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    God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World, And Why Their Differences Matter
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    God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World, And Why Their Differences Matter
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    God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World, And Why Their Differences Matter
    Ebook470 pages19 hours

    God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World, And Why Their Differences Matter

    By Stephen Prothero

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    About this ebook

    A fascinating guide to religion and its place in the world today.

    In God Is Not One, bestselling author Stephen Prothero makes a fresh and provocative argument that, contrary to popular understanding, all religions are not simply “different paths to the same God.” Instead, he shows that the differences between the major religions are far greater than we think: they each ask different questions, tackle different problems, and aim at different goals.

    God Is Not One highlights the unique aspects of the world’s major religions, with chapters on Islam, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Yoruba religion, Judaism, Daoism and atheism.

    Lucid and compelling, God Is Not One offers a new understanding of religion for the twenty-first century.

    ‘A very much needed book!’ —Miroslav Volf, Professor, Yale University, and author of Exclusion and Embrace

    ‘… [God Is Not One] has a sense of purpose and a feistiness that is refreshing.’ —The Sydney Morning Herald

    ‘Provocative, thoughtful, fiercely intelligent … a must-read.’ —Booklist

    ‘Enormously timely, thoughtful and balanced’ —Los Angeles Times

    ‘… an admirable work of public intellectualism.’ —Courier Mail
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBlack Inc. Books
    Release dateMar 31, 2011
    ISBN9781921866388
    Author

    Stephen Prothero

    Stephen Prothero is the New York Times bestselling author of Religious Literacy and God Is Not One and a professor of religion at Boston University. His work has been featured on the cover of TIME magazine, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, NPR, and other top national media outlets. He writes and reviews for the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, The Washington Post, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Salon, Slate, and other publications. Visit the author at www.stephenprothero.com or follow his tweets @sprothero.

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    Reviews for God is Not One

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    • 4/5
      All is not sweetness and light on the religious front, this does not surprise me. I was impressed and intetrested by his coverage of the one I had never heard of, Yoruba. I was dismayed by his use of statistics, page 85, parapharsed, "in 1800 23% of the world was Christian, between 1815 and 1915 the number of Christian's in the US jumped 10 fold," the total population jumped something considerable. there are other comparisions of percentage increases and total numbers increases as if they were the same.The brief coda on atheism says "it has aways been for elites rather than ordinary folk" and had no impact before the 20th centuary, next paragraph " Buddists, Jains and some Hindus also denied a personnal god" AH, Buddists's had no impact?
    • 5/5
      Stephen Prothero, a professor of religious studies, is passionate about religions and their differences. He believes that religious literacy is an essential surivival skill in the modern world.In _God is Not One_, Prothero gives clear descriptions of the eight most influential religions in the world (Islam, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Yoruba, Buddhism, Judaism and Daoism), showing how they are different one from another, and how their practice affects society.As a former teacher of religious education, I wish I had a text like this, engaging, informative, encylopedic, for my own interest as well as for my students.
    • 3/5
      I found God is Not One mildly interesting, but not especially compelling. The main substance of the book is eight chapters describing in some depth the eight great world religions: Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Yoruba Religion, Judaism, and Daoism, with an additional shorter "coda" on atheism. In the introduction and conclusion Prothero argues that these religions are not in fact all the same or striving towards the same thing, and that the way to live with diversity is to better understand it in all its glory.

      I understand and agree for the most part with Prothero's argument that the religions are not all the same, but I don't think I ever particularly thought they were all the same, so I didn't especially need convincing on this point. Prothero's framework for describing the religions is this idea that each religion views some problem with the world and presents a solution; for example, Christianity views the problem as sin and the solution as salvation. I found this to be a rather simplistic perspective (which he does in fact admit himself) and, more significantly, not very useful in helping me better understand religion. Reading descriptions of the practices and beliefs of each religion is all well and good, but I don't feel that I actually understand religious people any better now. Prothero's descriptions of the religions were certainly thorough, but I found them a bit dry and abstract. I agree wholeheartedly that in order to peacefully coexist with people different from ourselves, we need to understand their context, including their religious context, but I don't think that the knowledge I gained from God is Not One is sufficient for this. After all, each individual is different and unique in how they personally interpret, understand, and practice their religion, and therefore the only true way to gain understanding is to get to know individual people and hear their personal perspectives and experiences with their religion.

      I additionally did not particularly like Prothero's chapter on atheism. For one thing, he claims it is a religion, and for another, he spent the majority of the chapter on the "New Atheists" who are quite stringently anti-religious and very likely do not represent the majority of atheists. Overall, the chapter demonstrated to me a lack of understanding on Prothero's part as to what it really means to be an atheist.

      Through-out my reading of the book, I was reminded of a quote by F. Forrester Church that I read in another book: "Religion is our human response to the dual reality of being alive and having to die." For me, this quote does far more towards helping me understand religion than all of God is Not One. I finished this book realizing that what I really wanted to understand is the psychology of religion - how it is that so many people believe things that, to me, seem completely wacko. With this in mind, I went to the library today and found a book titled The Religious Case Against Belief, by James P. Carse. His premise is that there is in fact a distinction between religion and belief (which would mean my earlier sentence is incorrectly conflating religion and belief), and I look forward to reading what he has to say.
    • 5/5
      Accessible, informative, insightful. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      A very readable overview of the eight religious beliefs/practices with the most influence on the modern world: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Yoruba, Judaism, and Daoism. Includes common beliefs and practices, as well as the social manifestations / implications of those beliefs. Overall, the tone is very open, respectful and engaged. Even while I found some areas in which I didn't necessarily agree with the author's conclusions, I could (usually) understand why he came to them. Of course, with a scope this broad, it can't get into much depth; fortunately, the author provides plentiful endnotes. The only area where I found the book lacking was it's presentation of Christianity and the form of atheism related to it. The screed at the end against what the author calls New Atheism or angry atheism was an unfortunate coda for an otherwise thoughtful book; he seems unable to see the broader context in which this movement exists, and his blatant antipathy to Christian-reactive atheism almost completely undercut the whole "respect through understanding divergent beliefs" point of the book. (Interestingly, he's quite sanguine about atheism within the context of other religions. Also interesting, to me, was the complete lack of mention of questions about the historicity of Jesus, when he does mention similar debates within several other religions.)Those problems aside, I do think this is a great introduction to world religions for people with an honest desire to understand them on their own terms.
    • 5/5
      Ignore the "Run the World" part of the title - the important part is "Why Their Differences Matter". Prothero makes an important argument: that all the religions of the world are not, in fact, the same, and that if we're serious about coexisting, we should really learn who we're coexisting with.

      I didn't know much at all about some of the religions discussed in this book, so I also learned a fair bit about them specifically.
    • 2/5
      The author intends to enlighten his audience by briefly covering eight major religions. I say briefly since it is the equivalent of looking at the seven wonders of the world by looking out the window of a speeding car. He makes the assumption that people know absolutely nothing about any of these religions with his target audience ignorant atheists. Prothero makes allusions to those who would blur the difference between religions as atheists as well. What puzzled me was that the book covers only the barest of fundamentals for each religion and discusses them from an intellectual perspective. I assume he does that to convince atheists to the difference, but I felt faith is left out of the discussion. That's a rather important part if not the most important. The content is so brief and goes over only the barest of fundamentals, the founder, how it spread, and core beliefs. He disputes many authors who have chosen to blur the lines of religion, but his edges aren't really sharp enough to dispute them. Yes a Jesus is different from Buddha and creating common ground between them is a simplification, but he doesn't really dispute those concepts when discussing each religion. He states that a religion could be like a sport, in baseball, you win the game by scoring the most runs, in Basketball you win by scoring the most points. I find that's a weak distinction since the principles are the same, just the games are played differently. That also doesn't counter much of the purpose of authors and leaders attempting to find harmony among religions. I would agree that in many cases, these attempts don't seem to stop people from killing each other over religious differences and I would agree that understanding the distinctions lead to tolerance and acceptance. Overall, I found the book to be disappointing and needed more than a basic description of religion and how they are practices. I needed to feel more of the why of the believers. Why do they believe this is the way and why those differences are important. He doesn't cover that and I thought it was the point of the book. 
    • 5/5
      I enjoyed this book and agree with its premise. The religions are different and those differences should be understood and appreciated.He compares the religions on the objective criteria of the diagnosis of the human condition, the offered solution, the technique to implement the solution, and the human exemplar of the faith.I much prefer this approach to that of Huston Smith who seemed to write of religions from a Christian perspective and to see in all religions their essential oneness with Christianity.Prothero discusses some of the founding myths, some of the histories, the heroes of the faiths and their various versions. He looks at Islam, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Yoruba (a previously unknown religion for me), Judaism, and Daoism. He has a short chapter on Atheism, which he did not develop sufficiently. Atheism is deserving I think at least similar treatment. He suggests that Atheism is not as influential as the great religions, and while that might be true, Atheism is growing in influence. That growth suggests its coming importance. Prothero basically suggests that for Atheism, religion is the problem. And I don't think he is accurate in that presentation of Atheism. I think the Way of Reason is more than a negative proposition.
    • 5/5
      I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Prothero argues that all religions are not looking at the same thing from a different perspective, but instead look at different things altogether. He does this by presenting an individual chapter each on Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Yoruba, Judaism, and Daoism (with a coda on Atheism) and outlining their basic beliefs and what their actual focus is on. He presents strongly that not all religions are about getting in to a nice afterlife, or even really about the afterlife at all.I was excited that this book had a significant chapter on Yoruba, something which is overlooked in most other comparative religion books. He also has a bit of a rant about religious scholars who ignore Yoruba because it is not a religion of text, but instead one of oral tradition.Where this book fails is on the actual argument. The book didn't convince me that all religions are totally separate, and he does talk about similarities between them quite a lot. In fact, if you ignore the introduction and conclusion, you could read his book and take away that nearly all religions are actually different aspects of the same wider faith.But the overviews of each religion were interesting and well written for a lay audience.
    • 4/5
      This was the final book we read for the Ill Fated Muslim Book Club.Stephen Prothero's argument is that the eight biggest relgions in the world (and he even makes some space for atheists!) are all standing on different 'spiritual mountaintops' and as such are approaching God from completely different and incompatible angles. He tries to sum up each major religion by one word or theme. Chances are, if it is your religion, you will feel he has not touched upon all the 'depth' of your faith -yet he has covered those 'other people's relgion' just fine! The book club concensus was that Prof. Prothero had not made a compelling case for his "they are all completely different" argument- still too much gray area in this.My husband chose this book, in large part, because there is an extensive section on Yoruba religions. Since many Western religion books overlook the contribution of African religion and culture, this was a very nice introduction to this complicated and story-rich tradition. I loved the Yoruba tales.Alas, the Muslims couldn't be bothered to read about other people's religions. We had our lowest turn-out ever. Only one other person had read the entire book. The other couple that turned up admitted they had only read the Islam section and found it too thin.This was the book that broke the Ill Fated Muslim Book Club. After this book, came Ramadan, my husband followed my advice, and the Ill Fated Muslim Book Club died with a whimper.My husband concluded, "People like the IDEA of a book club, they can pretend to be intellectuals. But when it comes to the actual work, the actual DOING of being an intellectual (reading, thinking, discussing), they don't want to do that." We had confronted, up close and personal, the Poseur mentality.So that's my story of the Ill Fated Muslim Book Club. We had a list of 30 people, we live in a community that prides itself on their economic and intellectual prowess, many consider themselves leaders and role models. Despite all this "promise", we couldn't make it work. Now if we had gotten the local shaykh to get involved.....
    • 4/5
      This book delivered exactly what I wanted--basic religious literacy. It lays out the basic beliefs, themes and practices of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Daoism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Yoruba and Buddhism with clear and engaging writing. That's a tall order, and sometimes it gets kind of dense, but given the task, Prothero did a great job. His tone remains objective and his focus is on helping the reader appreciate the differences between religions without favoring one over another. This approach is geared at offering a means to understand how religion affects and influences society and culture in broader ways. At the end is an excellent essay on atheism.
    • 5/5
      If you are looking for a book that gives an honest review of Islam, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Yoruba, Judaism, Daoism/Taoism, and Atheism this is your book. I was assigned this as a textbook in a religion class and was bowled over.
    • 5/5
      Religion remains the holder of traditions which influence the world, and many liberals portray them as different paths to the same "truths". Although he never explains exactly what is "dangerous" about this universalist discernment, Stephen Prothero disagrees. Ironically, however, in this accessible and scholarly work, Prothero displays their differences such an engaging and sympathetic way that he creates the compassion which is the underlying unity of Religions. And importantly for "comparing and contrasting", this work presents a system for analyzing the eight largest "faiths". We all do this, because beliefs are always "rivals". He fairly notes that there are similarities, but he flags their differences. He suggests that the universalism of their themes is an "Atheist lie". [66] However, he fails to demonstrate that Religious difference are more fundamental than their similarities. He suggests that the factions within each Religion are monuments to the differences. [66]. Many of us disagree, since many of the sects within each Religion expose "difference without a difference". Schisms within the Protestants and Muslims are more profound than between them, facts which Prothero in fact acknowledges. There are, of course, historical conflicts between nations--involving panoplies of political, economic, and cultural belief systems. Prothero systematically presents eight rival religions, starting with the "most influential" (not "largest"): Islam: The Way of Submission, Christianity: The Way of Salvation, Confucianism: The way of Propriety, Hinduism: The Way of Devotion, Buddhism: The Way of Awakening, Yoruba: The Way of Connection, Judaism: The Way of Exile and Return, and Daoism: The Way of Flourishing. In the 9th Chapter a Brief Coda on Atheism: The Way of Reason. The subtitles he attaches are his own, which he uses to take us into and across these eight silos of Faith. ‘“The Tao has ten thousand gates,’ say the masters, and it is up to each of us to find our own.” Prothero describes the comparison: “To explore the great religions is to wander through these ten thousand gates. It is to enter into the Hindu conversations on the logic of karma and rebirth, Christian conversation on the mechanics of sin and resurrection, and Daoist conversations on flourishing here and now (and perhaps forever). It is also to encounter rivalries between Hindus and Muslims in India, between Jews and Muslims in Israel, and between Christians and Yoruba practitioners in Nigeria. Each of these rivals offers a different vision of “a human being fully alive.” Religions diagnose the human problem, prescribe cures, and provide models for living. For Muslims, pride is the problem, the solution is submission in an orthopraxy devoted to a metaphor of Five Pillars--saying the Shahadah, salat (prayer), zakat (charity), sawm (fasting), and hajj (pilgrimmage). The exemplar is Muhammad [38]. Citing Wilfred Smith, Prothero sees a parallel between Jesus and the Quran. "Whereas the Word of God that is Jesus came into the wold through the pure vessel of a woman who had never had sex, the Word of God that is the Quran came into the world through the pure vessel of a man who could neither read nor write. Reciting the Quran, therefore, is like partaking of the Christian Eucharist. It is how you incorporate the divine into your body." [39] While adding these astonishing parallels, Prothero inexplicably drops the women out of the history of Muslims--his first converts, transcribers of his dictations, and Aisha as the author of most of the Hadiths. The Quran is preoccupied with doctrine rather than narrative, telling How Muslims should do things. The suras are presented in order of their length. A persistent social theme is justice, forcefully and frequently on behalf of the helpless and poor. [42] Islam emphasizes life after death--"Hundreds of verses detail the horrors of hell, the splendors of Paradise, the rewards awaiting martyrs, the mechanics of the resurrection, and the prophesies and procedures of the Day of Judgement." [43] The Quran (and the prophets) warn us not to forget. So the Quran is revelation recited, and reminder to remember. Prothero provides frequent citations to the Holy Quran, in a granular study of text.Christians say Sin is the problem, and salvation is the solution; Confucius taught that education and ritual are key techniques. "Over the long haul of human history, Confucianism may have carried more clout than any other religion." [101] The Analects provide the Golden Rule before Jesus' utterance and the mandate of knowing your self, before Socrates. "The Great Man understands what is moral; the small man understands what is profitable." [102] Behind the rise of Asia is the "invisible hand" of Confucius.The Buddhist exemplars are the arhat (for Theravadins), the bodhisattva (for Mahayanists), and the lama (for Tibetan Buddhists).Daoism sides with "freedom, spontaneity, and naturalness". [101, 279]The first chapter proposes a four-part approach to comparing Religions: Each religion articulates a Problem, a Solution, a Technique, and an Exemplar.Yoruba, Atheism is briefly discussed. It does not appear to me that Prothero even arguably refutes the emergent view that those who have "spiritual experiences" are not in fact worshiping the same God. We join with Prothero in seeing the need to view the differences between our religions to discuss and understand them. He uses the word "dangerous" without spelling out why the discovery of the common theme of compassion, for example, which the Dalai Lama has clearly expounded, is dangerous! Prothero compares the religions using objective neutral criteria: diagnosis of the human condition, the offered solution, the technique to implement the solution, and the human exemplar of the faith.Compare this approach to that of Huston Smith who presses all religions into a Christian perspective, finding their sameness and even essential oneness with Christianity.Atheism is not a completed analysis. Prothero suggests that Atheism is not as influential as the great religions, but is growing in influence. Its growth is perhaps "under the radar". Prothero seems to suggest that for Atheism, religion is the problem.The subtitle is "Why Their Differences Matter". The point for all of us is that we coexist. We need to learn who we're coexisting with.
    • 4/5
      Prothero’s title hypothesis that “God Is Not One” sets forth the notion that it is futile to try to resolve religious differences by insisting that, underneath the trappings, all are the same, and that coexistence among different faiths depends on acknowledging this.His first and last chapters set forth the proposition and solution; the remaining 300+ pages are devoted to brief histories and examinations of “the eight rival religions that run the world”. The central section, while interesting, is sometimes a slog, and the reader can be forgiven for occasionally wishing that Prothero would just get on with it and let us go on to something else.At the same time, his examinations of religions such as Yoruba, Daoism, and Confucianism – utterly foreign to most Western readers – is informative, if occasionally mind-bending. As a comparative religion primer, it’s a fine resource. As a sociological study of the ways human beings need to approach their different beliefs, it’s rather thin broth.
    • 5/5
      God is not One by Stephen Prothero makes the point that all religions are indeed different. There are similarities between them, but many fundamental differences. That’s why there is conflict between nations’ political, economic, and cultural belief’s systems. Prothero therefore examines eight rival religions, viz., Islam: The Way of Submission, Christianity: The Way of Salvation, Confucianism: The way of Propriety, Hinduism: The Way of Devotion, Buddhism: The Way of Awakening, Yoruba: The Way of Connection, Judaism: The Way of Exile and Return, and Daoism: The Way of Flourishing. In the 9th Chapter a Brief Coda on Atheism: The Way of Reason was addressed. ‘“The Tao has ten thousand gates,’ say the masters,and it is up to each of us to find our own.” Prothero explains, “To explore the great religions is to wander through these ten thousand gates. It is to enter into the Hindu conversations on the logic of karma and rebirth, Christian conversation on the mechanics of sin and resurrection, and Daoist conversations on flourishing here and now (and perhaps forever). It is also to encounter rivalries between Hindus and Muslims in India, between Jews and Muslims in Israel, and between Christians and Yoruba practitioners in Nigeria. Each of these rivals offers a different vision of “a human being fully alive.” Each offers its own diagnosis of the human problem and its own prescription for a cure…. Muslims say pride is the problem; Christians say salvation is the solution; education and ritual are key Confucian techniques; and Buddhism’s exemplars are the arhat (for Theravadins), the bodhisattva (for Mahayanists), and the lama (for Tibetan Buddhists).”Conflicts at the national and international levels are to be expected. But people and societies should aim at fostering interreligious understanding to be able to work together in peace.