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dilchh's review against another edition
3.0
I think that there is a series of these 101 books that covers quite a range of diverse topics, obviously with different authors too. My first venture into these Crash Course series was about Psychology, and I can tell you that it was boring. I know that at the end of the day, the book was only an introduction, but the Psychology 101 is just too boring and too basic. So, when I picked this book up, I'm not entirely sure why. Knowing that the first experience was not to my advantage, I can only assume the second one was not going to be that much different. But, I thought, hey the author is different, the topic is different, so surely the experience is going to be different too, right? Well, yeah, kind of.
When you spend all your life being a Moslem, or a Christian, or a Buddhist, or, it's obviously not recommended for you to be judging about other people's beliefs. You have absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to say that their certain practices aren't logical (I have a friend who told me that religions aren't suppose to be logical all the time, because it is not science), or wrong or whatever; heck, you yourself might not know a lot about your own religion. So, going from there I decided to hit myself with a crash course on religion. You have to start somewhere before you delve deeper into topics (or in this case a religion) of your interest. Other than that, it's always interesting to see what other people (who I assume is not a Moslem) wrote about Islam.
Well, if ever you have an interest like I do, this book is not a bad place to start. This was well written (and I mean, written simply so as not to deter you from reading further because the lingo is just too confusing) and it gives you the basic initial information you needed to know about the five major religions. Granted that this book did not cover ALL beliefs, but hey it's not like you're pretty stock up on your knowledge of the five major religions already, so why complain, right? I think it would even be interesting to have read this book while having a friend who actually practice the religion itself for you to ask questions or just simply to ask your friend to elaborate further on the things that you didn't quite understand.
Overall, this was quite an okay book. I think for the most part, it is something that you can actually google yourself without having to own this book, but if you're lazy, wouldn't it be better to have it all in one book than to have to google it one by one?
When you spend all your life being a Moslem, or a Christian, or a Buddhist, or
Well, if ever you have an interest like I do, this book is not a bad place to start. This was well written (and I mean, written simply so as not to deter you from reading further because the lingo is just too confusing) and it gives you the basic initial information you needed to know about the five major religions. Granted that this book did not cover ALL beliefs, but hey it's not like you're pretty stock up on your knowledge of the five major religions already, so why complain, right? I think it would even be interesting to have read this book while having a friend who actually practice the religion itself for you to ask questions or just simply to ask your friend to elaborate further on the things that you didn't quite understand.
Overall, this was quite an okay book. I think for the most part, it is something that you can actually google yourself without having to own this book, but if you're lazy, wouldn't it be better to have it all in one book than to have to google it one by one?
medead's review against another edition
2.0
birçok şey anlatılmış ama hepsi o kadar yüzeysel anlatılmış ki her bölüm sonunda aklımda en iyi ihtimalle 1-2 genel bilgi dışında hiçbir şey kalmadı. ne kadar öğretici olduğu da sorgulanır bence. dinlerin daha çok özünü anlatmasını beklerdim. bunun yerine kısa kısa bölümlerde çoğu zaman ilginç olmayan şeyler okudum. hiç okumasam da bir şey değişmezmiş.
nedjem's review against another edition
3.0
As I understand it, the idea behind this book is to give the reader a basic idea of what the so called world religions are all about, and maybe spark an interest in finding out more.
The book starts with a chapter about the “religions of old”, which talked mostly about Greek, Roman and Egyptian mythology – I guess any wider look would have been beyond the scope of this kind of book. Still, would have been nice to hear at least a short mention about mythologies from other parts of the world as well.
After the introductory chapter, the author writes about the most popular religions of today’s world. The text was setup nicely, interestingly written and it did make me want to learn more about almost all of them – but then again religions have always been a special interest of mine, so sparking my interest ain’t exactly a challenge. When talking about the religions, the author did quite nicely in both talking about history and beliefs, and I did not find any obvious bias – he presented them all in quite a positive light.
It is only when we come to the last chapter that I have some actual issue with his writing. The last chapter gave a glimpse into some other religions in the world that he picked out for reasons I didn’t really grasp. Now, I don’t know that much about most of them to be able to say if he did a good job, but I do know enough to say that the section regarding Wicca is a big joke! Now, I am not a wiccan myself, but I was in the past, and I did not find much of anything that he wrote that I would say was any general truth. For one thing, there is no general truth about Wicca. His writing however made it seem that there is only one path to Wicca, and that it is somehow organized. While there are some organized groups, thy are vastly different from each other, and many don’t belong to any coven, group or wiccan organization at all. If he had written that section pre-internet, I could see how he might have developed such a view as he has, but as it is not… You don’t need to look around the internet a lot, or read many articles/books on the subject to learn that he really did no effort at all. The whole section sounds like he contacted one person and asked their view and then generalized based on that.
As for the other sections in the last chapter, they were interesting, but as I don’t have as extensive knowledge myself about them, I can’t say how accurate they were – and the section about Wicca was so badly written that it did make me question his research methods and knowledge in general.
I would have given the book 4/5 stars before reading that last chapter, but that last one only deserves 1/5 and as the impact of it is so bad I am lowering the overall score to 3/5.
If you liked my review, please check out my blog as well for some more - at times I post more personal commentaries there, in addition to the review. You'll find it at https://iansphere.wordpress.com/
The book starts with a chapter about the “religions of old”, which talked mostly about Greek, Roman and Egyptian mythology – I guess any wider look would have been beyond the scope of this kind of book. Still, would have been nice to hear at least a short mention about mythologies from other parts of the world as well.
After the introductory chapter, the author writes about the most popular religions of today’s world. The text was setup nicely, interestingly written and it did make me want to learn more about almost all of them – but then again religions have always been a special interest of mine, so sparking my interest ain’t exactly a challenge. When talking about the religions, the author did quite nicely in both talking about history and beliefs, and I did not find any obvious bias – he presented them all in quite a positive light.
It is only when we come to the last chapter that I have some actual issue with his writing. The last chapter gave a glimpse into some other religions in the world that he picked out for reasons I didn’t really grasp. Now, I don’t know that much about most of them to be able to say if he did a good job, but I do know enough to say that the section regarding Wicca is a big joke! Now, I am not a wiccan myself, but I was in the past, and I did not find much of anything that he wrote that I would say was any general truth. For one thing, there is no general truth about Wicca. His writing however made it seem that there is only one path to Wicca, and that it is somehow organized. While there are some organized groups, thy are vastly different from each other, and many don’t belong to any coven, group or wiccan organization at all. If he had written that section pre-internet, I could see how he might have developed such a view as he has, but as it is not… You don’t need to look around the internet a lot, or read many articles/books on the subject to learn that he really did no effort at all. The whole section sounds like he contacted one person and asked their view and then generalized based on that.
As for the other sections in the last chapter, they were interesting, but as I don’t have as extensive knowledge myself about them, I can’t say how accurate they were – and the section about Wicca was so badly written that it did make me question his research methods and knowledge in general.
I would have given the book 4/5 stars before reading that last chapter, but that last one only deserves 1/5 and as the impact of it is so bad I am lowering the overall score to 3/5.
If you liked my review, please check out my blog as well for some more - at times I post more personal commentaries there, in addition to the review. You'll find it at https://iansphere.wordpress.com/
lefeer01's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
4.75
A pretty decent overview of world religions - I felt there were a couple missing (that were even mentioned in the timeline at the end) that would have rounded out the picture a little better.
hzboy's review
3.0
I read in English but this review is in Bahasa Indonesia
Serial 101 sudah jelas memajang "Crash Course" yang artinya adalah sekilas tentang suatu hal yang menjadi topik utamanya. Kali ini berkaitan dengan agama. Aku terdorong membaca Religion 101 karena penasaran dengan kebersinggungan beberapa agama dalam serial Netflix yang berjudul Messiah. Aku yang merasa belum banyak tahu tentang perkembangan agama merasa dengan membaca Religion 101 bisa membuatku memahami serial itu.
Religion 101 membahas topiknya berdasarkan agama. Itu pun dirunutkan dari agama yang paling sering diperbincangkan dan menjadi sorotan dalam beragam media: Yahudi, Katolik - Kristen, dan Islam. Barulah setelah itu, dibahas agama Hindu dan Buddha.
Informasi yang diberikan di dalam buku ini sesungguhnya mudah dicerna. Dibahas secara umum dan sebagai pemantik agar pembaca bersedia menggali lebih lanjut melalui sumebr bacaan yang lain.
Bukunya yang tidak terlalu tebal sangat mungkin dihabiskan dalam sekali duduk. Sayangnya, aku terlanjut memasang ekspektasi yang aku kira, buku ini akan membahas agama sesuai dengan urutan waktu.
Tetapi, kalau ingin mendapat informasi secara umum tentang agama (besar) yang ada di dunia, Religion 101 bisa menjadi opsi.
Serial 101 sudah jelas memajang "Crash Course" yang artinya adalah sekilas tentang suatu hal yang menjadi topik utamanya. Kali ini berkaitan dengan agama. Aku terdorong membaca Religion 101 karena penasaran dengan kebersinggungan beberapa agama dalam serial Netflix yang berjudul Messiah. Aku yang merasa belum banyak tahu tentang perkembangan agama merasa dengan membaca Religion 101 bisa membuatku memahami serial itu.
Religion 101 membahas topiknya berdasarkan agama. Itu pun dirunutkan dari agama yang paling sering diperbincangkan dan menjadi sorotan dalam beragam media: Yahudi, Katolik - Kristen, dan Islam. Barulah setelah itu, dibahas agama Hindu dan Buddha.
Informasi yang diberikan di dalam buku ini sesungguhnya mudah dicerna. Dibahas secara umum dan sebagai pemantik agar pembaca bersedia menggali lebih lanjut melalui sumebr bacaan yang lain.
Bukunya yang tidak terlalu tebal sangat mungkin dihabiskan dalam sekali duduk. Sayangnya, aku terlanjut memasang ekspektasi yang aku kira, buku ini akan membahas agama sesuai dengan urutan waktu.
Tetapi, kalau ingin mendapat informasi secara umum tentang agama (besar) yang ada di dunia, Religion 101 bisa menjadi opsi.
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