Unconvincing as an all-encompassing theory of monotheism, but refreshing and moving as a plea for pluralism. (24 halftones)
An uneven but often provocative assessment of the significance of monotheism as a force in the history of religion.
Stark (Sociology and Comparative Religion/Univ. of Washington) sets himself an intimidating task, beginning with his sweeping claims that religions in advanced societies typically evolve in the direction of monotheism, and that “belief in a God of infinite scope . . . maximizes the capacity to mobilize human actions on behalf of religion.” Such grand claims, discussed in the first two chapters, can be supported only in the most general terms. Begging the question of how to differentiate between “simple societies” and “advanced civilizations,” the second chapter, which attempts to recount the origins of monotheism, is simplistic, giving any religion that might challenge its thesis—Hinduism, for example, or the polytheism of the Roman Empire—short shrift. In contrast, examinations of early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are incisive. Monotheistic religions, argues Stark, are inevitably more sectarian than more flexible polytheistic religions: “From the start,” he observes, “all of the major monotheisms have been prone to splinter into many True Religions that sometimes acknowledge one another’s right to coexist and sometimes don’t.” He is both authoritative and entertaining when reporting the squabbles among the Sadducees, Pharisees, and Essenes, and the catalogues of heresies that Christianity produced within its first 200 years. Following a rambling, shallow discussion of the Jewish diaspora, the remarkable final chapter argues that greater sectarianism and factionalism is the strength, not the weakness, of monotheistic religions, inspiring more zeal and intellectual energy than either nonexclusive faiths or monolithic state religions: “The key to high levels of local religious commitment and of religious civility is not fewer religions, but more.”
Unconvincing as an all-encompassing theory of monotheism, but refreshing and moving as a plea for pluralism. (24 halftones)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-691-08923-X
Page Count: 338
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2001
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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