New Humanities Reader
Does God Have a Future?
Karen Armstrong is famous in the world of theology and philosophy for her critical approach to religion and human thought. As far as the major theme of the book The New Humanities Reader is to teach students analytical skills, the essay by Karen Armstrong Does God Have a Future? is of great help. This essay reflects the views of the author upon the development of religions that dominate the mankind during several recent millennia. However, to add credibility to her work, Karen Armstrong supports it with the ideas and thoughts of numerous philosophers and theologians from all around the world. The most interesting of these theologians who moved me most of all was Thomas Aquinas, the famous Medieval thinker who dealt with the issues of religion, ethics, society, etc (Miller & Spellmeyer, 2005).
The views and opinions by Thomas Aquinas impressed me most of all due to the number of factors. First of all, ideas by this Italian theologian are officially accepted as the official ideology of Catholicism. This is so due to the fact that view by Aquinas is the most adequate and acceptable in respect of such questions as proving the existence of God, reasoning the existence of the Holy Trinity and others including basic principles of human ethics, virtues and guidelines for virtuous life.
Nevertheless, this theologian attracted my attention by the critical analysis Karen Armstrong gives to his ideas. Together with the criticism of religion as a cause of numerous wars and a lot of pain, Karen Armstrong views the ideas by Thomas Aquinas as ones that were too conservative and radical and did not acknowledge any alternative. Also, one of the reasons of the Crusades against Muslims is seen in the radicalism promoted by Thomas Aquinas. Thus, the controversy and undoubted relevance of these views attracted my attention (Miller & Spellmeyer, 2005).
However, the book The New Humanities Reader consists of 32 brilliant essays created by the skillful writers and experienced thinkers from various spheres of human activity. These essays widen the scope of students and allow them be more aware of the modern situation in the world on the basis of the lessons that history of the mankind can teach. For example, the essays by such prominent thinkers as David Abram, Annie Dillard and Steven Johnson perfectly complete the topic started by Karen Armstrong in her piece of work (Miller & Spellmeyer, 2005).
The essay by David Abram, for instance, is titled The Ecology of Magic. The author, who is concerned with issues of magic but is an anthropologist by profession, explores in this essay the shaman and healer practices in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Nepal in order to understand the relation between the nature and human beings. Thus, his paper is a prelude to the one by Armstrong as it considers the earlier forms of human religions, i. e. beliefs in the powers of nature. At the same time, Annie Dillard in The Wreck of Time: Taking Our Century’s Measure deals with the dark side of natural forces and their impact on human beings who consider themselves to be the central figures on Earth. The examples of earthquakes and tsunamis taking thousands of lives serve to proof the author’s about the insignificance of human beings compared to the universe and cosmos (Miller & Spellmeyer, 2005).
As if trying to conclude the thoughts of the preceding authors, Steven Johnson in his The Myth of the Ant Queen reexamines the nature of human intelligence in order to make people understand that intelligence is not an individual but rather a collective property and it should be used according to “local rules” as he calls them, i. e. rules adopted by all human beings (Miller & Spellmeyer, 2005). These essays, accompanied by Armstrong’s work create a more or less full picture of the world and the place religion, psychology, beliefs and intelligence take in it.
Works Cited
Miller, Richard and Kurt Spellmeyer. The New Humanities Reader. Heinle, 2005.