Boris Falikov read for us Karen Armstrong’s book The History of God. 4000 years of searching in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
“The daughter of unbelieving parents, the Englishwoman Karen Armstrong felt an irresistible craving for religion as a child and went to a Catholic monastery as a teenager. There she had a hard time: iron discipline was required from the inhabitants, and Karen’s childhood faith was seriously tested. True, the sisters saw the intellectual potential in the young nun and sent her to Oxford to study. Karen took off her monastic vows and took up literary criticism. But religion still took the main place in her life. The Story of God is an attempt to understand and explain why.
God is a human idea. That is why it has been constantly changing throughout world history. Each time has its own God, moreover, the mystics have one, the philosophers have another. But one way or another, people have always had a sense of the beyond, which caused not only horror and awe, but also joy. The comprehension of this contradictory experience underlies the numerous ideas of God, which were replaced only when they ceased to act. Greek polytheism has exhausted itself, and its place was taken by the one God of Christianity, who became a new stimulus and measure of human behavior.
The God of the Middle Ages, who lived among people, was replaced by the distant God of the Protestants. Over time, it became so distant that Nietzsche decided to abolish it, declaring that «God is dead.» But no matter how: for someone he died, but for someone he appeared in a very formidable guise. So, the God of religious fundamentalists pushes them to terrible deeds…
Seek compassion and love in God, showing them to others to the best of your ability
However, Karen Armstrong does not lose optimism. Surveying the centuries-old history of religions, she notices something in common in them. No matter how formidable and unpredictable their God may seem to people, they always looked for love and compassion in him. And, finding, they tried (to the best of their ability) to show these feelings for each other.
The History of God is a useful book. As in the United States, where it became a bestseller, in Russia the interest in the divine is very great, but knowledge is often lacking. Hence the two extremes — ritualism and spontaneous atheism, and both are equally thoughtless. Armstrong suggests a third, a meaningful relationship with God. The idea changes, but not what generates it. And we are still able to freeze in horror and delight before the mystery of being.