Luke Pemberton's booklet How to See Religion Differently What questioning your beliefs can reveal, and why it can lead to a healthy mind is a short read on how he said goodbye to the Roman Catholic Church and a series of its theological tenets. The book title and the introduction suggest that you can extrapolate this easily to other Abrahamic religions like the Judaism and Islam. Well, that's a conclusion not founded in this work. 

The 200 hand-drawn graphics cannot be enlarged in the Kindle version and had to be ignored while reading. If you strip the drawings you're left with a 20-minute read. Sorry, that's not enough to dig into a single theological question, have a serious conversation, and refrain from jumping to conclusions. Pemberton frequently states that he studies level A theology in the Roman Catholic Church. I miss references, quotes from the Bible, any reflection or comparison. To equate Roman Catholicism with religion, in general, is stupid. The author only superficially clarifies his inspiration: "The views of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche are particular revelatory for me."  Does that include Nietzsche's perspective on Jesus Christ, Buddhism, and denouncing Judaism without becoming anti-Semitic? I can't find that in the book.

Pemberton is drawn to Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitches, and Bart D. Ehrman, well-known atheists and authors seeking to deconstruct or strip institutional religion, Roman Catholicism in particular by taking a very narrow look at biblical sources and valuing bold statements over personal conversations. Their quest to get to terms with religion, however, takes many more pages. If I would apply the same advertising standard guidelines the author did on religion in his book, I would claim a refund being misled by the book cover. Hmm, that's applicable for many self-help books ;)

A quick read. I appreciated the points the author made, however I wish he would have explored them in a deeper manner. I did not like the amateurish stick-figure drawings. The whole thing felt rushed, and could benefit from a thorough rewrite.

Questioning your beliefs is a good thing

The full title of this book is How to See Religion Differently: What questioning your beliefs can reveal, and why it can lead to a healthy mind. The book is by Luke Pemberton who was raised Catholic and questioned his beliefs (or at least what he was told to believe) as he got a bit older.

I think that questioning your beliefs is a good thing. Different folks will decide different things. Religion makes sense to many people. Others will decide that religion or maybe a particular religion is not for them.

Like Luke, I was raised Catholic and questioned the teachings as I got older and decided the Catholic faith was not for me. We reached the same conclusion but my journey was very different.

Luke felt guilty for questioning what he was told to believe. I did not. I don’t know if the difference was in parenting, education, or specific experiences in his parish. I could understand his feelings although it was not at all like my experience.

I read this on my Kindle and I’ll say more about that in a minute. First I want to thank Netgalley for a chance to read this an Advance Reading Copy (ARC).

So these comments might relate the ARC rather than the book itself. Amazon lets you download a free sample so check that to see if it is acceptable to you if you are thinking about eis book.

I was not big fan of the illustrations in the book. First of all they were very small so I could not read them on the Kindle. I found the iPad Kindle app allowed me to enlarge them but the resolution was fairly low and the enlarged images with text were often hard to read.

This may not be true of the final product so if you are interested in this book, please look at the sample first. I have no idea if the print version has this problem.

I enjoyed reading this book and I hope you will too.

The author's mission to make the reader look at religion differently was accomplished as I read this! This book is not preachy and doesn't push the author's beliefs on you, it just encourages you to look at things more closely and interpret them yourself. I loved the stick figures!

As someone who has a strong view on religion, and challenges anyone to ask (and answer) the hard questions about their religion, I raced right through this short book. This book brings up points that do make you question the validity of Christianity. If you've already taken the journey into Atheism, you've likely heard many of the lines provided by the author. Otherwise, if you have any doubt whatsoever in your faith, you'll find that Luke Pemberton gives you a lot to think about,

I was provided an ARC of this book, therefore the handwritten notes were a bit difficult to read on a mid-sized device.

My thanks to NetGalley for the pleasure of reading and reviewing How to See Religion Differently by Luke Pemberton.

How to see religion differently⭐️

I really liked the stick figure drawings it was just really cute to see as i read the story.
I struggle with faith as many do when God doesnt listen and it was nice to someones view on everything we cant see and what his catholic life has taught him. In other words catholics are crazy.
I do see religion differently now and it’s hilarious. He went through the bible in cartoons and what he thought he had to do and what was his fault versus Gods fault and it was werid but good but also stupid.

Thank you so much to booksgosocial via netgalley for sending me an ARC copy of How to see religion differently by Luke Pennerton. This will be released on May 2018.
All opinions are my own.

This is exactly the book I am looking forward to show my students in order to demonstrate that religion is not a rigid absolute phenomenon but something that can, and should, be examined.

The writing is personable and the drawing are perfect.