Here are 100 books that Who Believes What? Exploring the World’s Major Religions fans have personally recommended if you like
Who Believes What? Exploring the World’s Major Religions.
Shepherd is a community of 10,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.
My passion for studying religion started decades ago, now culminating in a master's degree from Harvard in religion. My main interest is religious literacy, and my master's thesis is on religious literacy among healthcare providers, which is not surprising since I myself work in healthcare. I am particularly interested in interfaith approaches that unite people of diverse religious and nonreligious backgrounds in a common goal of doing some good in the world.
I like this book because it tries to be nonjudgmental and to explain why certain religions have the beliefs, practices, rites, rituals, and ceremonies that they do. It is, however, a little judgmental and Christian-centric in places. For example, it presents some ancient transcendent beliefs as "superstitious" but not other, modern ones, and it presents core beliefs of Christianity, such as the resurrection of Jesus Christ as a matter of fact, i.e., without qualifying text such as "Christians believe that…" but for similarly central Muslim beliefs, such as that Allah made revelations to the Prophet Muhammad, it uses the appropriately qualifying text, "Muslims … believe that…" All in all, not a bad intro to religions of the world.
An illustrated history of world religion ranges from the ancient beliefs of Egypt, Babylonia, Greece, and the Americas to the origins and practices of modern faiths, discussing the worship, festivals, and tenets of each religion.
My passion for studying religion started decades ago, now culminating in a master's degree from Harvard in religion. My main interest is religious literacy, and my master's thesis is on religious literacy among healthcare providers, which is not surprising since I myself work in healthcare. I am particularly interested in interfaith approaches that unite people of diverse religious and nonreligious backgrounds in a common goal of doing some good in the world.
What I like best about this book is that it is particularly well edited by one of the best scholars of religion today (Martin Marty), and that it is very unbiased, not favoring any one religion over others, simply stating what believers in each faith tradition generally believe and do. It is a little light on indigenous religions but gives a good overview of and introduction to the major faith traditions, covering the Abrahamic, Vedic, and other major traditions in adequate, appropriate detail. Highly recommended.
Faith plays an important part in the lives of people around the world, and often the faith of one person or nation has an effect on other individuals or countries. The importance of religion is apparent in the daily routines of people around the world. Ideal for both student and as a family reference, Religions of the World, Revised Edition is an objective guide to understanding faith in the modern world. Religions of the World, Revised Edition examines thekey issues of faith as it exists today. Filled with full-color photographs and illustrations, it explores the beliefs, traditions, festivals, and practices…
My passion for studying religion started decades ago, now culminating in a master's degree from Harvard in religion. My main interest is religious literacy, and my master's thesis is on religious literacy among healthcare providers, which is not surprising since I myself work in healthcare. I am particularly interested in interfaith approaches that unite people of diverse religious and nonreligious backgrounds in a common goal of doing some good in the world.
This book packs a lot into <100 pages and does so very comfortably. Although there are other books better focused on the key issue of religious literacy, I particularly like that this book specifically includes several aspects of religious literacy, such as the fact that religions are all internally diverse, not monolithic, and that we all have a perspective, a situatedness, from which we see and interpret the world around us. In addition to familiarizing readers with common features of common religions like many books do, this one goes further and includes sections on philosophy of religion, on religion and violence in our world, and on religion and science, all of which encourage valuable thinking and reflection. The book does a relatively good job of meeting the stated goal of promoting understanding and respect of different people and different types of belief and nonbelief.
What was the first religion and where did it start? What is atheism? Why do some people wear turbans? Made for kids who ask the hard questions, this book gives answers to these and many more questions about religion.
What Do You Believe? is a perfect introduction to all the main faiths, including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. The book traces the history of different religions and faiths around the world and deconstructs complex topics into easy-to-consume sections.
From the oldest beliefs to new religious movements and modern spirituality, What Do You Believe? presents the facts in an unbiased…
My passion for studying religion started decades ago, now culminating in a master's degree from Harvard in religion. My main interest is religious literacy, and my master's thesis is on religious literacy among healthcare providers, which is not surprising since I myself work in healthcare. I am particularly interested in interfaith approaches that unite people of diverse religious and nonreligious backgrounds in a common goal of doing some good in the world.
I particularly like the way this book embraces pluralism. Although the term "pluralism" is sometimes maligned by friends who lean right politically, a few facts are clear, including that our society is becoming more and more multicultural and pluralistic, and that diverse people will generally live more harmoniously together the more they understand and respect each other. This is a profoundly important truth for kids to learn in this book. The less we and our kids "other" (exclude or see as a threatening other) people outside of our own ingroup, and the more we live by the Golden Rule, applied to all other humans, not just to people in our ingroup(s), the better off we will all be in our increasingly diverse religious landscape. Religious literacy is more important now than ever.
For the five billion people who inhabit the earth, religion is an important part of culture and identity. From the Buddhists of China to the Muslims of the Middle East, people of different origins, languages, and customs have also embraced varied ways of worship. Through detailed illustrations and descriptions, Betsy and Giulio Maestro take a historical look at religious--and show that faiths around the world are as diverse as the people who practice them.
Like many Americans, I consider myself uncertain about religion, though that may be less true now that I have come to know the life of Dorothy Day, the radical Catholic activist. She has that effect. Along with the writers below, Dorothy Day has brought me back to thinking of faith in terms that I could find meaningful, to a sense of religion that is about something other than a set of rules and doctrines based on narrow readings of the Bible and the rigidity of men (yes, always men) in positions of power. I grew up a deeply religious child, became a confirmed atheist for decades, but now, in part because of this book, find myself in a different if still uncertain place.
Armstrong has written brilliant histories of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Chinese spirituality, biographies of Buddha and Mohammed, and a memoir of her own spiritual struggles as a nun who left the Catholic Church. Her reputation as the foremost scholar in our time of the history of religions is well-earned. The Case for God is an erudite account of a human need that has existed through all of recorded history and the thwarting of that need, especially in our own polarized time, by fundamentalism, arrogant misreadings of spiritual texts, and notions of God at odds with the selflessness, creativity, and compassion faith is meant to inspire.
There is widespread confusion about the nature of religious truth. For the first time in history, a significantly large number of people want nothing to do with God. Militant atheists preach a gospel of godlessness with the zeal of missionaries and find an eager audience.
Tracing the history of faith from the Palaeolithic Age to the present, Karen Armstrong shows that meaning of words such as 'belief', 'faith', and 'mystery' has been entirely altered, so that atheists and theists alike now think and speak about God - and, indeed, reason itself - in a way that our ancestors would have…
I’m a historian who wants to know: Why did people burn other people at the stake for what we think was an impossible crime? It seems so unjust; indeed it was unjust. I mention Amnesty International in my book; as well as being a professional historian, I’ve been writing letters for Amnesty for many years, trying to rectify injustice. Yet witch-hunting made sense to the perpetrators; they weren’t simply ‘wicked’ or ‘crazed’ or ‘ignorant’. We need to understand them on many levels, from the most erudite demonology, all the way down to psychological processes by which we identify enemies. The five books I’ve chosen move gradually downwards, in order, from the highest to the deepest level.
The deepest level of witchcraft and magical experience is psychological.
Most executed witches are unlikely to have carried out the practices of which they were accused – certainly not attendance at the sabbat, and not usually deliberate magical harm. But magical practitioners offered a wide range of mostly positive services: healing, finding lost and stolen goods, and love magic.
Edward Bever’s book is densely-written, often quoting from medical sources, but worth persevering with: it opens up a realm of magical action and experience. My favourite chapters deal with how beneficial magic was perceived to have worked, but there is darker material too – including intentional curses.
Exploring the elements of reality in early modern witchcraft and popular magic, through a combination of detailed archival research and broad-ranging interdisciplinary analyses, this book complements and challenges existing scholarship, and offers unique insights into this murky aspect of early modern history.
As a young man, I wanted to do good. And I believed the best way to do that was to increase the commitment I’d made to my faith. So, I joined a church that appeared genuine. But much to my shock, not everything was as it seemed—I’d fallen into a cult. Deception, authoritarianism, and hypocrisy abounded. This led me on a decades-long search for answers: How could leaders do this? Why would members stay loyal? What could be done about it? I eventually found my answers and began doing what I’d always wanted to do—help others. I did it by becoming a journalist/author specializing in religion.
From an evangelical Christian perspective, this reference work covers a wide range of topics via short, easy-to-understand, fact-based, and information-packed essays that range from just a paragraph to several pages. It’s an excellent research tool to which I contributed several essays. Some of the best researchers, scholars, and experts in the field of world religions were part of the large editorial team that produced this benchmark work.
With all of the different religions, sects, denominations, and belief systems out there, it can be difficult to separate the facts from mere opinion, especially if one is relying solely on online sources which may or may not be vetted and which often have an ideological or political slant to them. How can we truly understand if we cannot even be sure we are getting the facts straight?
In this comprehensive resource, more than 75 evangelical scholars offer a thoroughly researched guide to Christianity, other world religions, and alternative religious views, including entries on movements, theological terms, and major historical…
As a freshman in my Columbia University humanities class, I remember when we debated whether Achilles did the right thing in fighting Hector when Achilles could have led a peaceful life as a shepherd. I was arguing that only in risking our lives could we fully live them. A senior challenged me, saying, “I’ve struggled here for four years. I want a life of ease.” That debate has guided me through my years as a professor of English literature and philosophy and then as a management consultant. Only in conversations over the good life do admirable ways of treating customers, managing employees, or competing come to life.
This book is based on Hubert (Bert) Dreyfus’s famous undergraduate philosophy course at U. C. Berkeley, affectionately called “From Gods to God and Back.” Like me, Sean was Bert’s teaching assistant for the course. We all loved this course because it draws out of our Western literary traditions a form of spirituality that we believe is essential for good lives today.
The book begins by looking at the relationship between Athena and Odysseus in Homer’s Odyssey. It’s a friendly mentoring relationship without any suffocating philosophical-theological pretensions such as omnipotence or omniscience. Later, we join St. Augustine as he tries to undermine (though unsuccessfully) the theological pretensions. The book ends with Melville’s polytheism in Moby Dick.
The book inspires us to look for “attainable felicities”: simple divine experiences without pretensions.
A sense of certainty and unhesitating confidence is rare in the contemporary world. An unrelenting flow of choices confronts us at nearly every moment of our lives, and if we are honest about it then most of us will admit that we waver in the face of them.
Dreyfus and Kelly examine some of the greatest books in the Western Canon to explain that the burden of choice is essentially a modern problem to which there is an age old solution. Dreyfus and Kelly explain the huge jump from Homer's polytheistic world to the monotheistic one in which Dante wrote…
We know so little about early English history that it’s a period often ignored by novelists who prefer to set their tales in eras that are a little more fleshed out and familiar to their readerships. This is a shame as, though much has been lost, there is still plenty to discover, and England’s ‘dark age’ offers us a rich seam of untold stories. By combining research, scholarship, and imagination an author can strike a literary light that will illuminate even the darkest corner.
A prequel to the famous best-seller The Pillars of the Earth this book follows the fortunes of three disparate characters as they navigate the perilous Viking-riven world of 10th-century England. Although some of Follett’s books are considered ‘light’ reading by many he’s a meticulous author who enjoys his period research and always presents his readers with stories as rich in historical accuracy and verisimilitude as they are in drama and intrigue. A broad cast of characters gives us a view of life from all the strata of English (and Norman) society: from noblewoman to slave; craftsman to monk. A long, long book that will leave you wanting even more.
#1 New York Times Bestseller An Amazon Best Book of 2020
The thrilling and addictive prequel to The Pillars of the Earth--set in England at the dawn of a new era: the Middle Ages
"Just as transporting as [The Pillars of the Earth] . . . A most welcome addition to the Kingsbridge series." --The Washington Post
It is 997 CE, the end of the Dark Ages. England is facing attacks from the Welsh in the west and the Vikings in the east. Those in power bend justice according to their will, regardless of ordinary people and often in conflict…
Through both a former career as an engineer and my writing, I have developed a craving (bordering on obsession) for all things scientific, historical, archaeological, metaphysical, and a more than avid interest in quantum physics which I like to introduce into my books and stories. I also have a fondness for the dark and macabre, for the bizarre, the wondrous, and the plain out there. The weirder the concept – the more I like it… get consumed by it.
I have read Foucault’s Pendulum several times and never tire of reading it again. The book takes me – through the main character, Casaubon – on a quest, delving into a place where the maybe possible, even probable, becomes reality and into that mysterious world where conspiracy theory laps around the edges of the real world.
It is a thought experiment, of sorts, and the perfect example of being careful what you wish for… or expect… or deem to be true. It’s also a fantastic read – as you might expect from Umberto Eco.
Three book editors, jaded by reading far too many crackpot manuscripts on the mystic and the occult, are inspired by an extraordinary conspiracy story told to them by a strange colonel to have some fun. They start feeding random bits of information into a powerful computer capable of inventing connections between the entries, thinking they are creating nothing more than an amusing game, but then their game starts to take over, the deaths start mounting, and they are forced into a frantic search for the truth
10,000+ authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them.
Browse their picks for the best books about
Hinduism,
Buddhism,
and
Islam.
