Reviews for Is There A God Of Human Rights? The Complex Relationship Between Human Rights And Religion A...

The average rating for Is There A God Of Human Rights? The Complex Relationship Between Human Rights And Religion A... based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-03-13 00:00:00 Craig James Oh dear... I agree with the overall thrust of this book, but the "scholarship", such as it is, to back up the claims is at best shallow and at worst absurd. Deloria combines a disdainful and incredibly superficial "analysis" of Christianity, compressing 2,000 years of human religious thought into a handful of shameful or embarrassing anecdotes, with a rosy and almost equally superficial "analysis" of Native religion. He confuses concepts, refuses to define his terms, and resorts to outlandish fad science from the '70s to back up claims that perhaps the world is different than Western mainstream thought interprets it (ancient astronauts?? really??) He berates modern white people for "idealizing" Native Americans and in the very next chapter makes statements like, "The Indian does not fear death." In some chapters he seems to include all American indigenous peoples in his scope (i.e. including Central and South America), but in one chapter in particular he ridicules the Near Eastern god as being a belligerent egotistical man demanding absolute worship and blood sacrifice, as opposed to Indian religion, by which I assume he's excepting the Maya and Aztec et al. or else that contrast doesn't make sense. He does make some excellent and quite incisive points about modern American culture and our relationship to the environment, but those good points are sparse among silly insults, willfully flimsy analysis, and even outright falsehoods (i.e. the Ancient Egyptians didn't care about immortality, that's just a modern Western interpretation...huh?) This book has been a to-read for a while, and boy am I glad that's over with.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-05-15 00:00:00 Rinat Shajachmetov I really was amazed with the things Vine Deloria Jr. can tell you that you never thought to ask. His writing is a strong call to the kind of self-analysis that helps white Americans to grow up, examine their values, and shamed-faced ask the questions that have never occurred to them before. I feel like I could listen to these thoughts for the rest of my life on loop and only be the better for it.