Recently maturing out of the mind altering, vaguely spiritual habits of raving, partying, and recreational psychedelic use, I had begun to feel in a bit of a spiritual slump. Although happy with the healthy habits implemented over the last couple years, I felt a certain depth missing, and a forming curiosity fighting to fill it. A curiosity of religion. After some research, reflection, and acknowledgement of my religious ignorance, I built a thorough reading list, beginning with Karen Armstrong’s bestseller, The Case for God. While very much about God, the title is a bit misleading, as it implies an argument for God’s existence, as opposed to the historical and anthropological study of religion that the work actually is.

Beginning with the first documented religious rituals and ending with the post modern rise of fundamentalism and atheism, Armstrong explores the history of spirituality and religion, focusing primarily on monotheistic faiths and how their practices have shifted over time. Religion was first introduced as a coping method for the injustice and struggle found in daily life. Spiritual enlightenment, whether through God, Dao, or Zen, was found through the disciplined practice of a set of religious rituals—through the momentary dissolution of the ego, a peaceful, out of body experience transcending both human comprehension and language.

As human reason and ambition grew, so did the attempt to define and comprehend the incomprehensible. Instead of the symbol of everything and nothing as in ancient times, God became known as a supreme being, an idolized human projection. By the early 16th century, science and reason began to erode the need for religion, now an ego centric practice motivated by self interest, full of strict rituals that held no spiritual significance. Over the next 500 years, the battle between science and religion ensued, leading to disastrous religious polarization and spiritual confusion.

Growing up a relatively independent thinker with a good mind for reason—and surrounded by a community promoting Christianity while only having a shallow grasp of it themselves—I was quickly dissuaded from the practice. Since no one could provide an adequate reason for choosing one religion over another, or for choosing any religion at all, I decided atheism best suited me. After a few spiritual events during my early twenties involving psychedelics and karma, a mild form of spirituality wormed its way back into my life, transforming my belief to agnostic.

While this one book wasn’t enough to make a Christian convert out of me, it definitely changed the way I view religion and abolished the apprehension I held against it. Armstrong’s thorough study of faith and God answered the questions I held as a child that no one else could. She calls to depolarize our postmodern religious state by reminding both the atheist and fundamentalist of the root purpose of religion; a means to find peace by stepping outside the self and into another form of consciousness. A new consciousness that is gained through deliberate practices, not just the weak “belief” in a set of doctrines that currently plagues Christianity.

Oxford educated and widely experienced in the spiritual, Armstrong’s writing and arguments on religion are invaluable. I’d highly recommend The Case for God to anyone curious about the history of religion or interested in further developing their own spiritual practices and faith. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and once finished, picked up Through the Narrow Gate, Armstrong’s first memoir—an emotional reflection on the seven sufferable years she spent as a nun in an old school, abusive convent. I loved it as well, along with her second memoir, The Spiral Staircase.