Arvind SharmaOur Religions: The Seven World Religions Introduced by Preeminent Scholars from Each Tradition

The book itself is great. I like the formate, with scholars from each tradition explaining their own religious heritage, and I have found it remarkably informative for someone like me who had only a passing familiarity with most of the world's faiths other than my own. I've learned a lot from this book, and I like that I am getting an insider's view and not the perspective of someone mounting a polemic against someone else's faith, or even that of a detached outside.But the main thing that prompted me to write this review is to let other Kindle users know that the Kindle edition is frustratingly strewn with errors. Scanning mistakes abound, "modem" instead of "modern," for example, and, surprisingly often "Cod" instead of "God." Reading about "Almighty Cod" is amusing a time or two, but it gets old quickly. In the section on Hinduism there seem to be some Hindi-specific characters that don't convert into the Kindle fonts, leaving uninterpretable squiggles in the middle of names. I hope at some point Amazon does a corrected edition and updates my digital file, but right now it's clear that no one at HarperCollins even bothered to proof-read the Kindle edition.

There is a great benefit to hearing about a religious tradition from a scholar who has chosen that tradition as his own. This is the novel approach taken in "Our Religions". All too often, a person writes a comparative book only to shake fingers at other people's faiths. I now have a new respect for Hinduism's tolerance of other religions. I have a new respect for Islam and Judaism. Each section devotes a good amount of history to the religion being covered.Personally, I have chosen Deism for my own religious view, so I wasn't swayed by any of the writers. Although, I am most curious about Confucianism now. I am grateful to Sharma for bringing together these different traditions in a scholarly and respectful way.

This is a great book for a broad view of 7 world religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam). Some of the writing is quite confusing, perhaps simply due to the fact that many of these covered religions are outside of my own experience by a long way. As a Christian, this book is quite insightful and helpful to get an understanding of other religious views that dominate in areas of our world. As the world gets smaller through technology and interconnectedness, the dialogue between faiths will naturally become more important. This book helps with this dialogue.

I think that putting together this collection of chapters, each by an expertin his own religion, is a good idea. I find it amazing that no one has everdone this before, if it's true.But I have a problem with the chapter that Arvind Sharma wrote on his ownreligion - Hinduism. He contradicts himself several times, and makes excusesfor things that are not excusable. For example, he states that if Hinduismsometimes seems uncivilized, that is only because it is older than civilization.I'm sorry, that rationalization is not good enough. If Hinduism sometimesseems uncivilized, that is because it *is* uncivilized.If Hinduism wants to be relevant to a modern world, or even to its ownyounger generation, Hindus will have to not make these excuses. Hinduswill have to get over the worship of their own culture and of their ownbaseless superiority complex, and instead think about what they actuallyhave to offer that will help people to advance spiritually. And thenthey will have to figure out how they can communicate that better thanthey do. Every time I pick up a book written by a Hindu, I keep hopingfor good clear writing, but I never see it, and this chapter is noexception. Classes in technical writing for everyone!I speak as somebody who has tried it and moved on. But if the Hinduscan wake up and make these changes, there might be some hope for it.

Regardless of your religious propensity or affiliation, you need to read books like this to gain a perspective of what other people believe in. Unfortunately, most members of an organized religion don't even know the tenets of their own religion, never mind the others. Just because you were born into a religion shouldn't make you afraid to question some of its ideologies and educate yourself as to what's out there beside yours. A good book for agnostics.

I have been interested in knowing the content and theology of the seven religions and have finally found a book that puts this all in perspective. I recommend this book to all who are curious.

An easy to read book with a lot of wonderful pictures. Seems to be a good book to begin learning about the different religions of our world.

This is an awesome book for anyone interested in learning more about all the major religions found around the globe.

Very good