Karen Armstrong The Case For God Summary

The human condition: seeking answers without truly understanding them. At a certain point in a person’s life, one faces an existential crisis that leads one to question much of what was blindly believed to be true including religion. The purpose of religion is a question that always emerges from this period of self-reflection. During her own crisis, Karen Armstrong questioned the notion of religion and voiced her findings in the book, The Case for God. In the chapter, “Homo Religiosus”, she addresses the purpose of religion. She states that humans “created religions and works of art to help them find value in their lives, despite all the dispiriting evidence to the contrary.”(38) Armstrong then continues to give the reader her perspective on religion.

She states that religion was an invention of the early humans to reach a level of transcendence and with religion came rituals; however, as time went on, the practices held in such reverence to the early people were replaced by a rigid set of beliefs used to live a life of spiritual “perfection.” Is religion simply a set of laws used to compel obedience, or is religion an opium used by people who cannot accept oblivion? People fear what they do not understand, and they cling to hypotheticals and religion to mollify the idea of nothing: no Nirvana, no Heaven, nor Hell. Perhaps, the appeal of religion is the false notion of self-importance. Each religion tries to appeal to the people by stating that they are, in fact, the chosen people. Religion has become a safe shroud used to cover the eyes of people too afraid to see the