Table of Contents

Introduction
 
Part I The Unknown God (30,000 BCE to 1500 CE)

One  Homo religiosus
Two  God
Three  Reason
Four  Faith
Five  Silence
Six  Faith and Reason
 
Part II The Modern God (1500 CE to the Present)

Seven  Science and Religion
Eight  Scientific Religion
Nine  Enlightenment
Ten  Atheism
Eleven Unknowing
Twelve  Death of God?
Epilogue
 
Acknowledgments
Notes
Glossary
Selected Bibliography
Index

About the Author

Karen Armstrong is the author of numerous books on religion, including Fields of Blood, A History of God, The Battle for God, Holy War, Islam, Buddha, and Fields of Bloos, as well as a memoir, The Spiral Staircase. Her work has been translated into forty-five languages. In 2008 she was awarded the TED Prize and began working with TED on the Charter for Compassion, created online by the general public, crafted by leading thinkers in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. It was launched globally in the fall of 2009. Also in 2008, she was awarded the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Medal. In 2013, she received the British Academy’s inaugural Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Transcultural Understanding.  

Reviews

"The time is ripe for a book like The Case for God, which wraps a rebuke to the more militant sort of atheism in an engaging survey of Western religious thought."  —The New York Times Book Review
 
"Armstrong's argument is prescient, for it reflects the most important shifts occurring in the religious landscape." —Newsweek
 
"The Case for God is Armstrong's most concise and practical-minded book yet: a historical survey of hwo rather than what we believe, where we lost the "knack" of religion and what we need to do to get it back." —Ode
 
"In over a dozen books [Armstrong] has delivered something people badly want: a way to acknowledge that faith can be taken seriously as a response to deep human yearnings without needing to subscribe to the formality of organized belief." —The Economist
 
"Armstrong is ambitious. The Case for God is an entire semester at college packed into a single book—a voluminous, dizzying intellectual history. . . . Reading The Case for God, I felt smarter. . . . A stimulating, hopeful work.  After I finished it, I felt inspired, I stopped, and I looked up at the stars again.  And I wondered what could be." —NPR's "All Things Considered"
 
"Challenging, intelligent, and illuminating—especially for anyone reflecting on current discussions of atheism, often characterized as conflict between religion and science." —Elaine Pagels, co-author of Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity

"The time is ripe for a book like The Case for God, which wraps a rebuke to the more militant sort of atheism in an engaging survey of Western religious thought." -The New York Times Book Review

"Armstrong's argument is prescient, for it reflects the most important shifts occurring in the religious landscape." -Newsweek

"The Case for God is Armstrong's most concise and practical-minded book yet: a historical survey of hwo rather than what we believe, where we lost the "knack" of religion and what we need to do to get it back." -Ode

"In over a dozen books [Armstrong] has delivered something people badly want: a way to acknowledge that faith can be taken seriously as a response to deep human yearnings without needing to subscribe to the formality of organized belief." -The Economist

"Armstrong is ambitious. The Case for God is an entire semester at college packed into a single book-a voluminous, dizzying intellectual history. . . . Reading The Case for God, I felt smarter. . . . A stimulating, hopeful work. After I finished it, I felt inspired, I stopped, and I looked up at the stars again. And I wondered what could be." -NPR's "All Things Considered"

"Challenging, intelligent, and illuminating-especially for anyone reflecting on current discussions of atheism, often characterized as conflict between religion and science." -Elaine Pagels, co-author of Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity