I chose to elaborate on two of Karen Armstrong's themes from the first chapter of A Story of God because I felt they were both very strong ideas. The first explains how cultural differences between North Africa and Europe during the Romantic period influenced white society's inability to realize that Islam actually worshiped the same deity. The second explains how Delacroix's audience desired the images of the painting because people, at that time, were losing the concept of God. Armstrong explains the three forms that God takes in the three monotheistic religions. He describes Him as one and the same for every faith, perceived as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Many people in Delacroix's time did not understand that this concept (roughly) encompassed Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, thus leading many to believe that Islam (the furthest of the three) was an entirely different, almost pagan religion. The Arabian horseman attacked by a lion is not a religious painting, but here we clearly see the influence of Christianity on the thinking of white society. During the mid-1800s the West colonized many foreign places (e.g. India, the Philippines), introducing Christianity among other cultural influences. Christianity was now the most widespread and fastest growing faith and came from the most powerful continent; this led many Europeans to consider him the most superior. For Christian Europe the radically different way of Muslim worship and lifestyle was seen as undomesticated. The Islamic view of God was perceived by the West as an entirely different entity, when (according to Armstrong) it is in fact the same deity. Images depicting fierce battles between turbaned men and wild animals were extremely popular... middle of paper... which the Bible does not provide. As society began to prioritize facts over faith, Europeans especially allowed religion to dominate their lives less and less. The Arabian horseman attacked by a lion shows our ideological shift from religious to purely human themes. Delacroix's society was dominated by very Christian values. People were limited to the many customs of their social classes and used escapism – that is, art that showed exotic scenes of adventures in distant places – to satisfy their human desires that were ignored in their daily lives. The Arabian horseman attacked by a lion derives from these values, as it shows how people did not yet understand that the three monotheistic religions worshiped the same deity. It also shows the point at which we have begun to move away from religiously based art towards satisfying and celebrating human emotions, needs and desires..