World Religions
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Hardcover - USA - 1st edition. |
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World Religions: Beliefs and Traditions from Around the Globe is a primer on world religions by Robert Pollock and published in October, 2008.
The book gives basic information about the beliefs of around 50 religions including all of the popular ones, as well as several smaller interesting ones.
Personal
| Own? | Hardcover, 1st edition. |
|---|---|
| Read? | Hardcover, 1st edition. |
| Finished | Late-2000s. |
I bought this book in the bargain section of a book store. I read it in the late 2000s and was left with a good impression, and reread it years later after learning more about world religions, and my impression had decreased significantly.
Review
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Overall: |
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Good
- For the 50 religions it covers, it gives you a general idea of the religion's origins, prophets, and scriptures, its rituals and holy days, and a general idea of what sets it apart from others.
- This book includes just enough information on each religion for it to be informative without becoming tedious.
Bad
- For something as visual as religion, you would expect to see a variety of photographs of costumes, relics, icons, symbols, etc., but the book doesn't have any illustrations at all.
- The book gives plenty of info about what the various religions believe, but not so much why, and nothing about if the beliefs are justified. Also, while it briefly mentions some of the negative aspects of religions, it doesn't address some of the more egregious problems like Martin Luther's antisemitism, Muslims murdering apostates, Hindus believing poor people deserve to stay poor, Scientology being made up entirely to profit off the credulous, etc. And, even for the minor problems it does mention, it doesn't go into any depth as to how religions caused them to happen. Also, the book ignores nearly all of the negative afterlife and spirits of religions. For example, in the 54 pages devoted to Christianity, I don't think Hell or Satan are even mentioned, despite them playing a major role in the faith! Likewise, the section on Islam doesn't mention Jahannam or jinni, and the section on Hinduism doesn't mention Naraka.
- For most sections, the author uses the language of the religious rather than the language of an scholar. He will write that a priest "talks to god" or "heals the sick," instead of saying they believe they do these things.
- Several sections of the book belie that it was not only written primarily with a Christian audience in mind, but that it promotes Christianity as the "correct" faith, even if only inadvertently. For example:
- In the section on Judaism, the author makes the faux pas of referring to the tanakh as the "old testament." The author further complicates matters by quoting from an English translation of the Torah made by Christians rather than Jews. Later, he does point out that Jews don't refer to the tanakh as "old," but still doesn't seem to grasp that the view "old testament" as a pejorative.
- The time line at the end of the book is almost entirely focused on event from Christian mythology, but it also features a lot of minor Christian events while leaving out some very important ones. Also, based on its wording, it describes Moses receiving the Ten Commandments from Yahweh as an event that actually happened, which most historians reject (as do pretty much all people from non Abrahamic religions, since, if it really did happen, it would invalidate their religion). I'm hoping the author meant this is when the Abrahamic faiths believe it happened.
- The structure is odd at times. For example, some of the largest Christian denominations, like Protestantism and Orthodox, are listed in the section labeled "Other Christian Faiths," while minor groups like the Amish and Mennonites are listed in "Prevalent Christian Faiths." It's almost as if they're in reverse. A tree diagram would have been much more effective at showing the religion's evolution.
- I spotted a few obvious typos. Nothing that prevented me from figuring out what was intended, but it indicates lax copy editing.
Ugly
- In the New Age section, the author claims that intercessory prayer seems to be effective at healing people according to scientific studies. However, every properly controlled study shows that it doesn't. The author is either cherry-picking, or poorly versed on the topic.
- While there isn't anything really bad, the book has an overall amateur feeling to it which makes me question the accuracy of its information.
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