Karen Armstrong takes a swipe at Dawkins

[Roger Cooke]

I was watching Bill Moyer's journal at my daughter's house Friday night. Bill is generally a benevolent force in the world; I'd go so far as to call him a national treasure in the US. But he does have his moony side, and gets too easily into the feel-good wooliness of people like Joseph Campbell, believing that inside all that incoherence there must be something profound. Karen Armstrong is exactly the kind of guest who resonates with Moyers, with her "Charter of Compassion." She essentially blamed Darwinists for the battle over evolution in the US, saying no Christian ever thought the bible was to be taken as contradicting evolution until the Darwinists themselves pointed it out. She also excuses Muslim terrorism on the grounds that the Muslims "felt attacked" by the West. Well, yes, and the Pope felt attacked by the modern world, and the slave owners felt attacked by abolitionists. But she particularly seemed to blame Dawkins and others for poisoning discourse with their books attacking religion. Somehow it never occurred to her that atheists might feel attacked. If she could only see that, perhaps she could find the same explanation/excuse for us that she finds for Osama Bin Laden. (No, of course, she doesn't actually excuse Bin Laden, but her explanations tend in that direction.)

Here's what she said, if you have the patience to listen to all the touchy-feely stuff that precedes it:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03132009/

(Click on "profile.html". The website won't let me link directly to that file.)

[Lisa Bauer]

That sounds rather typical of her -- she's attacked Dawkins and what she has called "arrogant atheism" or "secular fundamentalism" before. Though, to be fair I've read comments from some people saying that her books on religion have caused them to lose their faith, since she portrays the three monotheisms as very human constructs. On the other hand, she's become infamous for what many would consider her shameless "whitewashing" of Islam and Muhammad's life, excusing and/or justifying as "a product of his time" things like his marriage to the child Ayesha, slaughter of a Jewish tribe en masse, and the slaughter of poets denouncing him. Let's just say she's a frustrating character!

Back to the topic. For example, here is Armstrong is in a book called Conversations on Religion (2008), stolen from a previous comment I've made on the topic:

And so it depends whether you just want to sound off about things and ease your own opinions when you say that something is not worthy of respect or that you only have contempt for this kind of belief. Or do you want to make things better? If you want to make things better, it is better not to attack, because you will make things more extreme.

This approach is not worthy of us. People like Grayling and I have lived lives of utter privilege...Whereas these people in the Middle East whose religion is the bedrock of their lives, quite rightly feel that they have got a raw deal out of us anyway. So when we start pouring this arrogant disdain on their way of life it is just appalling behaviour. We must remember how privileged we are. Now I have nothing against atheism. I think that it is a perfectly respectable position. I think it can be much more, dare I say it, spiritual than a facile or weary 'Santa Claus' type theism. But arrogant atheism that is unkind and lacking in respect for other human beings who are less privileged than us gives atheism a bad name.

...It is no good just saying, 'You've got to stop being religious in this way.' Whether people like Grayling and Dawkins like it or not there is a religious revival in the world. And in fact Dawkins is very frightened by this because he believes that atheists are being squeezed to the sidelines and it is going to make him really disadvantaged. Though I don't see how that is the case for him given the privileged life that he has as an Oxford don. I think atheists rule in the United Kingdom to be honest. This country is the worst market in the whole world for my books! And that is OK; I can see how we got to this point and I have respect for atheism as long as it is respectful of others. But in other parts of the world there is a religious revival, and the trick is to make sure that the political context in which this revival takes place is healthy...So if we want religion to be healthy it is no good banning it in a disrespectful way. You can't ban it any more than you can ban sex or art -- it is something that people do and they are going to do it whether Dawkins and Grayling like it or not. The thing to do is to make sure that the political context in which it develops is healthy, and that we don't, for short-term political goals, create a situation where a malaise sets in and religion goes bad along with everything else.

I'm also going to shamelessly rip off my other references to Armstrong in order to provide context. This is from a Guardian article, in which she said that she was writing her history of the Bible because "People are interpreting scripture in all kinds of stupid ways, including Richard Dawkins."

Armstrong's next book - on divine incarnation in world religions - has been postponed to enable her to participate in the fevered contemporary debate about the value of religion, which has been dominated by prominent thinkers who have lambasted faith as a gross distortion of the human spirit.

"Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have set up a caricature of religion. This kind of aggressive secular fundamentalism feeds disdain which - as the Buddha might say - is not skilful. The test of any set of ideas must be whether they increase charity; do they help to create better understanding? - we don't need any more polarity. But it's a phenomenon which is very popular.

And here's her remarks from a Salon interview:

Q: Well, what do you say to the scientists, especially the Darwinists -- Richard Dawkins would be the obvious case -- who are quite angry about religion? They say religion is the root of much evil in the world. Wars are fought and fueled by religion. And now that we're in the 21st century, they say it's time that science replace religion.

A: I don't think it will. In the scientific age, we've seen a massive religious revival everywhere but Europe. And some of these people -- not all, by any means -- seem to be secular fundamentalists. They have as bigoted a view of religion as some religious fundamentalists have of secularism. We have too much dogmatism at the moment. Take Richard Dawkins, for example. He did a couple of religious programs that I was fortunate enough to miss. It was a very, very one-sided view.

Q: Well, he hates religion.

A: Yeah, this is not what the Buddha would call skillful. If you're consumed by hatred -- Freud was rather the same -- then this is souring your personality and clouding your vision. What you need to do is to look appraisingly and calmly on other traditions. Because when you hate religion, it's also very easy to hate the people who practice it.

Q: This does raise the question, though, of how to read the sacred scriptures.

A: Indeed.

Q: Because there are all kinds of inflammatory things that are said. For instance, many passages in both the Bible and the Quran exhort the faithful to kill the infidels. Sam Harris, in his book "The End of Faith," has seven very densely packed pages of nothing but quotations from the Quran with just this message. "God's curse be upon the infidels"; "slay them wherever you find them"; "fighting is obligatory for you, much as you dislike it." And Sam Harris' point is that the Muslim suicide bombings are not the aberration of Islam. They are the message of Islam.

Q: Well, that's simply not true. He's taken parts of those texts and omitted their conclusions, which say fighting is hateful for you. You have to do it if you're attacked, as Mohammed was being attacked at the time when that verse was revealed. But forgiveness is better for you. Peace is better. But when we're living in a violent society, our religion becomes violent, too. Religion gets sucked in and becomes part of the problem. But to isolate these texts as though they expressed the whole of the tradition is very mischievous and dangerous at this time when we are in danger of polarizing people on both sides. And this kind of inflammatory talk, say about Islam, is convincing Muslims all over the world who are not extremists that the West is incurably Islamophobic and will never respect their traditions. I think it's irresponsible at this time.

[quisquose]

He did a couple of religious programs that I was fortunate enough to miss. It was a very, very one-sided view.

Perhaps she's just a bit pissed that his books have taken a big chunk out of her shelf space in the shops.

[quisquose]

I notice from Layla's posts that Karen Armstrong also uses the word secular in the same dishonest way that I have heard Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor and others use it.

[Roger Cooke]

Armstrong hadn't come within my periphery of vision until Friday night. Thanks to Layla, I can see that Armstrong has resorted to the last refuge of a bankrupt debater: Psycholanalyzing the opposition.

And in fact Dawkins is very frightened by this because he believes that atheists are being squeezed to the sidelines and it is going to make him really disadvantaged.

How does she know? Is this some kind of divine revelation granted to her, to see what is hidden from all the rest of us?

[besleybean]

I actually have loads of her books and have always quite liked her until now! At the end of the day she's a theologian who likes to sell...

[Roger Cooke]

I actually have loads of her books and have always quite liked her until now! At the end of the day she's a theologian who likes to sell...

I liked a lot of what she said. But when Moyers said he knew a lot of very decent atheists and agnostics, she was quick to jump in, almost before he had finished speaking, to say that she knew a lot of them who were jerks. Totally unnecessary, I thought. Doesn't she also know some Christians who are jerks? She, after all, is a former nun. There must have been something about the Catholic Church that she didn't like.

[Lisa Bauer]

Here's the parts that Roger Cooke is talking about, from the transcript:

BILL MOYERS: I'm glad you mentioned this, because I know many atheists and agnostics who are more faithful, if that's the right term, to the Golden Rule than a lot of believing religious people.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Yes. And I also know a number of atheists who have no time for the Golden Rule at all.

BILL MOYERS: So does your notion of compassion embrace liberals saying that, in the interest of harmony we will encourage our state schools to teach creationism alongside with your Darwin's-

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Yeah, you see-

BILL MOYERS: -notion of evolution?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: You see, the assault of Richard Dawkins on creationism has resulted, for the first time, in a worry about Darwin in the Muslim world. Up until this time--

BILL MOYERS: What do you mean?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: There was no worry about Darwin in the Muslim world up until very recently. The Koran doesn't say how God created the world. The texts tell you this is an ayah [sign]. We don't know what happened. And there was just no problem about it.

Now, and I get to see it on the websites that I get, it's headline news that British scientists sort of slags creation. And Darwin has now become an anathema as a result of that assault. So I think we've all just got to come off our high horses a bit.

I think just to cool down the rhetoric. I think that truth must be respected. There must be an openness towards science, as Saint Augustine pointed out years ago.

He said, "If a religious text is found to contradict contemporary science, you must find a new interpretation for this text." You must allegorize it in some way. We need to get back to that. And let's just state I don't want this to be going after the fundamentalists. I don't want this to be going after extremists. I want this to just say, quietly, let us to remember the primal duty of compassion.

...What the hell? The Qur'an talks about "the creation of the heavens and the earth" a bit more figuratively than Genesis, but Adam and Eve are presented as actually existing historical figures, and Adam is revered as a prophet in Islam (his name is followed by alayhi salaam, "peace upon him", by devout Muslims). Similarly in the hadith, where Muhammad is even claimed to have met Prophet Adam during his night journey to heaven. What about the tale of Noah, retold many times in the Qur'an and also taken quite literally?

Also, I can think of a couple of reasons why Darwin wasn't an issue in the Muslim world until very recently. First, there was a time during much of the 20th century, before the rise of modern fundamentalism, when the educated elite of many Muslim countries were more or less secular and eagerly embraced science, in hopes that this would help them to improve their situation vis-à-vis the West. Second, it wasn't an issue for most believers because they were poor and poorly educated, and hence wouldn't get much of a chance to be exposed to ideas like that. No exposure equals no protests and no problems. Now that more and more Muslim countries have adopted universal compulsory education, there's more of a chance that students, who in previous eras would have received no secular education at all, will come into contact with potentially "threatening" ideas.

She also says this:

Most fundamentalist movements, in every tradition that I've studied, in every fundamentalist movement, in Judaism, Christianity and Islam has begun with what is perceived as to be an assault by the liberal or secular establishment.

This next part utterly baffled me. On the one hand, humans created the idea of God. But projecting one's own feelings onto this being is idolatry, which is to be condemned for traducing the "true" "transcendent reality"?

BILL MOYERS: Who created God?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Human beings created the idea of God. But the transcendent reality to which the idea of God nudges us, is embedded in part of the human experience.

BILL MOYERS: But if we create God, then we can read into God. Our-

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Yes.

BILL MOYERS: -passions, jealousies, envies, animosities, aspirations.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Yes and this is idolatry. When you are creating a God in your own image and likeness. When the crusaders went into battle with the cry, "God wills it," on their lips. They were projecting their own fear and loathing of these rival faiths onto other people. And we get a lot of secular people doing this too.

BILL MOYERS: With the Stalinists, the Communists, the fascists-

KAREN ARMSTRONG: And even nearer here in the United States. You know, we've got people saying, "We want to get rid of religion." Or Radical Republicans slanging Democrats.

I have to say I don't particularly care for Armstrong's tendency to retroject modern liberal religious attitudes onto ancient and medieval peoples. Does anybody actually believe this:

KAREN ARMSTRONG: And of course, you have to understand that this tendency to read scripture in a literal manner is very recent.

BILL MOYERS: Right.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Nobody, for example, ever thought of interpreting the first chapter of Genesis as a literal account of the origins of life, until the modern period. It's our scientific mindset that makes us want to sort of read these texts for accurate information.

I know that it's not anywhere near as simple as the claim that "ancient and medieval peoples read their scriptures completely literally" -- as she says, Augustine argued against that in the 5th century -- but the idea that "nobody" ever took Genesis literally before the modern era is more than a little hard to swallow. Also, this bit had me rolling my eyes:

KAREN ARMSTRONG: And the Rabbis who came after them in the Talmudic age, and who created the Mishnah and Talmud, as it were then, New Testament, that paid very little attention to the Hebrew scriptures. But said, "Now we have to move on." Now, we've lost that confidence.

*baffled* I'm not sure how anybody studying the history of Judaism could claim that the rabbis "paid very little attention to the Hebrew scriptures." It is true that they could have idiosyncratic views on the subject, but everything was grounded in the Torah. Also, I'm not sure how one can pair "moving on" from the scriptures with the painstaking care the rabbis took in propounding the most minute details of halacha, Jewish law, derived from and ultimately justified by the scriptures that they were supposedly paying very little attention to.

OK, one more bit and I'll stop:

There used to be. Islam, for example, the Koran is a pluralistic document. It says that every rightly guided religion comes from God. And there must be no compulsion in religion. And it says that Muhammad has not come to cancel out the teachings of Jesus or Moses or Abraham.

Now, Muslims have fallen into the trap that Jews, Christians, and others have done, of thinking that they are the one and only. This is ego. This is pure ego.

BILL MOYERS: But it's inspired, is it not sanctified by religion?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Well, no, I mean, the idea is that you all have to be Muslim, is actually going against the explicit teaching of the Koran, in which God says to Muhammad, "If we"-- using the royal we - "had wanted the whole of mankind to be in one single religious community, we would have achieved, we would have made that happen. But we did not so wish. This is not our desire. So you, Muhammad, leave them alone." And everybody says the Koran has their own din. Their own religious tradition, their own way of life.

Now, this is getting lost to the modern world. But that was also Muslim practice for the first 100 years after the death of the prophet when in the empire that they created, conversion to Islam was actually frowned upon. Because Jews and Christians and Zoroastrians and, later, Buddhists, had their own din, their own religion. And that was to be respected.

She doesn't say that the reason that Muhammad didn't "come to cancel out the teachings of Jesus or Moses or Abraham" is because according to Islam, all three were really Muslims, and to the extent that their words and scriptures differ from Islam, it is because they have been corrupted by the Jews and Christians. The first religion of mankind was Islam, the exclusive worship of the one God, and all other religions are later corruptions of this initial pure religion. Children are said to have been born Muslim; it is only their parents who make them Jews or Christians or polytheists (hence why converts are often called "reverts"). You'll see a lot of Muslims claiming nothing but the highest respect for the messages of Moses and Jesus, in their original form, i.e., not as they actually exist now but shorn of their Jewish and Christian corruptions, such as the notion that Jesus was the son of God or that he was crucified and died (but NOT the virgin birth!).

Also, did she miss all those verses consigning those who disbelieve or reject Muhammad to the harshest tortures of hell for all eternity? What about the verse that says "Anybody who desires a religion other than Islam, it will not be accepted of him, and in the hereafter he will be among the losers" (3:85)? Also, "Many are the men and jinns we have created for hell" (7:179) -- thus, if God has created people so as not to believe, it's because he intends to "fill hell with jinns and men together" (11:119, 32:13). She must have been reading a different Qur'an than I did. I didn't like those verses either when I was Muslim, and tried mightily with little success to make them really intend something other than their plain meaning (the idea that a good and merciful deity would send people to hell for having the wrong religion based on an accident of birth or upbringing was always abhorrent to me), but I couldn't just ignore them the way she seems to!

Finally, this was a very telling remark, I think:

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Well, I had an immensely warm welcome in Pakistan. One woman came up to me and she said, "When I see you with your blond hair and blue eyes speaking with such respect about our prophet, I just weep."

I'll stop now...

[quisquose]

Thanks for your analysis Layla, very interesting. I've got a couple of Karen Armstrong's books I bought cheap that I was going to read sometime, but I'm not quite sure that I'll have the stomach for it now.

People can think what they like about Dawkins, but at least he writes with a passion and honest integrity. I get the impression from this interview that the same cannot be said for Armstrong.

Particularly telling was what you bolded above:

KAREN ARMSTRONG: You see, the assault of Richard Dawkins on creationism has resulted, for the first time, in a worry about Darwin in the Muslim world. Up until this time--

BILL MOYERS: What do you mean?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: There was no worry about Darwin in the Muslim world up until very recently. The Koran doesn't say how God created the world. The texts tell you this is an ayah [sign]. We don't know what happened. And there was just no problem about it.

Has she really just gone and blamed Dawkins there for the rise of creationism in the Muslim world? The God Delusion was published when, 2006 wasn't it? She is talking absolute BS.

[Ian Tattum]

Thanks for your analysis Layla, very interesting. I've got a couple of Karen Armstrong's books I bought cheap that I was going to read sometime, but I'm not quite sure that I'll have the stomach for it now.

People can think what they like about Dawkins, but at least he writes with a passion and honest integrity. I get the impression from this interview that the same cannot be said for Armstrong.

Particularly telling was what you bolded above:

KAREN ARMSTRONG: You see, the assault of Richard Dawkins on creationism has resulted, for the first time, in a worry about Darwin in the Muslim world. Up until this time--

BILL MOYERS: What do you mean?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: There was no worry about Darwin in the Muslim world up until very recently. The Koran doesn't say how God created the world. The texts tell you this is an ayah [sign]. We don't know what happened. And there was just no problem about it.

Has she really just gone and blamed Dawkins there for the rise of creationism in the Muslim world? The God Delusion was published when, 2006 wasn't it? She is talking absolute BS.

Some of this is perfectly fair. I am familiar with one of the most eirenic branches of Islam, the ahmadiyya movement, and their teaching has always been creationist!
But I think you are being unfair to Karen Armstrong personally as she is every bit as passionate and honest as he is, but is simply more disposed to see good in religion, partly I am sure because of her background but also because she is more agnostic than atheistic and less of a rationalist.
In my opinion they both make incorrect/partial judgements, but they are their own particular incorrect/partial judgements, and both can be trusted up to a point

[Lisa Bauer]

Some of this is perfectly fair. I am familiar with one of the most eirenic branches of Islam, the ahmadiyya movement, and their teaching has always been creationist!
But I think you are being unfair to Karen Armstrong personally as she is every bit as passionate and honest as he is, but is simply more disposed to see good in religion, partly I am sure because of her background but also because she is more agnostic than atheistic and less of a rationalist.
In my opinion they both make incorrect/partial judgements, but they are their own particular incorrect/partial judgements, and both can be trusted up to a point

Well, I'm sure she means well, and desires that all faiths should accept each other and live together in harmony, but I have little patience for things I know for sure to be factually incorrect. I mean, I'll be the first to admit I don't know very much, but when I do know a little bit about something, I get very annoyed when people get it wrong!

I suppose I also find the tone off-putting -- there seems to be an undertone of "I'm so much more tolerant and accepting than those narrow-minded atheists and fundamentalists, who are basically the same". Plus a good dollop of what Dawkins would call "I'm an atheist but..." -- except I don't think she's an atheist in any real sense, she's claimed to be a "freelance monotheist". In addition, too many of her remarks about religion in history seem to me to be feel-good modern bafflegab, having very little in common with those religions as they were actually understood and practiced in those eras. Just my opinion, of course!

[Ian Tattum]

[
Well, I'm sure she means well, and desires that all faiths should accept each other and live together in harmony, but I have little patience for things I know for sure to be factually incorrect. I mean, I'll be the first to admit I don't know very much, but when I do know a little bit about something, I get very annoyed when people get it wrong!

I suppose I also find the tone off-putting -- there seems to be an undertone of "I'm so much more tolerant and accepting than those narrow-minded atheists and fundamentalists, who are basically the same". Plus a good dollop of what Dawkins would call "I'm an atheist but..." -- except I don't think she's an atheist in any real sense, she's claimed to be a "freelance monotheist". In addition, too many of her remarks about religion in history seem to me to be feel-good modern bafflegab, having very little in common with those religions as they were actually understood and practiced in those eras. Just my opinion, of course!

To drop my mask of utter tolerance I probably find her a mite more annoying than I do the prof But although she does have a streak of romanticism and to my mind an unjustified reputation as being everyman's theologian, she does the equivalent job to many of our popularisers of science in providing a gateway into unfamiliar territory. And even her uncritical biography of Muhammad was nothing compared to the one I read by a die hard ' secularist' which portrayed its subject as a cross between Flashman and Sir Richard Burton- projection can afflict us all!

[Steven Mading]

Karen Armstrong reminds me a lot of our own poster here on these forums, "Mercer".

[Shaker]

In what way, precisely?

[Lisa Bauer]

To drop my mask of utter tolerance I probably find her a mite more annoying than I do the prof

Aw, why would you say the prof is annoying?

Some say he's mellowed a bit over the years. I was amused to read this bit in this old profile piece from 1996: "Earlier this year, Richard Dawkins took part in a public debate in a hall on the edge of Regent's Park, in central London. The debate, which was organized by the Oxford-based Jewish society L'Chaim, set Dawkins against the very distinguished Jewish scholar Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz. The question to be debated was "Does God exist?"...One member of the society told me that Dawkins was significantly gentler than he used to be at these meetings: he used to go into 'a frenzy of savage attack, saying all religious people are delusional, weak-minded.'" Of course, since I don't have a transcript of the aforesaid previous "meetings", there's no way to tell if he's being horribly traduced (it does sound like it)!

But although she does have a streak of romanticism and to my mind an unjustified reputation as being everyman's theologian, she does the equivalent job to many of our popularisers of science in providing a gateway into unfamiliar territory. And even her uncritical biography of Muhammad was nothing compared to the one I read by a die hard ' secularist' which portrayed its subject as a cross between Flashman and Sir Richard Burton- projection can afflict us all!

Wow, which Muhammad biography was that? (I have a few possibilities in mind as to which one you're talking about...)

I suppose you may have a point there about Armstrong (though I'd insist on all the caveats about her factual accuracy and historical sense I made above). I mentioned in my first post on this topic that some people have lost their faith in organized religion after reading her books and coming to understand how human-made it all was. (And, to be fair, others have had their faith strengthened, as for example with one of my Muslim female friends after reading her books on Islam and seeing her as almot a "champion" of Islam in the public eye against what she called "lies and misconceptions".) Getting people to think more deeply about the subject of religion is all to the good, I think, even if I take strong issue with the way Armstrong goes about doing that much of the time.

Karen Armstrong reminds me a lot of our own poster here on these forums, "Mercer".

Nah...not even close. At least, I don't think so.

[Ian Tattum]

[quote="Layla Nasreddin"]
Aw, why would you say the prof is annoying?

Because he reminds me of my brother



Wow, which Muhammad biography was that? (I have a few possibilities in mind as to which one you're talking about...)

As I picked it up in the local library and only got as far as his salivation over fighting and collecting nubile wives, I may be wrong, but I think it was by Barnaby Rogerson, who I know writes travel guides but also turns up from time to time penning reviews in the Times Literary Supplement!
What would you suggest as a balanced biography?- all the versions I have found have either been whitewash,slander or written by aliens.

[Lisa Bauer]

Aw, why would you say the prof is annoying?

Because he reminds me of my brother

Oh, really?

What would you suggest as a balanced biography?- all the versions I have found have either been whitewash,slander or written by aliens.

Uhh...there's a lot, I have to say. My method of finding out was to read everything available, good and bad, favorable or not, and then draw my own conclusions. Not very helpful, I know...

[logical bob]

It's a bit of a sad to have a go at Karen Armstrong from this forum. Richard Dawkins says the world would be a better place if more Christians took a sophistacted view of theology. I suspect more people have lost their Christain belief because of Armstrong - it's very hard to read her books and still believe the Bible contains literal truth, or was ever intended to. It's a much more effective challenge than having your views likened to belief in the tooth fairy.

1 edit for clarity

[Steven Mading]

It's a bit of a sad argument because Dawkins and Armstrong have more in common than not. Dawkins says the world would be a better place if more Christians took a sophistacted view of theology. I suspect more people have lost their Christain belief because of Armstrong - it's very hard to read her books and still believe the Bible contains literal truth, or was ever intended to. It's a much more effective challenge than having your views likened to belief in the tooth fairy.

An argument about the effacacy of a statement and an argument about the truth of a statement are two different things.
It probably is true that a softer approach is more effective. But it gets there by being less honest.

[logical bob]

Agreed. But the Armstrong books I've read aren't dishonest. They're about how the Bible came to be the way it is, and what she says may well be true.

[Steven Mading]

Agreed. But the Armstrong books I've read aren't dishonest.

The claims she made about Dawkins are.

[aratina]

Though, to be fair I've read comments from some people saying that her [Karen Armstrong's] books on religion have caused them to lose their faith, since she portrays the three monotheisms as very human constructs.

You hit me on the head with that one. I was actually surprised to hear her criticize Sam Harris and Daniel Dennet in 2007 (I think it was) on NPR because of what she herself had written. I would dare say that her book A History of God is an atheist primer in that it forces the reader to view religion as nothing more than a cultural artifact and impels one to begin to let go of beliefs and question dogma and tradition. That book of hers can move one up a few points on the Dawkins Scale to say the least.

[Lisa Bauer]

Though, to be fair I've read comments from some people saying that her [Karen Armstrong's] books on religion have caused them to lose their faith, since she portrays the three monotheisms as very human constructs.

You hit me on the head with that one. I was actually surprised to hear her criticize Sam Harris and Daniel Dennet in 2007 (I think it was) on NPR because of what she herself had written. I would dare say that her book A History of God is an atheist primer in that it forces the reader to view religion as nothing more than a cultural artifact and impels one to begin to let go of beliefs and question dogma and tradition. That book of hers can move one up a few points on the Dawkins Scale to say the least.

Well, that's why I find her to be such a frustrating character! She'll write about the development of monotheism in a simple, easy to understand, lucid manner, then talk absolute rubbish about what a great guy Muhammad is and how unfair it is for us to apply 21st century standards to a 7th century Arab. Perhaps, but this is the man held up as the most perfect man, the beloved of Allah, whose every reported word and deed is held up as an example to be emulated by the faithful even today (as I know from experience, though this doesn't apply nearly as much for females!). In such a context, yes, it IS fair to judge him by modern standards! Then there's her "we mustn't be disrespectful to religion" and "atheists like Dawkins are just as fanatical as fundamentalists" stances, mentioned above...

I think a Karen Armstrong/Richard Dawkins debate -- or perhaps just a discussion -- would be quite interesting. In my opinion, of course.

[RobertS]

Well, that's why I find her to be such a frustrating character! She'll write about the development of monotheism in a simple, easy to understand, lucid manner, then talk absolute rubbish about what a great guy Muhammad is and how unfair it is for us to apply 21st century standards to a 7th century Arab. Perhaps, but this is the man held up as the most perfect man, the beloved of Allah, whose every reported word and deed is held up as an example to be emulated by the faithful even today (as I know from experience, though this doesn't apply nearly as much for females!). In such a context, yes, it IS fair to judge him by modern standards! Then there's her "we mustn't be disrespectful to religion" and "atheists like Dawkins are just as fanatical as fundamentalists" stances, mentioned above...

I think a Karen Armstrong/Richard Dawkins debate -- or perhaps just a discussion -- would be quite interesting. In my opinion, of course.

While I don't have any problems with cutting Mohamed some slack, he may have been a progressive guy for the 7th century, It is not the 7th century anymore. I am rather happy about that. All these people who want to keep him as a standard for today have no good reason to expect the same slack.

I actually did read a couple of Karen Armstrong's books and found them to be somewhat helpful. She shows, but does not state explicitly, how religion can be a means for good as long as you don't say anything that religious people do not like hearing at which point it becomes vengeful, petty, stupid, reactionary and murderous.

Really, even if we are arrogant in our atheism and/or secularism, if a religion which takes it's texts on a non-literal level can become dangerously literalist over a few people pointing and laughing, or simply misunderstanding; then it was probably never very stable to begin with.

[Randy Ping]

I was watching Bill Moyer's journal at my daughter's house Friday night. Bill is generally a benevolent force in the world; I'd go so far as to call him a national treasure in the US. But he does have his moony side, and gets too easily into the feel-good wooliness of people like Joseph Campbell, believing that inside all that incoherence there must be something profound. Karen Armstrong is exactly the kind of guest who resonates with Moyers, with her "Charter of Compassion." She essentially blamed Darwinists for the battle over evolution in the US, saying no Christian ever thought the bible was to be taken as contradicting evolution until the Darwinists themselves pointed it out. She also excuses Muslim terrorism on the grounds that the Muslims "felt attacked" by the West. Well, yes, and the Pope felt attacked by the modern world, and the slave owners felt attacked by abolitionists. But she particularly seemed to blame Dawkins and others for poisoning discourse with their books attacking religion. Somehow it never occurred to her that atheists might feel attacked. If she could only see that, perhaps she could find the same explanation/excuse for us that she finds for Osama Bin Laden. (No, of course, she doesn't actually excuse Bin Laden, but her explanations tend in that direction.)

Here's what she said, if you have the patience to listen to all the touchy-feely stuff that precedes it:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03132009/

(Click on "profile.html". The website won't let me link directly to that file.)

Wow, she's so patently dishonest that it confounds me as to where to begin....
what a stupid human being if she actually believes the fesces she lets fall from her mouth and pen.