On my last visit to Jerusalem, I struck up a conversation with an elderly man in

the Muslim Quarter. As a shopkeeper, he seemed keen to sell me jewelry. As a Su

fi mystic, he seemed even keener to engage me in matters of the spirit. He told
me that religions are human inventions, so we must avoid the temptation of worsh
ipping Islam rather than Allah. What matters is opening yourself up to the myste
ry that goes by the word God, and that can be done in any religion. As he tempte
d me with more turquoise and silver, he asked me what I was doing in Jerusalem.
When I told him I was researching a book on the world s religions, he put down the
jewelry, looked at me intently, and, placing a finger on my chest for emphasis,
said, "Do not write false things about the religions."
As I wrote God is Is Not One, I came back repeatedly to this conversation. I nev
er wavered from trying to write true things, but I knew that some of the things
I was writing he would consider false.
Mystics often claim that the great religions differ only in the inessentials. Th
ey may be different paths but they are ascending the same mountain and they conv
erge at the peak. Throughout this book I give voice to these mystics: the Daoist
sage Laozi, who wrote his classic the Daodejing just before disappearing foreve
r into the mountains; the Sufi poet Rumi, who instructs us to "gamble everything
for love"; and the Christian mystic Julian of Norwich, who revels in the femini
ne aspects of God. But my focus is not on these spiritual superstars. It is on o
rdinary religious folk the stories they tell, the doctrines they affirm, and the r
ituals they practice. And these stories, doctrines, and rituals could not be mor
e different. Christians do not go on the hajj to Mecca; Jews do not affirm the d
octrine of the Trinity; and neither Buddhists nor Hindus trouble themselves abou
t sin or salvation.
Of course, religious differences trouble us, since they seem to portend, if not
war itself, then at least rumors thereof. But as I researched and wrote this boo
k I came to appreciate how opening our eyes to religious differences can help us
appreciate the unique beauty of each of the great religions--the radical freedo
m of the Daoist wanderer, the contemplative way into death of the Buddhist monk,
and the joy in the face of the divine life of the Sufi shopkeeper.
I plan to send my Sufi shopkeeper a copy of this book. I have no doubt he will d
isagree with parts of it. But I hope he will recognize my effort to avoid writin
g "false things," even when I disagree with friends. --Stephen Prothero
For good and for evil, religion is the single greatest influence in the world. W
e accept as self-evident that competing economic systems (capitalist or communis
t) or clashing political parties (Republican or Democratic) propose very differe
nt solutions to our planet's problems. So why do we pretend that the world's rel
igious traditions are different paths to the same God? We blur the sharp distinc
tions between religions at our own peril, argues religion scholar Stephen Prothe
ro, and it is time to replace naive hopes of interreligious unity with deeper kn
owledge of religious differences. In Religious Literacy, Prothero demonstrated h
ow little Americans know about their own religious traditions and why the world'
s religions should be taught in public schools. Now, in God Is Not One, Prothero
provides listeners with this much-needed content about each of the eight great
religions.
At the dawn of the 21st century, dizzying scientific and technological advanceme
nts, interconnected globalized economies, and even the so-called New Atheists ha
ve done nothing to change one thing: our world remains furiously religious.
For good and for evil, religion is the single greatest influence in the world. W
e accept as self-evident that competing economic systems (capitalist or communis
t) or clashing political parties (Republican or Democratic) propose very differe
nt solutions to our planet's problems. So why do we pretend that the world's rel

igious traditions are different paths to the same God? We blur the sharp distinc
tions between religions at our own peril, argues religion scholar Stephen Prothe
ro, and it is time to replace naive hopes of interreligious unity with deeper kn
owledge of religious differences.
In Religious Literacy, Prothero demonstrated how little Americans know about the
ir own religious traditions and why the world's religions should be taught in pu
blic schools. Now, in God Is Not One, Prothero provides listeners with this much
-needed content about each of the eight great religions.
To claim that all religions are the same is to misunderstand that each attempts
to solve a different human problem. For example:
Islam: the problem is pride / the solution is submission
Christianity: the problem is sin / the solution is salvation
Confucianism: the problem is chaos / the solution is social order
Buddhism: the problem is suffering / the solution is awakening
Judaism: the problem is exile / the solution is to return to God
Prothero reveals each of these traditions on its own terms to create an indispen
sable guide for anyone who wants to better understand the big questions human be
ings have asked for millennia and the disparate paths we are taking to answer th
em today.