Reviews for Little Book on Religion for People Who Are Not Religious

The average rating for Little Book on Religion for People Who Are Not Religious based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-03-10 00:00:00 Igor Van Driessche پژوهنده صاحبنظر، در این کتاب "صور" و "اشکال" عالم قداست و دیانات و آئین‌ها و اساطیر و رمزها را بررسی کرده است. دو مسأله مذهب چیست؟ و به چه میزانی می‌توان از تاریخ ادیان سخن گفت؟ موضوع اصلی کتاب است و چون نویسنده در باب فایده تعریف مقدماتی پدیده مذهبی بدگمان است، در این کتاب به بحث درباره تجلیات قداست یا لاهوت به گسترده‌ترین معنای کلمه بسنده شده است. در نتیجه فقط پس از بررسی شمار کلانی از این تجلیات، می‌توان مسأله تاریخ اشکال و صور مذهبی را مطرح ساخت. روش تحقیق نویسنده در این کتاب بسیار ساده و قابل اطمینان است. او پژوهش خود را با شرح چندین تجلی قداست در کیهان، قداستی که در سطوح و مراتب مختلف کیهان، در آسمان و آب و زمین و سنگ، ظاهر می‌شود، آغاز کرده است، نه بدین علت که آن را کهن‌ترین تجلیات قداست می‌پندارد بلکه از این‌رو که شرح آن‌ها از سویی، دیالکتیک قداست و از سوی دیگر ساختمان و ساختارهای ظرف قداست را توضیح می‌دهد.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-11-27 00:00:00 Austin Roberts This is a book which I haven't known how to shelve here for some time. I picked it up at a used book sale in the early 80s on a whim, and read the first chapter; but I never got back to it, and eventually donated it to the library here at Bluefield College. It's sat on my "maybe-to-read" shelf for awhile; but realistically, I'm facing the fact that in the years I have left, there are too many other subjects I want to investigate more than the themes in the rest of this book. So, "started -not-finished" is the more honest shelf choice. In this case, though, that's not a negative judgment on the book; on the contrary, I liked and benefited from what I read --I think that chapter was, from my personal perspective, the real "meat" of the book anyway! The book is organized in terms of broad common themes running through a large number of the world's religious traditions (with particular attention to "primitive" religions), over a worldwide geographical range. And the first of these to be treated is the idea of a transcendent Creator sky god, not identified with any heavenly body --a surprisingly widely distributed concept, including not only the Semitic El, but such deities as the Siberian Bai Ulgen, etc. To me, that chapter was fascinating, and IMO, the facts presented strongly suggest primitive monotheism. (Eliade himself stops short of drawing that conclusion; but he does present several bibliographic references to other scholars who do draw it.) From what I did read and skim, I would say that for any readers who have a serious interest in comparative religion, this would be a great introduction to that field. (During his lifetime, Romanian scholar Eliade was a world-class authority on the subject; he served as editor-in-chief for Macmillan's monumental 1987 Encyclopedia of Religion, and also wrote Shamanism in Siberia, the definitive study of that phenomenon.)