A History of God - The 4,000-Year Quest of Judiasm, Christianity, and Islam - Karen Armstrong

I began this book quite excited about its prospects. I'm a bit of a religion-freak - although more curious by it than involved in it myself. I've read everything including translations of original works by early Christian scholars/heretics, works on Satipatthna, the Bhagavad Gita, and even a Wiccan guide. "A History of God" promised an integration of the religions that have done such a bang-up job shaping the history of Western civilization. What it delivered, however, was a jumbled mess of separate histories, philosophies, and opinions, "integrated" by talking about each religion in isolation from the others in random order. While I definitely learned something (especially about the development of Islamic philosphy, where I'm notably weak) when Armstrong veered from loosely tied-together histories to her personal opinions on the state of God in society, I nearly lost my lunch. I have a overwhelming bias towards objectivity, which was overwhelmingly disappointed. Do I agree that people are rejecting God because they find problems with the specifics of their personal religion? Maybe some, although the claim just doesn't resonate with my experience or observations. I think that some people may be more secular because the need filled by God is filled by other things (both TV and the internet provide greater meaning now-a-days). And while I strongly agree that the recent trend towards religious fundamentalism is scary in any religion (especially where it manifests as required conversion or hatred of/violence towards others not like yourself), Armstrong's religious relativism (in the guise of objectivity) hit a bit too close to home for me to buy it.