Homo Religiosus Armstrong Summary

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Karen Armstrong, “Homo Religiosus”
Religion should affect life and have an impact on everything happening around it. According to Armstrong, people without religion would rarely realize their individual reason of life with an unadulterated purpose that is predetermined by any form of guidelines. Thus, from acquiring an excellent religious faith foundation, it will affect you as a person in this life and the community at large. For instance, consider a throwback to the human antiquity, and you will realize that people had several different traditions, cultures, and religions, but had one key goal of realizing what peace, as well as purity, meant to their inner self. This shows that our ancestors had achieved the kind of “identification” with nature as understanding other minds would start with our, proximity and later the less close species, in this case, the animals. Thus, although the ancient religions failed to give animals a central place, the evolution of religion widens the gap, but gives us the elements needed to create the new consciousness.
Karen Armstrong sees religion as a crucial thing to the humans for a long time, even from the time of the ancient Paleolithic Era. Armstrong talks about the labyrinths that existed in the era and termed as a sacred place where some ritual took place. She also considers religion to the rules set to discipline and determines the way of the humans as it is something to adhere to so as to realize spiritual contentment. Armstrong also describes how the idea religion and culture has done a lot to attain peace in the current life. Additionally, the ideal culture in contrast to the cultural practice is practically different, and other cases religion actively dictates culture.
Similarly, the practice of religion is always evolving. Moreover, we tend to change religion in a bid to make us as individuals feel better. People also perceive this as a way that benefits them. As Armstrong explains, people instinctively perceive it as a need to protect their fragile egos from all forms of threats. However, this widens the gap between the humans and other species. Additionally, as individuals we usually make mistakes at many times our deci...