Religion and The History of Violence by Karen Armstrong – this is one of my favorite authors, so I will end 2025 on a high note, or as optimistic as possible, considering the state of the world – I will continue as if you are interested in the more than five thousand reviews on magnum opera from The Greatest Books of All Time and other pages, together with another 5k or so notes on films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other sites on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html

 

Religion and The History of Violence by Karen Armstrong – this is one of my favorite authors, so I will end 2025 on a high note, or as optimistic as possible, considering the state of the world – I will continue as if you are interested in the more than five thousand reviews on magnum opera from The Greatest Books of All Time and other pages, together with another 5k or so notes on films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other sites on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html

 

 

10 out of 10

 

Karen Armstrong https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/islam-short-history-by-karen-armstrong.html is not just one of my favorite authors, she may have also changed my life, reading quite a few of her marvelous books I could grasp that religion is not about having the existence of God demonstrated

This mesmerizing luminary explains the apparent discrepancies, falsities in the Bible and other holy texts: at the time when this was written, people were telling stories, it is about allegories, they did not tell you ‘The Absolute Truth’ when they said the earth is a few years old and things like that, Creationists do a lot of damage with their exaggerations

 

I have posted a review of Varieties of Religious Experience https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/12/varieties-of-religious-experience-by.html one of the 50 Psychology Classics yesterday, and with this maybe there is a sign that I am about to see the ‘light’, to have an epiphany

Most likely, it is about searching for the truth and wisdom – philosophia means the love of wisdom after all – which might translate in trying to experience Learned Optimism https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/learned-optimism-by-martin-seligman.html another great book by Martin Seligman

 

In fact, the book I am reading now is The Case for God – well, I try and find wisdom in a few works at the same time, not as in reading simultaneously from more pages, but switching from one to another in the same day – and it is so good that I do not want to finish it, it has these passages on Socrates that are stunning

Socrates brought his followers to the brink of illumination, it was like an initiation (I think it is called maisios) and like any meaningful initiation it should bring ectasis, one had to be ready to transcend, and if honest, one can reach a measure of divinity, coupled with the idea of Umberto Eco - “The person who doesn’t read lives only one life. The reader lives 5,000. Reading is immortality backwards”- you can have divinity and immortality near

 

In Varieties of Religious Experience, I think I remember finding the notion that Catholics have this good ritual of confession, which has people tell their sins or mistakes, and then they get absolution and they can move on, I forgot who considered this very healthy, you must not stay down with all the weight and proceed like the Catholics, in a way…

The Buddha https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/awake-by-jenny-allen.html had this very Enlighted reply for one who insisted on asking about God – ‘you are like the man shot by a poisonous arrow, who is seeking to find the one responsible for this, until he gets to the right village, the attacker, he will die’

 

It was something like that, but the significance seems to be very important, instead of doubting, looking for evidence, one must have faith, and I also realize that I understand so little that it is beyond me, I could not understand and I also remember Socrates https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/08/apology-by-plato-unexamined-life-is-not.html and his modesty in repeating he does not pretend to know what he does not know, so God is beyond me, why not admit with humility to the limits I have and just embrace, have Pistis, faith and hope for a better outcome, with gratitude

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence

Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the benefits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

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