Status Updates From Religion as We Know It: An ...

Insufferably dull. One interesting point, however was that the concept of religion as we think of it in the contemporary western world was influenced by the way Christianity considered the idea, as it may not be so in other religions.

Really bad. Mentions “The Norton Anthology of World Religions,” which he worked on, waaay too many times. Only the prologue had something that was new/interesting to me: that religion as we think of it in the contemporary western world is a construct of Christian ways of thinking.

"All that we can say is that everything is arranged in this life as though we entered it carrying a burden of obligations contracted in a former life;"

"...our ignorance always exceeds our knowledge, and the gap between the two grows infinitely greater, not smaller, as infinite time passes.”

"The fourth corner of the world religion square was occupied by a ghost—"

"In the first century, conversion thus defined was an unprecedented and socially disruptive novelty."

"And what happens to the notion of pluralism if, in fact, there does not exist a plurality of different religions but only a plurality of miscellaneous activities all of which people have for some perverse reason been calling religions?"

"Try proving the existence of human dignity. It’s about as easy as proving the existence of God."

"...our ignorance always exceeds our knowledge, and the gap between the two grows infinitely greater, not smaller, as infinite time passes.”

tipsy but i made it through a good chunk before bed