%27s+religions

If you want to just know buzzwords to throw around, spend a bunch of time clicking around on Wikipedia, and watch stuff like Crash Course on YouTube. It's easy to absorb, and you'll learn stuff, even if it's biased, but at least you'll be learning.

If you want to become SMARTER, one of my biggest pieces of advice is to either carry a notebook with you, or find a good note taking app you like on your phone. When someone makes a statement you don't understand, write it down and parse it up.

So for instance, write down "Social Democracy", and write down "The New Deal", and go look them up on simple.wikipedia.com (Put's all of it in simplest language possible), it's a great starting point for learning about any topic, and provides you a jumping board to look more deeply into it.

If you are really curious about starting an education, and you absolutely aren't a reader, some good books to start on are probably:

"Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words" by Randall Munroe

"A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson

"Philosophy 101" by Paul Kleinman, in fact the ____ 101 books are all pretty good "starter" books for people that want an overview of a topic they are unfamiliar with.

"The World's Religions" by Huston Smith

"An Incomplete Education" by Judy Jones and Will Wilson

Those are all good jumping off points, but great books that I think everyone should read... "A History of Western Philosophy" by Bertrand Russell, "Western Canon" by Harold Bloom, "Education For Freedom" by Robert Hutchins, The Norton Anthology of English Literature; The Major Authors, The Bible.

Read anything you find critically, don't just swallow what someone else says, read into it and find out what their sources were, otherwise you'll find yourself quoting from Howard Zinn verbatim and thinking you're clever and original when you're just an asshole.