Karen Armstrong: Battle For God

This book is not talking about fundamentalism in as narrow a sense as we would use the word today. This is a book about religious thinking that spans several recent centuries.

The Battle for God:
A History of Fundamentalism
By Karen Armstrong
A Ballantine Book
Published by the Random House Publishing Group
ISBN: 0-345-39169-1

So many times I make a video and, after viewing it, think that I haven't quite communicated what I wanted to. This is not one of those videos. I'm actually rather pleased with what I was able to get out.

Category:

Comedy

Tags:

• Karen
• Armstrong

[JennyBray]

Karen Armstrong no longer claims to be a "freelance monotheist." She does find inspiration in mysticism. You can find a recent video of her if you search Google her name and the the word self-transcendence. (It's listed under meaningoflife . tv)

[DarwinsHamster]

Thank you. I intend to view this, but it might take me a couple of days to get there!

[TheTrollgubbe]

Yes .. It's probably important to ask the question "how to experience life" The other questions like if there is a God or not, rarely lead to anywhere besides "I am right, you are wrong type of arguments"

[holybabble]

good book.

if you haven't already read 'ishmael', you may want to read that one as well.

[DarwinsHamster]

Ordered from Amazon this 7th day of December in the Year of Our Lord 2008.

[0ThouArtThat0]

...the public revelation of the divine, whereas biblical scripture is private revelation given to one individual who then wrote it and expected others to believe their testimony. Dowd wrote a book called "Thank God for Evolution" that you may enjoy, Joe. His is certainly a perspective you haven't run across before, I'm sure.

[0ThouArtThat0]

Modern science has since shattered the Christian cosmos by revealing to us that the lights in the night sky are not angels but gargantuan bodies of hydrogen. But I wonder if we moderns didn't throw the baby out with the bath water? I mean, does knowing that it is stars we are seeing make their appearance to us any less numinous and mysterious? Does scientific knowledge prevent us from participating with the cosmos as one grand celebration of existence? Michael Dowd describes science as...

[0ThouArtThat0]

I think it is our natural tendency to view the past in terms of the present, when doing so ends up distorting both. I think much of present day religious belief is nothing at all like what it was prior to, say, the 16th century or so. The very idea of "belief" is a distortion when trying to understand how pre-modern Christians related to the divine. They didn't need to "believe," their very experience of being in the world (which was a much smaller place for them) was, for them, proof enough.

[DarwinsHamster]

Your comments remind me of Joseph Campbell's observation (which I wished I had mentioned) that mythology can really be viewed (at least sometimes) as a guidebook for life. The answers the guidebooks give are different, but at least there are answers to look to for troublesome issues that may arise in live.