Title: Holier Than Thou
Author: Constantine Grey
Publisher: URLink Print & Media, LLC
ISBN: 978-1-64753-958-0
Genre: Political Science, Religious Study
Pages: 76
Reviewed by: David Allen
Hollywood Book Reviews
This slim but bounteous volume is an education in history, religion, and most of all, in sanity. Holier Than Thoutakes a much-needed look at major world religions from the point of view of their irrational and historical antecedents. The book’s specific focus is on the so-called ‘Abrahamic’ traditions – Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.
Naturally I found myself wondering to what extent the author was, as they say, ‘preaching to the converted.’ The fact is that most of the world does adhere to organized religion – secular societies still being the exception rather than the rule.
Holier Than Thou carefully examines the legitimacy of world religion’s ‘big books’ – the Bible, the Qur’an, and the Torah. And finds, from the perspective of ethics and humanist concerns, them truly wanting.
Author Constantine Grey approaches the material as would a careful historian or ethnologist. We learn that despite received wisdom (that world religions are based on reported relationships with supernatural sources), most religions are in fact based on the canny political and economic motivations of a given society’s ruling class. In other words, literalist beliefs in the Scriptures are not a historical fact. Not all of the ancients were in awe of nature: “Some had a surprising grip on reality.” Tongue-in-cheek observations like this make this book an absolute delight.
A discussion of how blind devotion to scriptural text actually violates laws of Western society is fascinating. The author quotes literally from ‘received texts’ to show how starkly they prescribe death to infidels, to homosexuals, to witches and other marginalized groups. Fundamentalist Islam, as represented by ISIS and other modern-day terrorists, is targeted front and center in this monograph.
It takes a great deal of courage to write a book like this. Salman Rushdie, the author of The Satanic Verses, had to disappear for 10 years in order to evade the death sentence imposed on him by jihadist authorities. To its credit, Holier Than Thou is not a self-righteous polemic. Far from it. Instead, the book provides an impressive summary of the development of world religions and civilization; man’s evolution from the ape (not from an Edenic Paradise); and a fascinating account of what actually may have taken place during the Flood. This book cannot be praised highly enough. It is a sane touchstone in a world still in the throes of profit and power-based religious hierarchies.