Incredible text, amazing information

Very dissapointing when the author stopped narrating after the preface. I would have preferred he narrates the whole book. It's not good business sense to make the first 5% or your product superior to the rest.

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4 people found this helpful

In plain sight

This amazing book has pointed out what is and has always been right in front of me, and I have completely taken for granted. it is that there is no such thing as to be objective. I realise that our whole education system presumes we can stand out side of what ever it is we decide to understand. that we can use empiricism as a surgeon skillfully uses a scalpel to separate bone from marrow and discern the truth of how things fit together. I realise too, we all desire to come to the truth of reality, of the world we live in. but that is the problem. we don't think we live in the world at all. Western society is about living on and not in. This truth was the first truth to be done away with when Europeans arrived in the New World. The people s of these lands lived very much "in" their world and as a result were categorised as lesser, as part of the beasts that surrounded them. the Christian s of Europe has no such delusion . they had been given dominion by God and had escaped the primitive life attached to the earth. they had technological wisdom and stood outside the plight of those who were still subject to the natural world.
In conclusion the epiphany that this book grants to those who see it, is that the way you view something has to be factored in to what you are looking at. if you believe in evolution, then you believe consciousness is very much part of it, therefore you can't use your consciousness to study it. If then we acknowledge that even the most anti Christian atheist is in fact nearer to Christian then any other ideology or way of seeing the world, then we should very seriously take a long look at what it's claims are and continue to be for millions of people

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1 person found this helpful

An enjoyable read.

I like the way that the book comes from a point of view to which it is possible to argue against. it therefore had my mind working and it is also very informative.

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1 person found this helpful

Religion 101

Books of this nature need to be thought at school, showing that basically religion can have a positive effect on your life, while laying bare the dogma that lies underneath. allowing the individual to get what they want from it.

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A good introduction to the history of European thought

Easy to listen to pulled together lots I already knew and put it into general context showing how the assumptions we take for granted today have their roots in Christianity.

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Truly and deeply profound

Well written and argued thesis. A truly road to Damascus experience listening to this book.

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Amazing and revelatory

A wonderful amalgam of scholarship, story telling and insight. Challenged my own view of what it means to be 'modern'.

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Someone had to write this book

There’s no question about the incredible impact that Christianity has had on western civilisation.

In recent times, though, this has been downplayed and even downright negated. But a short walk down history lane will quickly reveal the naïveté of thinking that the freedom and prosperity we enjoy is simply the result of science or some arbitrary enlightenment that came out of nowhere.

I’m glad Tom Holland wrote this book to rectify that false narrative.

But there are some thing I found problematic.

For example, the book focuses far too much on people and anecdotes rather than ideas. And so, a giant like Augustine isn’t even mentioned. Calvin is mentioned but only to tell some random stories about how he led the church in Geneva.

But how can you look at the West and not even mention the Protestant work ethics that directly originates in the ideas of Calvin as well as Luther? These topics and ideas are at the heart of much of how the West, and especially America, works.

I also thought that attributing the rise of LGBTQI rights to Christianity was a stretch. Most Christians today and all Christians historically would not have recognised those rights as Christians. Same for the pro-abortion movement. That just cannot be reconciled with millennia of Christian teachings, regardless of whether some of its supporters today claim to be Christians.

But Tom is right on the fundamental instincts behind those movements as being somewhat Christian, so I give him credit for pointing that out.

Overall a very good book, even though I was unhappy with the lack of depth or precision in some of the areas I mentioned above.

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The key to understanding Western Civilisation

Tom Holland guides us through the roots that lead to who we are. He reveals contemporary blindness to the origins of our beliefs and ideals.

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A profound insight

This book has had a profound impact on me. Like the author, I had a similar interest in dinosaurs and turned away from the church of my childhood. A year after reading this book, I returned to the church aged 50 having been influenced by the ideas and the new perspective presented in this volume. It changed my view of religion and of the church and I began to reassess what I believed. I have returned to listen to the book this time round and now see in it much more than in my first reading. I see how it map out the beliefs of Christianity and how those beliefs changed the evolved and shaped the modern western world. it also highlights key theological doctrines which I am beginning to understand in more detail. I highly recommend this book to all readers for it is one that offers a whole new perspective on the modern world.

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