The best Sociology & Religion books: Reddit reviews

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OP could add God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything for a little light reading as well.

She might get the message that a 5th Bible next year is a wasted effort.

1. The God Delusion
2. God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, by Christopher Hitchens
3. Why I Am Not a Christian, by Bertrand Russell

> Is this a good book for a lay person for an introduction to the origins of yahweh / the major monotheistic religions?

No.

> By “good” I mean is it held in good/ high regard among scholars?

I'm fairly certain that it is not.

You'd be better off reading The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel & Michael Heiser's work on the Divine Council.

EDIT: grammar

The ancient Semitic pantheon (which included 70 sons of El, including Baal) was widely believed in across the region. What made Judaism unique was its eventual push toward monotheism, although traces of the old pantheon are still in the Hebrew Bible.

Mark Smith has put out some good scholarship on the topic:

https://www.amazon.com/Early-History-God-Biblical-Resource/dp/080283972X

Asherah was originally a wife of the father God El, although later Yahweh was brought in (possibly from contact with Edom) and El and Yahweh were eventually merged.

This interesting convergence tends to be brought up in apologetic literature but I haven't seen it from church leaders. The Deuteronomic Reforms removed "pagan" altars and gods from Hebrew worship, including the worship of Asherah. Is it the LDS position that those reforms were correct? Incorrect? Somewhere in between? There isn't an official position as far as I know, but if Asherah is to be associated with Heavenly Mother it might be necessary to take one.

It's an interesting area of LDS theology that hasn't really been explored much.

> If you can accept that Muslims are inherently violent, uncivilized, brain deficient, unintelligent, etc then

This is an extreme misrepresentation. His position is that many of the ideas of Islam (as well as those of most mainstream religions) are potentially or likely dangerous, such that they can lead good people to do bad things. What else explains the majority of suicide bombings (within the last few decades) being committed by jihadi groups?

edit:

>... Harris' inherent anti-theism.

Also, fun fact, did you know despite being an "anti-theist" (a label he would likely disagree with), he has spent much of his life studying Eastern religions directly? He's a proponent of many Eastern meditative practices, as well as a borderline Buddhist. He's also co-authored a book with a Muslim.

The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities of Ancient Israel by Mark S. Smith is a fantastic book with (too many?) references that really paints the picture of Judeo-Christian God as just another iron age mythology, no different than any other.

Edit: link

My impression of enlightenment based on reading Waking Up by Sam Harris (highly recommended) and Jeffery Martin's PNSE studies is that it doesn't necessarily change your personality much and it does not really have much to do with moral behavior one way or the other. Gupta would likely behave in a similar way whether or not he was enlightened.

>Novelist Larry McMurtry wrote that the book makes use of much recent research and is the most complete biography of Joseph Smith published to date, but that in reading Bushman, it is difficult to determine "where biography ends and apologetics begin.

and all its awards are from Mormon organizations, too

people who want an honest accounting would be much better served to read Jon Krakaur's masterful expose of the &quot;church&quot;, <em>Under the Banner of Heaven</em>

Smith was a con man through and through, it's a good thing he died as young as he did before he could do even more damage

Since everyone is saying everyone else is wrong, both you and /u/TheBlackBear are wrong (well, sort of). They (the party, not necessarily Republican voters) only care about two core things:

1. Making the rich richer.
2. Pushing white evangelical Christian nationalism.

Not everyone in the party cares equally about these two things, but those are the two core drivers that the modern Republican party are built upon. Everything else-- including all the things that /u/TheBlackBear refers to, as well as the racism, homophobia, and misogyny-- follow from those core ideals.

I'm just reading the book Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation and it really does a good job of tracing both the history of white evangelical Christian nationalism and shows the effect that they have had and are having on our national policies. Their ultimate goal is to make the US a Christian theocracy. Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States is another good book on the subject.

While nothing these two books cover started with Trump (Jesus and John Wayne traces it's roots back to the Eisenhower administration), it's hard to truly understand the Trump presidency without understanding these forces. It's really far more terrifying then it even appears on the surface.

“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.”

― Steven Weinberg

I suggest you give this book a read if you want to learn just how wrong you are on all of this religious denialism you're presenting here:

God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

This is a fascinating book to read: The Early History of God: : Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel by Mark S. Smith. Excellent scholarly work showing YHWH's pre-Jewish roots as a Canaanite deity.

In it we also learn how little we know about the role of Asherah. While there is a snippet of info about Asherah as YHWH's consort, and we know that something called an Asherah Pole existed, there is almost no knowledge of her role in the ancient Israelite religion. She doesn't appear to have been worshipped, and I don't believe we know much about what she represented.

Worth a read - I recommend it for all.

I recently read Jesus and John Wayne and it brought all kinds of flashbacks from growing up in Baptist churches.

Right? Or as Sam Harris says,

>If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?

Yes, it costs, as low as $6.07 and is readily available on Amazon

There are also lectures and other videos abound

Thanks, I'm glad I'm not in that mess any longer, either.

You might also find this book interesting:

https://www.amazon.com/Early-History-God-Biblical-Resource/dp/080283972X

I use the Amazon links because you usually get a free preview on those links.

Fundamentalist Mormons marry multiple children many of the time.

Read a book for once in your life.

For youtub babbies

Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion https://www.amazon.com/dp/1451636024/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_S8KS6P1HV84SXR0T8ES0

https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Science_of_Meditation/T8uSswEACAAJ?hl=en

Here is a brief overview.

If you wanna go for a deep dive, this book provides a historian’s look at the history the religious right. I’m still reeling from it, though I don’t know if it would be as interesting to those who didn’t grow up in that world.

Finde de terminar de leer Waking up de Sam Harris. Me esta volando la cabeza, alguien mas lo leyo?

Ah y polenta. Mucha polenta.

It's a bad historical explanation, though.

The Christian and Jewish gloss is that they were always monotheistic, but strayed.

The historical reality is that they were polytheistic, and only gradually moved towards monolatry and eventually monotheism.

This book covers a lot of what scholars believe the history is: https://www.amazon.com/Early-History-God-Biblical-Resource/dp/080283972X

> Deuteronomy 16:21 just came up in my reading. Awesome.

I love it! I love seeing the connections and getting a peek behind the curtain to get a sense of what things would have meant to the original audience!

Another on-topic book that is on my wishlist is The Early History of God by Mark Smith.

For getting your feet wet in OT scholarship, the go-to references are Friedman's "Who Wrote the Bible?" (did I see someone else recommend that one?) and Kugel's "How To Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture Then and Now". Those are the only general topic books that come to mind. Scrolling through my Amazon order history, everything else seems pretty specific . . . and random. Let me know if there is a specific area you are interested in

I cannot stress enough how fantastic the Yale lectures I linked to before are. If you can sit through those 24 lectures, you will have all the background you need to explore whatever area catches your eye.

As an aside, since you say you are in an exploration phase with your faith. I would double recommend James Kugel's book above. In the epilogue he comments that he is often asked how he is able to remain a devout Orthodox Jew knowing what he knows about biblical history. He says he reads the bible as the record of an ancient people trying to understand their god and to make sense of their place in the world, and to him it doesn't matter if the stories are true because he understands they are a product of their culture. (I'm tired, does that sound preachy?)

I recommend you pick up a copy of this book: https://www.amazon.com/Early-History-God-Biblical-Resource/dp/080283972X

It goes through vast amounts of historical evidence, as well as textual analysis of the Bible and other works, to show that the early history of Israelite religion is polytheism.

This is the consensus view of historians.

The Israelites were Canaanites, and it makes sense that they would have Canaanite religious views.

No. Because all I said was there were Jews that worshipped the Queen in Heaven. Reread what I wrote. What’s after that is irrelevant.

If you want more information from the leading scholar on this subject

https://www.amazon.com/Early-History-God-Biblical-Resource/dp/080283972X

A great read.

I’m not mistaken. El Elyon is a separate being to Yahweh. Scholars pretty much universally agree on this.

https://www.amazon.com/Early-History-God-Biblical-Resource/dp/080283972X

A great book to check out. Yahweh is as synchronized with El and Baal at some point. But before that they were different gods.

Sounds a LOT like the book, &quot;Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation &quot;. It's relatively short, easy to see and paints a clear picture of their viewpoint.

This is what the scholarship shows on the context of the versus I’ve given you. Not trying to be rude saying this, but it doesn’t really matter how you interpret it because you know nothing about ancient Judaism. Its like those moms on Facebook who think they know something about science because they saw Facebook post.

https://www.amazon.com/Early-History-God-Biblical-Resource/dp/080283972X

A great book to introduce you to ancient Judaism.

https://www.amazon.com/Early-History-God-Biblical-Resource/dp/080283972X

He is the leading scholar and this book is a great book to get started on this.

Deuteronomy 32:8-9

8 When the Most High[a] apportioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the gods;[b](A) 9 the Lord’s own portion was his people, Jacob his allotted share.

Psalm 82

A Plea for Justice A Psalm of Asaph.

1 God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:(A) 2 “How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah(B) 3 Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute.(C) 4 Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”(D) 5 They have neither knowledge nor understanding; they walk around in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken.(E) 6 I say, “You are gods, children of the Most High, all of you;(F) 7 nevertheless, you shall die like mortals and fall like any prince.”[a](G) 8 Rise up, O God, judge the earth, for all the nations belong to you!(H)

Originally, Yahweh was the son of El Elyon, as described in Deuteronomy 32:8-9. The Jews were originally henotheistic, meaning they worshipped Yahweh while also acknowledging the existence of other gods such as Chemosh, who is acknowledged in verses like Judges 11:24, or in 2 Kings 3:27 when he actually defeated Yahweh in battle. At least some of the Jews believed in Yahweh’s wife, the goddess Asherah, whose worship by some Jews was mentioned through references to the “queen of heaven” in the book of Jeremiah, and whose worship is also indicated by the drawings and inscriptions on the famous pottery discovered at Kuntillet Ajrud.

It was only later that Jewish prophets began to affirm that there existed no god besides Yahweh. Asherah was originally the wife of El Elyon, the Most High, but he was ultimately syncretized with Yahweh, who himself ultimately became considered God Most High, and Asherah became Yahweh’s consort in the mind of some Jews. Although later the Jews who worshipped and acknowledged Asherah were usurped by those who viewed Yahweh as being alone in Godhood.

https://www.amazon.com/Early-History-God-Biblical-Resource/dp/080283972X

The leading scholar to read about this

>genuine belief that you are say, Napoleon's reincarnation is called "mental health problems", but genuine belief in all of the bullshit in the Bible is called "being religious"?

Because people do experience an undeniable connection to something greater regardless of culture. Belief to something greater can be forced on you, or it can be a very real lived experience that comes about almost like an accident. The culture these experiences come up in just determines what kind of religion is built around it and "How far people go". Many religions are largely just harnessing the experience to control the masses rather than teaching them how to achieve spiritual liberation ( as liberated people can't by definition be controlled ), which is very much a real thing though there are people who find liberation through those religions as well. Problem with all this is that it's a subjective thing, completely impossible to measure by anything but self-report. And some weird shit happens for people that pursue spiritual liberation too, which gives rise to fantastical stories that are misunderstood by almost everyone, believers and non-believers alike.

I recommend reading Waking Up by Sam Harris.

There's plenty of stuff on YouTube about it. Here's a good starting point https://youtu.be/A-nM3-QE2V4

Another good source is 'The Early History of God https://www.amazon.com/Early-History-God-Biblical-Resource/dp/080283972X?ref=d6k_applink_bb_dls&amp;dplnkId=f661d5e1-fef7-4b86-8aa2-249d591e046c