Why God?
Explaining Religious Phenomena
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Why God?
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Narrated by:
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Andy Rose
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By:
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Rodney Stark
About this listen
Why is it that the majority of people, from all socioeconomic, education, and ethnic backgrounds, ascribe to some sort of faith? What draws us to religion? What pushes us away? And what exactly is religion anyway?
Defining religion over the past century has, ironically, led to theories that exclude belief in God, proposing that all systems of thought concerning the meaning of life are religions. Of course, this makes it impossible to distinguish the village priest from the village atheist, or Communism from Catholicism. Worse yet, it makes all religious behavior irrational, presuming that, for example, people knowingly pray to an empty sky.
In this audiobook, renowned sociologist of religion Rodney Stark offers a comprehensive, decisive, God-centered theory of religion. Stark explores the entire range of religious topics, including the rise of monotheism, the discovery of sin, causes of religious hostility and conflict, and the role of revelations. Each chapter of Why God? builds a comprehensive framework, starting with the foundations of human motivations and ending with an explanation of why most people are religious. Stark ultimately settles what religion is, what it does, and why it is a universal feature of human societies.
The book is published by Templeton Press.
©2017 Rodney Stark (P)2018 Redwood AudiobooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Impressively informed and informative, thoughtful and thought-provoking… an exceptional work of outstanding scholarship…" (Midwest Book Review)
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The Triumph of Christianity
- How the Jesus Movement Became the World's Largest Religion
- By: Rodney Stark
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 105
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 98
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Story5 out of 5 stars 98
Celebrated religious and social historian Rodney Stark traces the extraordinary rise of Christianity through its most pivotal and controversial moments to offer fresh perspective on the history of the world's largest religion.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Balanced and unapologetic, excellent read
- By JARAM, CT on 08-04-20
By: Rodney Stark
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Rebel in the Ranks
- Martin Luther, the Reformation, and the Conflicts That Continue to Shape Our World
- By: Brad S. Gregory
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 95
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 86
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 85
For five centuries, Martin Luther has been lionized as an outspoken and fearless icon of change who ended the Middle Ages and heralded the beginning of the modern world. In Rebel in the Ranks, Brad Gregory, renowned professor of European history at Notre Dame, recasts this long-accepted portrait. Luther did not intend to start a revolution that would divide the Catholic Church and forever change Western civilization. Yet his actions would profoundly shape our world in ways he could never have imagined.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Something to think about
- By Like Loehe on 09-19-17
By: Brad S. Gregory
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Aristotle's Children
- How Christian, Muslims and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom
- By: Richard E. Rubenstein
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 138
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 63
Best-selling author Richard E. Rubenstein brings the past to life in this engrossing story of social, religious, and scientific revolution during one of the darkest periods in European history. When a group of Dark Ages scholars rediscovered the works of Aristotle, the great thinker's ideas ignited a firestorm of enlightened thought. This is the endlessly fascinating account of the pivotal period in history when the modern era took root.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Interesting story of the rediscovery of Aristotle
- By John on 12-16-04
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Reformations
- The Early Modern World, 1450-1650
- By: Carlos M. N. Eire
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 39 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 163
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 127
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 126
Carlos Eire, popular professor and gifted writer, chronicles the 200-year era of the Renaissance and Reformation with particular attention to issues that persist as concerns in the present day. Eire connects the Protestant and Catholic Reformations in new and profound ways, and he demonstrates convincingly that this crucial turning point in history not only affected people long gone but continues to shape our world and define who we are today.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Catholics don’t believe in “Works Righteousness”
- By Liam Cruz Kelly on 02-23-19
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Not the Impossible Faith
- By: Richard Carrier
- Narrated by: Richard Carrier
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 231
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 204
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 204
Written with occasional humor and an easy style, and thoroughly referenced, with many entertaining "gotcha!" moments, Not the Impossible Faith is a must-listen for anyone interested in the origins of Christianity. Richard Carrier, PhD, is an expert in the history of the ancient world and a critic of Christian attempts to distort history in defense of their faith.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Bloody awful audiobook...
- By Amazon Customer on 10-23-13
By: Richard Carrier
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Worshipping the State
- How Liberalism Became Our State Religion
- By: Benjamin Wiker PhD
- Narrated by: Ken Maxon
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 41
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 40
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Story5 out of 5 stars 40
Many Christians feel that they are being opposed at every turn by what seems to be a well-orchestrated political and cultural campaign to de-Christianize every aspect of Western culture. They are right, and it goes even further back than the Obama Administration. In Worshipping the State: How Liberalism Became Our State Religion, Benjamin Wiker argues that it is liberals who seek to establish an official state religion: one of unbelief.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An Excellent Excellent book
- By Rara Sh on 01-22-24
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How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization
- By: Thomas E. Woods Jr.
- Narrated by: Barrett Whitener
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,284
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,029
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,026
Western civilization has given us modern science, the wealth of free-market economics, the security of law, a sense of human rights and freedom, charity as a virtue, splendid art and music, philosophy grounded in reason, and innumerable other gifts we take for granted.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating and informative
- By Michael Kellogg on 09-29-05
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Turning Points
- Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity
- By: Mark A. Noll
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 14 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 85
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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Story5 out of 5 stars 69
In this popular introduction to church history, now in its third edition, Mark Noll isolates key events that provide a framework for understanding the history of Christianity. The book presents Christianity as a worldwide phenomenon rather than just a Western experience. Students in academic settings and church adult education contexts will benefit from this one-semester survey of Christian history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent, Brief Snippet’s
- By ejb on 01-06-23
By: Mark A. Noll
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A History of Christianity
- By: Paul Johnson
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 28 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 101
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 91
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 90
First published in 1976, Paul Johnson's exceptional study of Christianity has been loved and widely hailed for its intensive research, writing, and magnitude. Weaving a great range of material, the scholar and author Johnson creates an ambitious panoramic overview of the evolution of the Western world since the founding of a little-known "Jesus sect".
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3 out of 5 stars
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Read Brant Pitre's the case for Jesus instead.
- By Catherine BFT on 05-08-17
By: Paul Johnson
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Hitler's Religion
- The Twisted Beliefs That Drove the Third Reich
- By: Richard Weikart
- Narrated by: Ian Fisher
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 34
Weikart reveals the startling and fascinating truth about the most hated man of the 20th century: Adolf Hitler was a pantheist who believed nature was God. In Hitler's Religion, Weikart explains how the laws of nature became Hitler's only moral guide - how he became convinced he would serve God by annihilating supposedly "inferior" human beings and promoting the welfare and reproduction of the allegedly superior Aryansin accordance with racist forms of Darwinism prevalent at the time.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Hitler's Religion - (Subtile is ridiculous)
- By M. Johnson on 07-16-18
By: Richard Weikart
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Dangerous Mystic
- Meister Eckhart's Path to the God Within
- By: Joel F. Harrington
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 91
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 79
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Story5 out of 5 stars 79
Meister Eckhart was a medieval Christian mystic whose wisdom powerfully appeals to seekers seven centuries after his death. In the modern era, Eckhart's writings have struck a chord with thinkers as diverse as Heidegger, Merton, Sartre, John Paul II, and the current Dalai Lama. He is the inspiration for the best-selling New Age author Eckhart Tolle's pen name, and his 14th-century quotes have become an online sensation. Today, a variety of Christians, as well as many Zen Buddhists, Sufi Muslims, Jewish Cabbalists, and various spiritual seekers, all claim Eckhart as their own.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Meister Ekhart foisting his sexuality....
- By Kindle Customer on 08-08-19
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Medieval Christianity
- A New History
- By: Kevin Madigan
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 21 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 118
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 102
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 99
For many, the medieval world seems dark and foreign - a miraculous, brutal, and irrational time of superstition and strange relics. The pursuit of heretics, the Inquisition, the Crusades, and the domination of the "Holy Land" come to mind.
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4 out of 5 stars
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New Standard Text for This Period
- By Bill Martin on 10-22-16
By: Kevin Madigan
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The Evolution of God
- By: Robert Wright
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 18 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,077
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 691
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 688
In this sweeping narrative, which takes us from the Stone Age to the Information Age, Robert Wright unveils an astonishing discovery: there is a hidden pattern that the great monotheistic faiths have followed as they have evolved. Through the prisms of archeology, theology, and evolutionary psychology, Wright's findings overturn basic assumptions about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and are sure to cause controversy.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Very heavy reading
- By Stephen on 08-07-09
By: Robert Wright
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Heaven's Gate: America's UFO Religion
- By: Benjamin E. Zeller
- Narrated by: Eric Burns
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 82
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 72
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Story4 out of 5 stars 72
In March 1997, 39 people in Rancho Santa Fe, California, ritually terminated their lives. To outsiders, it was a mass suicide. To insiders, it was a graduation. Benjamin Zeller not only explores the question of why the members of Heaven's Gate committed ritual suicides, but interrogates the origin and evolution of the religion, its appeal, and its practices. By tracking the development of the history, social structure, and worldview of Heaven's Gate, Zeller shows that the movement was both a reflection and a microcosm of larger American culture.
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1 out of 5 stars
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cult apologia.
- By Avery on 06-01-20