Reading Notes: A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam

Karen Armstrong

"The dangers of such theologies of election... are clearly shown in the holy wars that have scared the history of monotheism. Instead of making God a symbol to challenge our prejudice and force us to contemplate our own shortcomings, it can be be used to endorse our egotistic hatred and make it absolute."

"Human beings are aware that something is wrong with their condition; they feel at odds with themselves and others, out of touch with their inner nature and disoriented. Conflict and a lack of simplicity seem to characterize our existence. Yet we are constantly seeking to unite the multiplicity of phenomena and reduce them to some ordered whole."

"...A personal God can become a grave liability. He can be a mere idol carved in our own image, a projection of our limited needs, fears, and desires. We can assume that he loves what we love and hate what we hate, endorsing our prejudices instead of compelling us to transcend them."

"A truly creative philosopher or scientist has, like the mystic, to confront the dark world of uncreated reality and the cloud of unknowing in the hope of piercing it."

"Compassion is a particularly difficult virtue. It demands that we go beyond the limitations of our egotism, insecurity, and inherited prejudice."