Reviews for Army, Its Role and Rule: A History of the Pakistan Army from Independence to Kargil, 1967-1999

The average rating for Army, Its Role and Rule: A History of the Pakistan Army from Independence to Kargil, 1967-1999 based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-04-17 00:00:00 Jessica El Okay, I should say this is not really a review of this excellent if slightly leaden book, but that will be nothing new to you all. Goodreads is a hit and miss kind of a thing, and all the better for it, I think. Richard Dawkins commissioned a survey of the British people. He saw that "the number of people selecting 'Christian' on [British] Census forms has traditionally been rather high (in 2001 it was 72%), and this percentage has regularly been seized on by those trying to justify or increase religious influence in public life. Clergy, politicians and Christian lobbyists love to use such results to declare that the UK is a Christian nation and imply that there is therefore popular support for Christian influence in public life and hostility to secularism." So the research was trying to ask the question - when people describe themselves as Christian, what actually do they mean? They found this - all the figures below refer to people who itentify themselves as Christians. 37% of self-identified Christians have never or almost never prayed outside a church service Asked where they seek most guidance in questions of right and wrong, only 10% of self-identified Christians said it was from religious teachings or beliefs when given 4 books of the Bible to select from and asked which was the first book of the New Testament, only 35% could identify Matthew as the correct answer. self-identified Christians are likely to consider themselves to be Christian because they were christened or baptised into the religion (72%) or because their parents were members of the religion (38%) than because of personal belief. As many as half (50%) do not think of themselves as religious and less than a third (30%) claim to have strong religious beliefs. One in six (15%) admits to having never read the Bible outside a church service, with a further one in three (36%) not having done so in the previous three years; The majority (60%) have not read any part of the Bible, independently and from choice, for at least a year; Only a quarter (26%) say they completely believe in the power of prayer, with one in five (21%) saying they either do not really believe in it or do not believe in it at all. At the same time, many who self-identify as Christian hold beliefs that some churches would consider to be incompatible with traditional Christian teaching, such as astrology and reincarnation (27% in each case), ghosts (36%) and fate (64%). The low level of religious belief and practice among those calling themselves Christian is reflected in church attendance. Apart from special occasions such as weddings, funerals and baptisms, half (49%) had not attended a church service in the previous 12 months. One in six (16%) have not attended for more than ten years, and a further one in eight (12%) have never attended at all. Just a third (32%) believe Jesus was physically resurrected, with one in five (18%) not believing in the resurrection even in a spiritual sense; half (49%) do not think of Jesus as the Son of God, with one in twenty-five (4%) doubting he existed at all. **** In my experience the people in my own family who were church-going Christians did not really know much about Christian belief and didn't read the Bible either. I'm not dismissing what they did as superficial socialising though, and here is, i suppose, my point. It's hard to know what religion is. Even if people are not equipped intellectually to discuss or even formulate attitudes to questions of religion, even if they just need a puff or two of Christian-scented airspray three times a year and that's enough, should we therefore, as Richard Dawkins wishes to do, declare that they're all really atheists and that their self-identification as Christians is just a tribal echo or verbal security blanket, a psychological attenuated tailbone no longer used but which would take too much surgery to lop off entirely? Intellectually, I'm with Richard. But I don't know. This still gives me a shiver : And am I born to die? And lay this body down? And will my trembling spirits fly Into a world unknown A land of deeper shade Unpierced by human thought The dreary region of the dead Where all things are forgot Soon as from earth I go What will become of me? Eternal happiness or woe Must then my fortune be Waked by the trumpet's sound I from my grave shall rise And see the Judge with glory crowned And see the flaming skies

Review # 2 was written on 2018-04-07 00:00:00 Jesse Crofoot In A History of Atheism in Britain, David Berman chronicles the thoughts and heritage of atheists in a fascinating study of atheism and its origins in Britain. Reviewing key philosophical works, this engaging text examines the social and psychological forces that have alternately embraced or denied atheism across time.