God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter - Hardcover

Prothero, Stephen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 006157127X ISBN 13: 9780061571275

Publisher: HarperOne, 2010

Synopsis

In God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World, New York Times bestselling author of Religious Literacy and religion scholar Stephen Prothero argues that persistent attempts to portray all religions as different paths to the same God overlook the distinct problem that each tradition seeks to solve. Delving into the different problems and solutions that Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Confucianism, Yoruba Religion, Daoism and Atheism strive to combat, God is Not One is an indispensable guide to the questions human beings have asked for millennia—and to the disparate paths we are taking to answer them today. Readers of Huston Smith and Karen Armstrong will find much to ponder in God is Not One.

About this title

About the Author

Stephen Prothero is the New York Times bestselling author of Religious Literacy and God Is Not One and an emeritus professor of religion at Boston University. His work has been featured on the cover of TIME magazine, and he has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, NPR, and all the major networks. He has written and reviewed for the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Boston Globe, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Salon, Slate, and other publications. Visit the author at www.stephenprothero.com and follow him at sprothero.bsky.social.

From the Back Cover

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, dizzying scientific and technological advancements, interconnected globalized economies, and even the so-called New Atheists have done nothing to change one thing: our world remains furiously religious. For good and for evil, religion is the single greatest influence in the world. We accept as self-evident that competing economic systems (capitalist or communist) or clashing political parties (Republican or Democratic) propose very different solutions to our planet's problems. So why do we pretend that the world's religious traditions are different paths to the same God? We blur the sharp distinctions between religions at our own peril, argues religion scholar Stephen Prothero, and it is time to replace naïve hopes of interreligious unity with deeper knowledge of religious differences.

In Religious Literacy, Prothero demonstrated how little Americans know about their own religious traditions and why the world's religions should be taught in public schools. Now, in God Is Not One, Prothero provides readers with this much-needed content about each of the eight great religions. To claim that all religions are the same is to misunderstand that each attempts to solve a different human problem. For example:

–Islam: the problem is pride / the solution is submission
–Christianity: the problem is sin / the solution is salvation
–Confucianism: the problem is chaos / the solution is social order
–Buddhism: the problem is suffering / the solution is awakening
–Judaism: the problem is exile / the solution is to return to God

Prothero reveals each of these traditions on its own terms to create an indispensable guide for anyone who wants to better understand the big questions human beings have asked for millennia—and the disparate paths we are taking to answer them today. A bold polemical response to a generation of misguided scholarship, God Is Not One creates a new context for understanding religion in the twenty-first century and disproves the assumptions most of us make about the way the world's religions work.

Reviews

Expressing his astonishment, Prothero (Religious Literacy) arrives late at the party that has been celebrating for years the diversity and plurality of the world's religions. Although he is correct in asserting that an entire generation of scholars, teachers, and interested readers have claimed in the interest of religious tolerance that the world's religions were simply different paths to the same one God, such a claim functions as little more than a red herring in what is otherwise a useful introduction to the world's religions. Once past that assertion, Prothero sets up a helpful model for examining each religion on its own terms: he explores a problem that dominates the religion, the religion's solution to the problem, the technique the religion uses to move from problem to solution, and the exemplar who charts a path from problem to solution. For example, in Buddhism the problem is suffering; the solution is nirvana; the technique is the Noble Eightfold Path; and the exemplars are the arhats, bodhisattvas, and lamas. Despite his naïveté about contemporary interreligious dialogue, Prothero's survey is a useful introduction to eight of the world's great religions.
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Prothero vehemently disagrees with the politically correct notion that all religions are equal. “This is a lovely sentiment, but it is dangerous, disrespectful, and untrue.” The idea of religious unity, he maintains, is nothing but wishful thinking. Hence, this book is meant to be—and most definitely is—a bracing dose of realism. Religion is not just a private matter, he continues. Rather, it affects the world from social, economic, political, and military perspectives. Religion has two faces as a force of both good and evil. He discusses what he considers the great religions of the Middle East (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), India (Hinduism and Buddhism), and East Asia (Confucianism and Daoism)—great in this context being contingent on number of adherents and historical significance. As the eighth religion of the subtitle, Prothero includes—which may surprise some—the Yoruba religion of West Africa and its vast diaspora. There is also a brief chapter on atheism. Provocative, thoughtful, fiercely intelligent and, for both believing and nonbelieving, formal and informal students of religion, a must-read. --June Sawyers

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 006157127X
• ISBN 13: 9780061571275
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400