Karen Armstrong

Evaluates the role of religion in history and the modern world, stating that today's expressions of faith are considerably removed from those of previous generations while arguing that an increased awareness of past insights may help to build a faith that speaks to an increasingly polarized society.

The Case for God

A nuanced exploration of the part that religion plays in human life, drawing on the insights of the past in order to build a faith that speaks to the needs of our dangerously polarized age. Moving from the Paleolithic age to the present, Karen Armstrong details the great lengths to which humankind has gone in order to experience a sacred reality that it called by many names, such as God, Brahman, Nirvana, Allah, or Dao. Focusing especially on Christianity but including Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Chinese spiritualities, Armstrong examines the diminished impulse toward religion in our own time, when a significant number of people either want nothing to do with God or question the efficacy of faith. Why has God become unbelievable? Why is it that atheists and theists alike now think and speak about God in a way that veers so profoundly from the thinking of our ancestors? Answering these questions with the same depth of knowledge and profound insight that have marked all her acclaimed books, Armstrong makes clear how the changing face of the world has necessarily changed the importance of religion at both the societal and the individual level. Yet she cautions us that religion was never supposed to provide answers that lie within the competence of human reason; that, she says, is the role of logos. The task of religion is “to help us live creatively, peacefully, and even joyously with realities for which there are no easy explanations.” She emphasizes, too, that religion will not work automatically. It is, she says, a practical discipline: its insights are derived not from abstract speculation but from “dedicated intellectual endeavor” and a “compassionate lifestyle that enables us to break out of the prism of selfhood.”

rumbledethumps

In this work, Armstrong tries to directly address some of the "New Atheists" by claiming that the God they are attacking is basically a straw man. She argues that, historically, religious texts were not seen as something meant to be taken literally, that they were starting points from which we could contemplate the ineffable. She believes that religions only started insisting on the literal interpretation of their texts when science and rationalism began to be the way most humans engaged with the world. Some people reacted by trying to prove that their religions and religious texts were compatible with science. This, Armstrong believes, is the God that the New Atheists attack, while leaving alone the god/source/path that most religious people have engaged with over the centuries.

She makes a compelling argument, and this book could find readers on both sides of the God debate. If you agree with the New Atheists, you might be infuriated, but it would still be worth your while. If, on the other hand, the New Atheists infuriate you, even though you don't believe in religious texts literally, then this is definitely worth a read.

Matthew Royal

Enjoyed this book as an experience, although my expectation of a title like "Case for God" is a "logos" argument. What Armstrong delivers instead is an history of the mythos of religion: that only recently has religion made literalism an idol, and that our current over-logos-ization is the result of an adversarial cycle between fundamentalists and critics. It was gratifying to see her sketch the outlines of modern American fundamentalism, which is often obscured by the groups' own origin myths and our temporal proximity.

I think Armstrong misses an opportunity to connect the reactive wave of "spiritual, but not religious" to a return of people's desire for mythos in modern life. She doesn't make an explicit altar call back to mythos and kenosis-driven religious experience, but the implication is there.

Dana Kraft

An interesting history of how civilization (western) has sought, understood, communicated and reacted to the concept of God. Armstrong focuses more on the interplay of religion and philosophy rather than religion and politics, which (for me) meant that the questions raised by the book were more personal and introspective. Refreshing in that she is respectful of religious tradition, but is not out to defend any specific religion.

The battle for God

Mariel Adrianna de la Garza

Provides a solid history of fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Clearly written, and quick to read.

Jeni Enjaian

This book is a hot mess. I didn't think I would ever even use that phrase much less to describe a book but this one deserved it. I try to take notes while reading (in this case listening) and usually average around 6-7 points. I got to 14 with this one. (I have condensed some.)
In no particular order, here they are. 
1. She tries way too hard to write a grandiose spiritual narrative (or history...it's hard to tell). 
2. She does make some striking observations that come so close yet are so far from the truth. (Disclaimer: I am a devout Christian and disagree with her views. However, the vast majority of my criticism has nothing to do with worldview and everything to do with abysmal writing.)
3. Her statements of basic Christian fact show her to be extremely confused. For example, she states that literal interpretation of the Bible began with Augustine. Even a casual reading of the Bible's own text would show that many of it's authors and historical characters believe in literal interpretation. All of those people lived centuries, even millennia before Augustine. This leads me to question her statements about the beliefs of other religions. 
4. Almost without fail, she dismisses the face value of one primary text, the Bible, because, according to the author, it couldn't possibly be true. Instead she misinterprets the text and twists it (see her convoluted dismissal of the definition of "credo") into knots to make her point work.
5. In the same vein as #4, the author gives immense weight to extra biblical books. As someone who purports to be a historian, shouldn't all primary text be given the same weight? She appears to discount the canonical books simply because they are canonical. 
6. The section on medieval philosophy (many of those philosophers also twisted themselves into knots trying to make their dialecticals work) reeks of fan girl behavior. 
7. My biggest issue with her is that she claims to be a historian of religion. This book follows neither historiographical or theological narrative frameworks. Instead it is an ugly, roughly chronological mash up of whatever floats her boat in an attempt to prove "god."

If she meant this book as a persuasive argument she failed miserably. I highly recommend that people do not read this book. It is not worth the effort.

The Case for God

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