I am a big fan of Karen Armstrong and her writings. She is an excellent writer and a fascinating and wonderful person.
However, I do want to make some general criticisms of her writings and the views expressed in some of them.
I believe that she is over-simplistic about the supposed clear distinction between humanity's skilled use of "mythos" in the past and excessive use of "logos" in the present; and over-simplistic in its historical reality and meaning.
She suggests that our supposedly excessive use of the "logos" way of thinking today is potentially catastrophic. I disagree that rationality is something that we should be wary of. On the contrary, we obviously need to be wary of irrationality.
She states that the "death of mythology" in the modern period is "potentially disastrous". I would question this.
I believe that she has a rose-tinted view of religion and is too unwilling to criticize it.
For what seems to be sentimental motives she recoils from outright opposition to religion.
I think she is wrong to de-emphasize the links between religious patterns of thinking and violence and war. She explains why she thinks it is odd to say - as so many seem to - that religion has caused many wars in her book "Fields of Blood". She contends that religion is used as a scapegoat that we blame for our history of violence.
However, I am not convinced by this. I think that religious thinking is a genuine factor in causing violence. I think Voltaire was right when he said that "where people believe absurdities, they will commit atrocities". She seems to be saying that there is a truth to the link, but then seems to want to play it down and do nothing about it.
I think her own and many others' fawning and appeasing attitude to religion is due to a desire to not "rock the boat" or "ruffle feathers" among the religious. In other words a lack of a truly critical attitude to religion is a testament to the intimidatory power of religion.
I believe it is wrong to assert that humans are "religious animals" and there is not really any conclusive evidence for assertions of this kind. Just because humans have often had religions it does not follow that humans are by nature religious animals or will always have something like a religion. I do not believe it is the case that humans have to have religions, or that they naturally develop religions. I do not believe that religion is a part of human nature.
I believe that she is fundamentally misleading and elusive about "God". Her book "The Case for God" is misleading because it does not really present a "case for God" at all. The same book is wrong in its assessments of the so-called "New Atheists". This book is, however, very well written and very broad-ranging and informative and well worth reading for those that wish to understand religion.
It is simply wrong of her to describe Muhammad as a "prophet for our times", and it is also wrong of her to compare contemporary "Islamophobia" to the Anti-Semitism of the 1930s.
It is wrong of her to defend Islam to the extent that she does, bending over backwards it seems to defend it when there is a natural and understandable tendency to reject it as an ideology. In the final analysis, Islam and all religions generally speaking need to be basically opposed, not appeased.
She is still a vital voice in assessing what human society needs to do as a result of the decline in religion; and she does fulfill the important task of beginning to extricate morality and the need for compassion and the rightness of compassion from their links to religious ideology. I thoroughly approve of her book on compassion, even if it still has a little too much reverence for religion; and too much reverence for the current belief in neuroscience.
Notwithstanding these criticisms, she has a good understanding of the history and dynamics of religion and this is vital to formulating its future or - if it does not have a future - what should replace it.
I will flesh this essay out with examples and expand it when I get around to it. But I feel that I have kept silent with my doubts for too long and so I will post this without expanding it.
I personally am very much in favour of developing a humanist spirituality and forms of atheist spirituality.
As I have said elsewhere, I believe it is possible and desirable to be in some way spiritual but not religious.
I use spiritual in the sense of non-materialist, not in the sense of the belief in the existence of non-material spirits or souls of any kind at all.
Karen Armstrong has said the following: "Understanding different national, religious and cultural traditions is no longer a luxury; it is now a necessity and must become a priority."
I must say that I disagree with this. I am against multiculturalism and as a humanist I see no reason why I should show respect for nationalism or for religion. I would like to work for a world that is free of religion and nationalism.
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. Perhaps some day you'll join us and the world will live as one.
...............
22.10.18. A thought.
An over-rational idea of God led me to terrible irrationality and what I can only call madness.
So I am in this sense very much in favour of Karen's approach.
But I am not so sure that it isn't ANY conception of God that is irrational - that it is religion in this sense itself that is the "sleep of reason" that "produces monsters."
Theology is poetry and religion is practice - these points are right but I think it still needs to be rational.
03.11.18
I am re-reading her books because I think they are very good and because I think they contain great wisdom.
However, I do want to make some general criticisms of her writings and the views expressed in some of them.
I believe that she is over-simplistic about the supposed clear distinction between humanity's skilled use of "mythos" in the past and excessive use of "logos" in the present; and over-simplistic in its historical reality and meaning.
She suggests that our supposedly excessive use of the "logos" way of thinking today is potentially catastrophic. I disagree that rationality is something that we should be wary of. On the contrary, we obviously need to be wary of irrationality.
She states that the "death of mythology" in the modern period is "potentially disastrous". I would question this.
I believe that she has a rose-tinted view of religion and is too unwilling to criticize it.
For what seems to be sentimental motives she recoils from outright opposition to religion.
I think she is wrong to de-emphasize the links between religious patterns of thinking and violence and war. She explains why she thinks it is odd to say - as so many seem to - that religion has caused many wars in her book "Fields of Blood". She contends that religion is used as a scapegoat that we blame for our history of violence.
However, I am not convinced by this. I think that religious thinking is a genuine factor in causing violence. I think Voltaire was right when he said that "where people believe absurdities, they will commit atrocities". She seems to be saying that there is a truth to the link, but then seems to want to play it down and do nothing about it.
I think her own and many others' fawning and appeasing attitude to religion is due to a desire to not "rock the boat" or "ruffle feathers" among the religious. In other words a lack of a truly critical attitude to religion is a testament to the intimidatory power of religion.
I believe it is wrong to assert that humans are "religious animals" and there is not really any conclusive evidence for assertions of this kind. Just because humans have often had religions it does not follow that humans are by nature religious animals or will always have something like a religion. I do not believe it is the case that humans have to have religions, or that they naturally develop religions. I do not believe that religion is a part of human nature.
I believe that she is fundamentally misleading and elusive about "God". Her book "The Case for God" is misleading because it does not really present a "case for God" at all. The same book is wrong in its assessments of the so-called "New Atheists". This book is, however, very well written and very broad-ranging and informative and well worth reading for those that wish to understand religion.
It is simply wrong of her to describe Muhammad as a "prophet for our times", and it is also wrong of her to compare contemporary "Islamophobia" to the Anti-Semitism of the 1930s.
It is wrong of her to defend Islam to the extent that she does, bending over backwards it seems to defend it when there is a natural and understandable tendency to reject it as an ideology. In the final analysis, Islam and all religions generally speaking need to be basically opposed, not appeased.
She is still a vital voice in assessing what human society needs to do as a result of the decline in religion; and she does fulfill the important task of beginning to extricate morality and the need for compassion and the rightness of compassion from their links to religious ideology. I thoroughly approve of her book on compassion, even if it still has a little too much reverence for religion; and too much reverence for the current belief in neuroscience.
Notwithstanding these criticisms, she has a good understanding of the history and dynamics of religion and this is vital to formulating its future or - if it does not have a future - what should replace it.
I will flesh this essay out with examples and expand it when I get around to it. But I feel that I have kept silent with my doubts for too long and so I will post this without expanding it.
I personally am very much in favour of developing a humanist spirituality and forms of atheist spirituality.
As I have said elsewhere, I believe it is possible and desirable to be in some way spiritual but not religious.
I use spiritual in the sense of non-materialist, not in the sense of the belief in the existence of non-material spirits or souls of any kind at all.
Karen Armstrong has said the following: "Understanding different national, religious and cultural traditions is no longer a luxury; it is now a necessity and must become a priority."
I must say that I disagree with this. I am against multiculturalism and as a humanist I see no reason why I should show respect for nationalism or for religion. I would like to work for a world that is free of religion and nationalism.
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. Perhaps some day you'll join us and the world will live as one.
...............
22.10.18. A thought.
An over-rational idea of God led me to terrible irrationality and what I can only call madness.
So I am in this sense very much in favour of Karen's approach.
But I am not so sure that it isn't ANY conception of God that is irrational - that it is religion in this sense itself that is the "sleep of reason" that "produces monsters."
Theology is poetry and religion is practice - these points are right but I think it still needs to be rational.
03.11.18
I am re-reading her books because I think they are very good and because I think they contain great wisdom.