Customer Reviews

What I Believe

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you love learning about world religion and looking for insight into why religion today is what it is, this is a wonderful comparative literature that is truly well researched, though out, and controversial. It was a really hard book to find, banned for many years. It is the book that inspired Gandhi to become the man that changed India. It explores the personal stuggles of Tolstoy and is not his characteristic writing style. Easy to read and very understandable. It is a thought provoking and wonderful book.

I actually have a different printing of this book, but it has seriously affected my world view, as it did for Mahatma Gandhi.

A small sampling of Tolstoy's insights to Christianity from this work, and how it is extremely relevant to modern society and current politics is the subject of the second half of one of my recent blog posts here:[...] As I mention in the post, the historical interpretations of scripture as presented by Tolstoy seem to match expert knowledge of the period, as the PhD Archeologist I met in Rome explained to me.

This book will change how you view and understand Christianity. Or, it did for me at least. But then again I was raised as a Right Winged, Home Schooled, Christian American Republican. Prepare to have much of that like completely shattered beyond hope of repair as Tolstoy analyzes the original meaning and understanding of many of Christs teachings, without the misrepresentations of the church. As a bonus: Gain valuable counter points for the so called biblical literalists you may run into from time to time. (Even more of which can be found elsewhere on my blog.)

Anyway: Tolstoy gets 5 stars from me! And presumably Gandhi also, given he modeled his work in large part on Tolstoy's explanation of Christs teachings from this volume. So if you don't believe me, take Gandhi's word for it!

The first page of this edition kindly asks the reader to "forgive any spelling mistakes [and]missing or extraneous characters." This edition is riddled with errors. A sentence on page 7 reads "I understand that Jesus in-noj$a$ commands me to turn the other cheek and to give upmyC(Jat, for sheer sufFering-'s sake; but commands me not to resiStrevil, and warns me that my obedience may entail suffering." I strongly encourage you to buy a different edition of this book that is readable.

In my opinion, his writtings aren't for everyone; but I feel everyone is ment for his writtings.

Tolstoy complains theologians transformed the commands of Christ into meaning commands that could be practically followed by men in the world.

Out of respect for the same theologians he then goes on to downgrade Christ's command to "love one's enemies" into his practical doctrine of pacifism that man is able to follow.

Tolstoy confidently asserts that his liberating work, "What I Believe", has corrected eighteen centuries of misinterpretation of Christ's teachings by Christendom. His hubris knows no bounds by going on to deny the divinity of Christ. One gets the impression that Tolstoy thinks his book is a better Gospel of Christ than what is offered in the Cannon.

Practically speaking, Tolstoy would have been more productive to mankind completing War and Peace, leaving theology to those who study it.