God's Zeal: The Battle of the Three Monotheisms

ISBN-13: 9780745645070 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 216 str.

Sloterdijk

Opis

The conflicts between the three great monotheistic religions ? Christianity, Judaism and Islam ? are shaping our world more than ever before. In this important new book Peter Sloterdijk returns to the origins of monotheism in order to shed new light on the conflict of the faiths today. Following the polytheism of the ancient civilizations of the Egyptians, Hittites and Babylonians, Jewish monotheism was born as a theology of protest, as a religion of triumph within defeat. While the religion of the Jews remained limited to their own people, Christianity unfolded its message with proclamations of universal truth. Islam raised this universalism to a new level through a military and political mode of expansion. Sloterdijk examines the forms of conflict that arise between the three monotheisms by analyzing the basic possibilities stemming from anti-Paganism, anti-Judaism, anti-Islamism and anti-Christianism. These possibilities were augmented by internal rifts: a defining influence within Judaism was a separatism with defensive aspects, in Christianity the project of expansion through mission, and in Islam the Holy War.

Recenzje

"Peter Sloterdijk has a strong claim to being Germany′s foremost public philosopher."
The Philosopher′s Magazine

Spis treści

Dedication page vii

1 The premises 1

2 The formations 19

3 The battle fronts 40

4 The campaigns 50

5 The matrix 82

6 The pharmaka 105

7 The parables of the ring 122

8 After–zeal 150

Index 161

O autorze

Peter Sloterdijk is professor of philosophy and aesthetics at the Karlsruhe School of Design and the author of many works including Critique of Cynical Reason and Sphären.

Blurb

The conflicts between the three great monotheistic religions Christianity, Judaism and Islam are shaping our world more than ever before.

In this important new book Peter Sloterdijk returns to the origins of monotheism in order to shed new light on the conflict of the faiths today. Following the polytheism of the ancient civilizations of the Egyptians, Hittites and Babylonians, Jewish monotheism was born as a theology of protest, as a religion of triumph within defeat. While the religion of the Jews remained limited to their own people, Christianity unfolded its message with proclamations of universal truth. Islam raised this universalism to a new level through a military and political mode of expansion.

Sloterdijk examines the forms of conflict that arise between the three monotheisms by analyzing the basic possibilities stemming from anti–Paganism, anti–Judaism, anti–Islamism and anti–Christianism. These possibilities were augmented by internal rifts: a defining influence within Judaism was a separatism with defensive aspects, in Christianity the project of expansion through mission, and in Islam the Holy War.

Today these three religions are now called upon to adjust their relations from peaceful coexistence to dialogue: zealous collectives must become parties in a civil society.