Cappy's Reviews > The World's Religions

The book is thoroughly uneven - strong at some points (Hinduism, Buddhism, articulating the merits of the world's wisdom tradtions) and weak at others (Judaism, Tribal religions, covering the nuts and bolts of the world's religions).

"As it was, the first 'draft' of my book was delivered to a television audience, and the director of the series never let me forget that audience. This is not a classroom where you have a captive audience, he kept reminding me. If you lose their attention for thirty seconds they will switch stations and you won't get them back. So make your points if you must...But illustrate them immediately, with an example, an anecdote, a fragment of poetry, something that will connect your point to things your audience can relate to." (pg. xi-xii)

"What a strange fellowship this is, the God-seekers in every land, lifting their voices in the most disparate ways imaginable to the God of all life. How does it sound from above? Like bedlam, or do the strains blend in strange, ethereal harmony? Does one faith carry the lead, or do the parts share in counterpoint and antiphony where not in full-throated chorus?" (pg. 2)

"The empowering theological and metaphysical truths of the world's religions are...inspired. Institutions - religious institutions emphatically included - are another story. Constituted as they are of people with their inbuilt frailties, institutions are built of vices as well as virtues." (pg. 5)

"Science makes major contributions to minor needs, [Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes:] was fond of saying, adding that religion, however small its successes, is at least at work on the things that matter the most." (pg. 9)

"Religion is not primarily a matter of facts; it is a matter of meanings." (pg. 10)

"If we were to take Hinduism as a whole - its vast literature, its complicated rituals, its sprawling folkways, its opulent art - and compress it into a single affirmation, we would find it saying: You can have what you want." (pg. 13)

"Though in some watered-down sense there may be a religion of self-worship, true religion begins with the quest for meaning and value beyond self-centeredness. It renounces the ego's claim to finality." (pg. 19)

"A distinctive feature of human nature is its capacity to think of something that has no limits: the infinite." (pg. 21)

"Life is so filled with disappointments that we are likely to assume they are built into the human condition." (pg. 23)

"By and large, life is powered less by reason than by emotion, and of the many emotions that crowd the human heart, the strongest is love." (pg. 32)

"Work is the staple of human life. The point is not simply that all but a few people must work to survive. Ultimately, the drive to work is psychological rather than economic. Forced to be idle, most people become irritable; forced to retire, they decline." (pg. 37)

"How long can the average mind think of one thing - one thing only, without slipping first into thinking about thinking about that thing and taking off from ther on a senseless chain of irrelavencies? About three and a half seconds, psychologists tell us." (pg. 48)

Consider Shankara's invocation of "Oh Thou, before whom all words recoil." (pg. 60)

"Most people have little idea how much they secretly bank on luck - hard luck to justify past failures, good luck to bring future successes. How many people drift through life simply waiting for the breaks." (pg. 65)

"It is no accident that the only art form India failed to produce was tragedy." (pg. 72)

Consider "[Hinduism's:] conviction that the various major religions are alternate paths to the same goal. To claim salvation as the monopoly of any one religion is like claiming that God can be found in this room but not the next, in this attire but not another." (pg. 73)

"[Buddha:] was undoubtedly one of the greatest rationalists of all times, resembling in this respect no one as much as Socrates. Every problem that came his way was subjected to cool, dispassionate analysis." (pg. 88)

"Dukkha, then, names the pain that to some degree colors all finite existence...it was used in Pali to refer to wheels whose axles were off-center...A modern metaphor might be a shopping cart that we try to steer from the wrong end." (pg. 101)

"Reason's most vociferous detractors must admit that it plays at least this much of a role in human life: Whether or not it has the power to lure, it clearly holds power of veto." (pg. 106)

"Metaphysics is unavoidable. Everyone harbors some notions about ultimate questions, and these notions affect interpretations of subsidiary issues." (pg. 113)

"Some problems are posed so clumsily by our language as to preclude solution by their very formulation." (pg. 118)

"Religions invariably split." (pg. 120)

"What is the best part of the human self, its head or its heart? A popular parlor game used to revolve around the question, 'If you had to choose, would you rather be loved or respected?'" (pg. 121)

"Though Confucius did not author Chinese culture, he was its supreme editor." (pg. 154)

"There is plenty of violence in nature, but on the whole it is between species, not within them." (pg. 161)

"Individualism and self-consciousness are contagious. Once they appear, they spread like epidemic and wildfire. Unreflective solidarity is a thing of the past." (pg. 163)

"To harp exclusively on love is to preach ends without means." (pg. 167)

"Altruism is not much engendered by exhortation." (pg. 168)

"Genius does not depend upon full, self-conscious understanding of its creations...Probably all exceptional creativity proceeds more by intuitive feel than by explicit discernment." (pg. 170)

Consider that the name Muhammad "has been born by more male children than any other in the world." (pg. 224)

"From without, the Koran is all but impenetrable. No one has ever curled up on a rainy weekend to read the Koran." (pg. 233)

"God's compassion and mercy are cited 192 times in the Koran, as against 17 references to his wrath and vengeance." (pg. 237)

"Heroism is never a mass option." (pg. 253)

"Spain and Anatolia changed hands at about the same time - Christians expelled the Moors from Spain, while Muslims conquered what is now Turkey. every Muslim was driven from Spain, put to the sword, or forced to convert, whereas the seat of the Eastern Orthodox church remains in Instanbul to this day." (pg. 256)

"Every religion at some stages in its career has been used by its professed adherents to mask aggression." (pg. 257)

"Mysticism breaks through the boundaries that protect the faith of the typical believer." (pg. 264)

"Compared with the histories of Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, and Syria, Jewish history is strictly minor league." (pg. 272)

"The word sin comes from a root meaning 'to miss the mark.'" (pg. 281)

"Nobody likes moral rules anymore than they like stop lights or 'no left turn' signs." (pg. 286)

"The Prophetic Principle can be put as follows: The prerequisite of political stability is social justice." (pg. 292)

"The idea of progress - belief that the conditions of life can improve, and that history can in this sense get somewhere - originated in the West." (pg. 296)

"The idea that a universal God decided that divine nature should be uniquely and incoparably disclosed to a single people is among the most difficult notions to take seriously in the entire study of religion." (pg. 307)

"We have heard Jesus' teachings so often that their edges have been worn smooth, dulling their subversiveness." (pg. 326)

"Doctrins...seem tedious if not incredible and at times annoying." (pg. 339)

"Every people, oursleves not excepted, needs to think well of its origins; it is part of having a healthy self-image." (pg. 381)

"The worthful aspects of reality - its values, meaning and purpose - slip through the devices of science in the way that the sea slips through the nets of fishermen." (pg. 386)