History of God : Chapters 1 & 2

[Everyman]

Adelle wrote, in part:   

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Example: on page 40 Armstrong writes “As Isaiah prayed in the Temple shortly after King Uzziah’s death, he was probably full of foreboding; at the same time he may have been uncomfortably aware of the inappropriateness of the lavish Temple ceremonial.  Isaiah may have been a member of the ruling class, but he had populist and democratic views and was highly sensitive to the plight of the poor.  As the incense filled the sanctuary […] he may have feared that the religion of Israel had lost its integrity and inner meaning.”   

I just don’t know where she got this information from.  I went back to Isaiah and I couldn’t find support for it.   It strikes me as being full of supposition. 

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I have been having similar concerns about other passages where she speculates without apparent foundation about how people "probably" or "may have" reacted.  She tosses out these suppositions without, to my mind, giving much if any justification for them.  I'm glad that somebody else is seeing, or at least being willing to comment on, these concerns. 

I agree also with your other examples, without feeling the need to go into detail. 

I think you have pinpointed a legitimate concern about the work.  I hope you will keep commenting; your thoughts, particularly since you cite specific passages and issues with them, are very helpful commentary.  

[Adelle]

Hi Joseph, you wrote

the Fathers of the Church and their revulsion towards sexuality is not something that she is supposing but is something that was written about extensively.

I'm not disputing that.    The Church view of sexuality is irrelevant to my point. What I had disliked, I guess what I found to be intellectually not straightforward...

(1)    She writes that "the new sin of 'idolatry,' the worship of 'false' gods, inspires something akin to nausea."     I find this statement already a little iffy.    It's an opinion statement.   I understand that the Jewish religion came down hard on the worship of 'false' gods; very hard; even to the point of wanting to drive out or kill the 'false' god worshipping original inhabitants of Canaan.   So I could buy into anger.  I can see the Jewish attitude being "You are so wrong that I'm going to drive you from your homes. (as in Canaan)."   But I don't get a sense of "Your worship of 'false' gods makes me sick to my stomach."   

(2) Then she goes on to write, "It is a reaction that is, PERHAPS [my emphasis], similiar to the revulsion that some of the Fathers of the Church would feel for sexuality."    I see her as thus tentatively linking this to her above statement.    Which I haven't accepted as a fact.

(3)  Then she goes on to write, "As such, it is not a rational, considered reaction, but expressive of deep anxiety and repression."

It seems to me that she set up her logic as

If "the new sin of 'idolatry,' the worship of 'false' gods, inspires something akin to nausea"                                      But this is a supposition.   There's an implied "perhaps" or an implied "I think"

and If "It is a reaction that is, PERHAPS [my emphasis], similar to..."     This is a supposition.    She even uses the word perhaps in her sentence.

Then "As such" it must be a fact...                             But you cannot build a fact on two suppositions.

I don't think that I agree with you on the Gulf point, either, but I want to mull that over a bit, and at least try to see how you might interpret it differently than I do.  

Oh, my point on the rational.     I think there's a difference between irrational and non-rational.     That irrational usually comes with a negative connotation and non-rational implies a system of thinking that does not follow rational rules.     But, I should probably look those up to be sure.    I happen to believe that faith is non-rational, but not irrational.  

Thanks, Joseph, for responding.   And I'll ponder your position on the gulf.

[Everyman]

Joseph wrote:  The gulf she discuses here is not one of physical distance (rather she argues continually the opposite, that we find God within) but of states of being. Previously, Gods were part of the same spectrum as humans. In the same way that humans were to dogs, gods were to humans. Conceivably even, an extraordinary human being could become a god. The Israelite religion (and other religions at the time) changed that, making God an entirely separate being, outside of the spectrum of our world. This is what she means by radical separation.

I agree with you (and Armstrong) to some extent about many of the polytheistic gods (at least those I know something about) being part of the same spectrum as humans.   For the Greeks, for example, the gods didn't create the world but were apparently (their theology isn't clear on this) created along with humans in some unspecified manner.  

But I'm not sure I can agree that the monotheistic god is "an entirely separate being, outside the spectrum of our world."   While the monotheistic god didn't have the physical association with the sun, rivers, etc. that many of the earlier naturalistic gods did, the monotheistic god certainly interacted on a fairly regular basis with the human world.  He spoke to various figures -- Adam, Noah, Abraham, for a few examples -- to tell them what to do or not to do.  This put him very much in the world.

It's hard for me to see how a God which speaks and interacts with humans on such close terms -- who tells Noah, for example, not only to build an ark but what size to make it -- as outside the spectrum of, or radically separated from, the world.

Similarly, in one of my favorite episodes in the Bible, when Abraham argues with and negotiates with God over how many good men it will take to save Sodom, this is an intensely interactive, in the world God, haggling like a merchant over the price of a piece of cloth.  

God was spoken of often in anthropomorphic terms -- one sits at the right hand of god, he has many mansions, and so on.  These terms were probably in part metaphorical, but I think also in part quite literal.  And certainly angels and devils were seen as very much within the world. And at least in early Christianity, and for many Christians still, when the graves open and bodies rise up to heaven, it is to see and sit with a physical god in a physical heaven that they will be going, very much in the same way that Homer and Virgil depicted the underworld.  

Much of the literature about God was in quite concrete world-like terms -- I think of Dante's Divine Comedy, for instance, or Milton's Paradise Lost.  Yes, these were metaphorical in part, but also in part I think were intended to reflect a God (and as I noted angels and devils) who are very much within and interacting with the world.

Certainly the monotheistic god, to the extent that he created the world rather than being created with it, has a somewhat different role than the natural gods of many polytheistic cultures.  But the Judeo-Christian god is still very much a part of and interacting with the world of humans, not an entirely separate being outside the spectrum of our world. 

[Jon_B]

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Everyman wrote:

It's hard for me to see how a God which speaks and interacts with humans on such close terms -- who tells Noah, for example, not only to build an ark but what size to make it -- as outside the spectrum of, or radically separated from, the world. 

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Here's my take on it - God interacts with humans and communicates with them, but this occurs in the sense of "intervention" of a force that is not susceptible to the whims and chaos of the universe (because He is the universe).  God can make things happen, but things don't happen to God.  Whereas with the Greek gods, things could happen to them, they could suffer at the hands of other gods or of the universe or even of humans (and I mean "suffer" in the sense of be affected by, lose control to).  It's not a complete seperation, but it's a seperation.

 

Message Edited by Jon_B on 05-15-2009 11:08 AM

[Joseph_F]

Adelle, I think you're having her suppose more than she's actually supposing. She's using metaphoric language to describe the depth of hatred towards idolotry in the Torah (the Bible uses some seriously inflammatory language towards idolotry). She is then comparing it to the Fathers of the Church self-recorded revulsion towards sexuality. She then is giving her opinion of the tenor of both their writings.

You can disagree with her take on their mentality, but I don't think there's anything particularly wrong or unacademic about expressing an opinion on the facts you present. She could have probably worded it better ("the words chosen indicate to me a deep anxiety etc." ) but the basic intent is, I believe, valid.

Message Edited by Joseph_F on 05-15-2009 02:09 PM

[Choisya]

Surely an author who has researched the subject over a number of years, talked to contemporary theologians etc etc is entitled to speculate?  We do it all the time with far less study under our belts!  KA's Notes to HoG are extensive and there are numerous references to back up the conclusions she has reached, although, of course, we are at liberty to disagree with her conclusions and to prefer someone elses.

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Everyman wrote:

Adelle wrote, in part:   

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Example: on page 40 Armstrong writes “As Isaiah prayed in the Temple shortly after King Uzziah’s death, he was probably full of foreboding; at the same time he may have been uncomfortably aware of the inappropriateness of the lavish Temple ceremonial.  Isaiah may have been a member of the ruling class, but he had populist and democratic views and was highly sensitive to the plight of the poor.  As the incense filled the sanctuary […] he may have feared that the religion of Israel had lost its integrity and inner meaning.”   

I just don’t know where she got this information from.  I went back to Isaiah and I couldn’t find support for it.   It strikes me as being full of supposition. 

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I have been having similar concerns about other passages where she speculates without apparent foundation about how people "probably" or "may have" reacted.  She tosses out these suppositions without, to my mind, giving much if any justification for them.  I'm glad that somebody else is seeing, or at least being willing to comment on, these concerns. 

I agree also with your other examples, without feeling the need to go into detail. 

I think you have pinpointed a legitimate concern about the work.  I hope you will keep commenting; your thoughts, particularly since you cite specific passages and issues with them, are very helpful commentary.  

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[Everyman]

God can make things happen, but things don't happen to God.

You know more about God than I do.  I don't know whether or not things can happen to him; Milton seemed to think they could.  Since we don't know, all that we say about God that isn't strictly from his words or from him directly is speculation -- sometimes more informed speculation as when theologians like Aquinas analyze Biblical passages, or when we have reports of experiences of people who have had direct interactions with God, sometimes less informed speculation when we are just saying what we think the case should be, but all speculation. 

Translations from the Greek which are given in some translations as omnipotent really don't have the meaning of omnipotent that we sometimes ascribe to the gods, since the Greeks didn't have the concept of gods or beings who were truly omnipotent.

But basically, I frankly find making any definitive statements about the nature of God, limits or non-limits on his power or lack thereof, statements such as no harm being able to come to him, to be of little use because our minds are simply incapable of true and complete understanding of the nature of God.  

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Jon_B wrote:

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Everyman wrote:

It's hard for me to see how a God which speaks and interacts with humans on such close terms -- who tells Noah, for example, not only to build an ark but what size to make it -- as outside the spectrum of, or radically separated from, the world. 

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Here's my take on it - God interacts with humans and communicates with them, but this occurs in the sense of "intervention" of a force that is not susceptible to the whims and chaos of the universe (because He is the universe).  God can make things happen, but things don't happen to God.  Whereas with the Greek gods, things could happen to them, they could suffer at the hands of other gods or of the universe or even of humans (and I mean "suffer" in the sense of be affected by, lose control to).  It's not a complete seperation, but it's a seperation.

 

Message Edited by Jon_B on 05-15-2009 11:08 AM

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[Everyman]

When such an author speculates, they should identify it as such, not present it as though it were confirmed truth. 

And BTW, one should not automatically assume that much research and talking to theologians automatically imparts the ability to correctly assimilate and interpret that mass of information.   Sometimes the terms PhD really represent what they are scatologically reputed to mean!  (I say that knowing and having worked with a number of PhDs, including some in my own family.)

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Choisya wrote:

Surely an author who has researched the subject over a number of years, talked to contemporary theologians etc etc is entitled to speculate?  We do it all the time with far less study under our belts!  KA's Notes to HoG are extensive and there are numerous references to back up the conclusions she has reached, although, of course, we are at liberty to disagree with her conclusions and to prefer someone elses.

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Everyman wrote:

Adelle wrote, in part:   

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Example: on page 40 Armstrong writes “As Isaiah prayed in the Temple shortly after King Uzziah’s death, he was probably full of foreboding; at the same time he may have been uncomfortably aware of the inappropriateness of the lavish Temple ceremonial.  Isaiah may have been a member of the ruling class, but he had populist and democratic views and was highly sensitive to the plight of the poor.  As the incense filled the sanctuary […] he may have feared that the religion of Israel had lost its integrity and inner meaning.”   

I just don’t know where she got this information from.  I went back to Isaiah and I couldn’t find support for it.   It strikes me as being full of supposition. 

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I have been having similar concerns about other passages where she speculates without apparent foundation about how people "probably" or "may have" reacted.  She tosses out these suppositions without, to my mind, giving much if any justification for them.  I'm glad that somebody else is seeing, or at least being willing to comment on, these concerns. 

I agree also with your other examples, without feeling the need to go into detail. 

I think you have pinpointed a legitimate concern about the work.  I hope you will keep commenting; your thoughts, particularly since you cite specific passages and issues with them, are very helpful commentary.  

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Message Edited by Everyman on 05-15-2009 10:25 PM

[Choisya]

When such an author speculates, they should identify it as such, not present it as though it were confirmed truth. 

When the words 'probably' and 'may' are used (as they were in the paragraphs quoted) that is speculative.  If she was being non-speculative she would have written:-

“As Isaiah prayed in the Temple shortly after King Uzziah’s death, he was full of foreboding; at the same time he was uncomfortably aware of the inappropriateness of the lavish Temple ceremonial.'

I do not see her as presenting anything as 'truth'.  She appreciates that there are no truths in these matters, that each religion (and era) interprets things differently.  

And BTW, one should not automatically assume that much research and talking to theologians automatically imparts the ability to correctly assimilate and interpret that mass of information.

I  have the humility to assume that someone who has done a great deal of academic research on a particular subject, who lectures at an established university, has been asked to present numerous TV and radio programmes and has published a number of books, is likely to know more than I do (and more than you do!) about the topic they write about.   They may come to conclusions with which I may not agree but that does not make their personal interpretations 'incorrect'. 

(BTW I too have worked with PhDs and my daughter is a PhD too - I do not know how easily they are awarded in American universities but you have to work long and hard for them here, which is why I failed to get mine!  KA, because of  illness, did not get her PhD at Oxford but she gained an MA there which is considered equivalent to some PhDs from other universities. )

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Everyman wrote:

When such an author speculates, they should identify it as such, not present it as though it were confirmed truth. 

And BTW, one should not automatically assume that much research and talking to theologians automatically imparts the ability to correctly assimilate and interpret that mass of information.   Sometimes the terms PhD really represent what they are scatologically reputed to mean!  (I say that knowing and having worked with a number of PhDs, including some in my own family.)

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Choisya wrote:

Surely an author who has researched the subject over a number of years, talked to contemporary theologians etc etc is entitled to speculate?  We do it all the time with far less study under our belts!  KA's Notes to HoG are extensive and there are numerous references to back up the conclusions she has reached, although, of course, we are at liberty to disagree with her conclusions and to prefer someone elses.

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Everyman wrote:

Adelle wrote, in part:   

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Example: on page 40 Armstrong writes “As Isaiah prayed in the Temple shortly after King Uzziah’s death, he was probably full of foreboding; at the same time he may have been uncomfortably aware of the inappropriateness of the lavish Temple ceremonial.  Isaiah may have been a member of the ruling class, but he had populist and democratic views and was highly sensitive to the plight of the poor.  As the incense filled the sanctuary […] he may have feared that the religion of Israel had lost its integrity and inner meaning.”   

I just don’t know where she got this information from.  I went back to Isaiah and I couldn’t find support for it.   It strikes me as being full of supposition. 

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I have been having similar concerns about other passages where she speculates without apparent foundation about how people "probably" or "may have" reacted.  She tosses out these suppositions without, to my mind, giving much if any justification for them.  I'm glad that somebody else is seeing, or at least being willing to comment on, these concerns. 

I agree also with your other examples, without feeling the need to go into detail. 

I think you have pinpointed a legitimate concern about the work.  I hope you will keep commenting; your thoughts, particularly since you cite specific passages and issues with them, are very helpful commentary.  

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Message Edited by Everyman on 05-15-2009 10:25 PM

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[Everyman]

I  have the humility to assume that someone who has done a great deal of academic research on a particular subject, who lectures at an established university, has been asked to present numerous TV and radio programmes and has published a number of books, is likely to know more than I do (and more than you do!)

And I have the wisdom to know that while that is often the case, it is not always the case.  

[Adelle]

Adelle wrote:  Armstrong has more familiarity with religions than I ever will; but she’s failing to convince me of her viewpoints.     

I’m going to have a go tomorrow at Joseph’s Question 4 for Chapter 2.  Joseph did present us with what look to be some of the main points that Armstrong is discussing.  Obviously I don’t trust everything Armstrong presents—in large part because I don’t believe that she provides much backup for some of her statements at this point.       Nonetheless, I want to discover what I CAN get out of the book.  So Joseph, thank you for the list of questions.

   

 I’m going to try to address 3 or 4 posts here as they seem strongly related.

   Everyman wrote:   I'm curious -- what do you think are the viewoints she's trying to convince you of?     

I’m curious, too.   (Everyman, I’m already running long here.   I always run long.     Let me post again right after this one.    Thank you.)      When I wrote that sentence, it was mostly sloppy writing on my part.   It would have been more accurate for me to have written that she wasn’t convincing me of the validity of many of her sub-points

  

(Sub-point 1---the suppositions regarding Isaiah

   

As Choisya points out, in this case Armstrong does use words such as “probably” and “may” for most of the statements Armstrong made in this section.   While I do appreciate that Armstrong didn’t present these as factual statements, it’s not enough for me in that Armstrong didn’t give me any information to show me what she based her suppositions on.  

   

I understand that Choisya has read some of Armstrong’s other books, and has come to the conclusion that Armstrong’s theories are usually worthy of being accepted.  I have authors that I tend to trust, too, but as this is the first book I’m reading of Armstrong’s, I have to read her closely, and I have serious reservations regarding much of what she writes.   Maybe there’s justification for her statements but she doesn’t present it in this book---at least so far.    I just want to know WHY she thinks as she does.

 

2---Regarding the whole Gulf between Man and the Divine World.      Joseph, I still lean towards my original interpretation, but I’ve read the passage over a number of times; I can see how one could view separation from a different point of view.    And, smile, I’ve learned that I should write down the web addresses of anything I might want to cite as so often one can’t rediscover the sites.

  

3---the linkage of the anti-idolatry view to revulsion to sexuality and hence to deep anxiety and repression.    Well, the linkage still seems unsupported to me.   Yet I am intrigued with Joseph’s question on idolatry.  

[Adelle]

Everyman wrote:   I'm curious -- what do you think are the viewoints she's trying to convince you of?   

You ask tough questions, Everyman.   I suppose this might actually be an aside-type thread.  It’s not “What does Armstrong say”….  It’s “What does Adelle think Armstrong is saying”     Joseph, should I have somehow posted this elsewhere?

OK.   Here’s what I think today…’though not necessarily what I’ll think at the end of the book.   (“Speak what you think now in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today.”  Emerson)

  

 I think her underlying viewpoint is that religion, while ubiquitous and seemingly a human need, is human created.  In her introduction, she writes that as a girl, she had a strong belief but little faith in God; that she very strongly suspects that God does not exist as an entity apart from humans. (She writes, “I was unhappily aware that what little religious experience I had, had somehow been manufactured by myself…” xviii.       To become aware is to FINALLY realize something that has been there or hasn’t been there for some period of time.) (I wonder at this point if Armstrong thinks God exists in the sense that humans have a need for some … religious … aspect/feeling/spirituality and that therefore humans created him and therefore God “exists”.  “Humanism,” Armstrong later writes on page xix, “is itself a religion without God”.  

  

 She writes, “I felt my belief in God slip quietly away.”     She never had faith, and now she has lost her belief.    “The doctrines that I had accepted without question as a child were indeed man-made, constructed over a long period.”   It seems to me that all that is left of God for Armstrong is her intellectual concept of him.  Which is fine.  

   

Moreover, I think her viewpoint, that she believes God/god to be totally man-created, is strengthened by her opening sentence:  “IN THE BEGINNING, human beings created a God who was the First Cause of all things and Ruler of heaven and earth.”    What an incredibly strong opening.   Paralleling exactly the Biblical opening…EXCEPT, Armstrong has replaced God with human beings.   This, I believe, is Armstrong’s thesis. 

  

My thinking is that this much is pretty clear from what Armstrong has written.  Or it seems so to me.     On a more subjective level, and this is strictly my personal take, my intuition --- which can’t be proved, but which is influencing my reading of the book --- is that Armstrong is, well, almost angry with God.

  

I know this seems an absurd thing to write in view of the fact that I’ve just written that I don’t think Armstrong believes there is a God in the sense that the Church holds there to be a God; Armstrong believing that man created God.   Like Mulder on the old Xfiles show, I think Armstrong WANTED to belief, but couldn’t.   

  

The reason I write that she seems almost angry with God, or at least with the Christian God, is (1) because on page xix in her first full paragraph there, she writes that her ideas about God “were formed in childhood” and that now that she’s more knowledgable she’s “reviesed [her] simplistic childhood views of Father Christmas [here conflating God with Father Christmas…but I think the subtext is that she is equating Father Christmas with Santa Claus], she says that her notion of God, and that of others, too, perhaps, “was formed in infancy” and that now she has “put away childish things.”   

   

My initial read of this was not so negative.   Initially, I had read it as part of a personal memoir to establish Armstrong’s own path of religious evolution.   But having now read chapters 1 and 2, I now see it as something of … now quite an attack, but perhaps a push … against Christians….as it seems to imply that those who still hold the views that Armstrong has left behind are childish or simplistic or thinking at a kindergarten level...the words Armstrong chose to use.

  

I say this because Armstrong doesn’t seem to put down the views of other religious peoples.  “The cave paintings and carvings were an attempt to express their own wonder and to link this pervasive mystery with their own lives” (5).   “…the cult of the Mother Goddess expressed a sense that the fertility which was transforming human life was actually sacred” (5).  

  

I should probably back this up more strongly,,,   But I’ve already written a rather long piece.   So just a couple more things.   Armstrong writes of the Abraham story “to modern ears, this is a horrible story: it depicts God as a despotic and capricious sadist” (18).    Where was Armstrong’s outrage at Baal to whom so many children were ACTUALLY sacrificed?    Instead she writes, “Human sacrifice was common in the pagan world.  It was cruel but had a logic and rationale.”   She seems to write of the “enlightenment” of other religions, of the “transcendent element” that the statues of Marduk and the stones of Asherah could help people find.   But monotheism has a characteristic of “intolerance” (49).   I don’t see Armstrong being even-handed.

  

Perhaps when we reach the chapters on other religions, we will see Armstrong come down equally hard on them.  I don’t know.   Anyway.  I could be all wrong, but that’s what I think today.

[Everyman]

Great post, Adelle.  I'm not goin got copy it all in, but a few comments on it.

You wrote " On a more subjective level, and this is strictly my personal take, my intuition --- which can’t be proved, but which is influencing my reading of the book --- is that Armstrong is, well, almost angry with God."

I got a similar but not identical sense.  Not that she was angry with God so much as that she was angry/frustrated/disappointed/bitter in her inability to find the relationship with God that so many others have found, or at least reported that they have found and that she wanted so much to find but failed. Since she can't find that experience, she speculates that it must be the result of a mental disorder, not an actual experience of an actual god.

Joseph claims, vigorously, that she believes in God.  I'm not so convinced, but I'm no longer allowed to argue the point, so I won't. But what does seem clear is that she thinks it's possible to write about God (her book is, after all, titled History of God, not History of Religions) without acknowledging the existence of God.  Since, as Joseph has pointed out, this is an academic work which can't take into account any supernatural claims, and any claim of experience of God must be a claim of a supernatural nature, the identical book could have been written by an atheist.   There is nothing in the book, so far as I see, that requires that one accept that there is in fact any such reality as God, or that indicates whether the author does or does not believe that there is a  God.  (This point is reinforced by the recognition that Choisya, who has written frequently of being a committed atheist, approving of the book.)

It's sort of like writing a history of love in the human experience without ever having been in love and assuming for the sake of your history that there is no such thing as love.   

Whether this represents, as you think, anger at God, or whether it is more an aching for her failure to experience God and a feeling of a vacuum in her life which she seeks to fill by writing a book about God from which God is totally absent, I don't know.  

[Peppermill]

(This point is reinforced by the recognition that Choisya, who has written frequently of being a committed atheist, approving of the book.)

Everyman -- I am deeply saddened by this statement, but respect your integrity and forthrightness in making it.

I was aware of Karen Armstrong's writing, her role in bringing religious issues to the forefront, her almost defense of Islam after 9/11, her own deeply felt difficulties and encounters with both the mysticism (or perhaps I should say her personal inability to achieve such) and with the practical manifestations of her own experience with the scope of a religious order long before I had ever been on a B&N board.

As I have written before, I have my reservations about the prodigious output across such broad vistas as Armstrong has undertaken, but I think those should be addressed in their own terms (as some here are doing), rather than on whether a person of particular convictions appreciates Ms. Armstrong's writings or not.  As both of us know, voluminous commentaries on other Internet sites indicate the broad range of reactions to her writings, including at least some with seminary training who have appreciated the breadth of considerations she brings to these issues.

Personally, I suspect she is as subject to the biases of her time as Huston Smith was when he attempted somewhat similar broad brush depictions of religious variety.

[Choisya]

Thanks P for a more balanced view of what Armstrong has been trying to achieve.  However, I am more than saddened by Everyman's statement, I am angry and offended.

Everyman's long time hostility towards me seems to know no bounds when it extends to condemning a book because I have recommended it! There are many books which I read and 'approve' of which do not accord with my own views and there are many of which I disapprove which do accord with my views!  For instance, I do not necessarily approve of the views expressed by the atheist Christopher Hitchen in his book 'God is not Great' and I am not too keen on those expressed by Richard Dawkins in 'The God Delusion' either.  Ditto many books about socialism I have read in my long lifetime.  

He also writes:

There is nothing in the book, so far as I see, that requires that one accept that there is in fact any such reality as God, or that indicates whether the author does or does not believe that there is a  God.  (This point is reinforced by the recognition that Choisya, who has written frequently of being a committed atheist, approving of the book.

Since when did any writer have to entirely believe (or 'have faith') in what they write about?   It is perfectly possible, and has oft times been done, to write about many things without believing in them.  Fascism and communism for instance.  Do all those who have written about the Third Reich have to believe that Hitler's beliefs were right?   If I recommend a History of the Third Reich here will you judge me to be a Fascist?!   Are all autobiographies written by authors who 'approved' of their subjects?  Of course not!  God is the subject of this particular 'autobiography', belief in him is equally unnecessary.    

And what is Everyman's criteria for disagreeing with Joseph about Armstrong's belief in God when she has stated and written that she does still so believe?  Stated, in fact, that writing her books about religion has brought her back to the idea of God, which she had lost in her earlier years?  Yes, she was 'angry' about God in her convent years and she has written about this in both her autobiographies but she has since written that she is reconciled.  I suggest Everymanthat (and others) read her books more thoroughly before making such assumptions.  (I will post further about this separately.)

There is nothing in the book, so far as I see, that requires that one accept that there is in fact any such reality as God, or that indicates whether the author does or does not believe that there is a  God.

Why should there be?  This is a history not a religious polemic.  Would you make this same statement if she was writing about ancient Greek gods, as she does in The Great Transformation?  Do you expect her to believe in those too?  Or are your objections just based on the fact that you are a 'believer' and you object to anything that anyone writes (including myself!) about your particular beliefs?  If this is so then you (and others) should come right out and say so.  It seems to me that religious people here are being less than honest in what they post.  Because they do not agree with Armstrong's thesis, they seem to be castigating her as an atheist/agnostic, poor writer etc etc instead of criticising the thesis itself.  

On the question of being 'angry' with God, there are quite a few saints who were at one time angry in one way or another but who were reconciled and nominated for sainthood.  This is not an unusual situation for a religious person to be in, as I understand it from quite a lot of reading about religion.  Milton was a very religious man who 'quarrelled' with God.  People who change from one religion/church to another often have a 'crisis of faith' about their belief.  Some of those who call themselves 'born again Christians' are people who have temporily lost their faith but who then find it again - the term indicates renewal, resurgence, or return.  Motherr Theresa, who has been nominated for sainthood, seems to have had a similar experience to Armstrong and once doubted the existence of God.  If you cannot understand Armstrong's position on this, I suggest you read more of her writings and more of the writing of other people who have had similar experiences, instead of castigating her for something many religious people seem to experience and then claiming that she is unable to write an academic book of this kind because she has had a crisis of faith.

Since she can't find that experience, she speculates that it must be the result of a mental disorder, not an actual experience of an actual god. 

This is a complete misrepresentation of her position, as Joseph has formerly pointed out. 

Finally, the reason I recommended The History of God was NOT because Armstrong was an atheist/agnotist (which she is not) or because she was trying to disprove God/gods (which she is not) but because I have read it thoroughly and know that it gives a potted history of all of the major religions and as this is a bookclub on Religion and Spirituality (not Christianity and Spirituality), I thought it would give people a little insight into those religions so as to act as a springboard for wide-ranging discussions.  I think maybe Joseph chose it for the same reasons.  As a potted history it has flaws (as Pepper has pointed out) but it is nevertheless useful if one can read it with an open mind.  If anyone can recommend a better one, which seeks to be objective about the history of such a contentious subject, please do so!    

On a personal note, I must ask Everyman to stop holding my atheism against me in this bookclub!   I studied comparative religion when I was at university, as part of my degree in Politics, Social Science and Economics (PSE Hons) and I contend that I have as much knowledge on the subjects we are discussing as anyone here, with the exception of Joseph who studied religion particularly.  My views are based on a lifetime's reading, not a little research and a great deal of interest in the subject.   Many people on B&N have complimented me on my knowledge of the Bible and other holy books.  Who here has written more on the B&N threads about the Koran and Islamic beliefs than myself?  Or about Hindusm and the Bhagavad Gita?   Or the need to study comparative religion so as to better understand the world around us?  Who here has a bookshelf on which well read copies of the Torah/Bible/Koran/Bhagavad Gita/Buddhist texts/Daoist texts sit side by side?  (NB: I have read very little about atheism and only read Dawkins and Hitchens recently because of the hostility they caused, particularly in America.) 

---

Peppermill wrote:

(This point is reinforced by the recognition that Choisya, who has written frequently of being a committed atheist, approving of the book.)

Everyman -- I am deeply saddened by this statement, but respect your integrity and forthrightness in making it.

I was aware of Karen Armstrong's writing, her role in bringing religious issues to the forefront, her almost defense of Islam after 9/11, her own deeply felt difficulties and encounters with both the mysticism (or perhaps I should say her personal inability to achieve such) and with the practical manifestations of her own experience with the scope of a religious order long before I had ever been on a B&N board.

As I have written before, I have my reservations about the prodigious output across such broad vistas as Armstrong has undertaken, but I think those should be addressed in their own terms (as some here are doing), rather than on whether a person of particular convictions appreciates Ms. Armstrong's writings or not.  As both of us know, voluminous commentaries on other Internet sites indicate the broad range of reactions to her writings, including at least some with seminary training who have appreciated the breadth of considerations she brings to these issues.

Personally, I suspect she is as subject to the biases of her time as Huston Smith was when he attempted somewhat similar broad brush depictions of religious variety.

---

[Everyman]

On a personal note, I must ask Everyman to stop holding my atheism against me in this bookclub! 

Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

I have not held anything against you.  You have made a frequent point of your atheism; I agree with you that it is relevant to a discussion board on religioni and spirituality, as are the values of other believers who have shared their faith positions.

Perhaps you should consider why you are so defensive about my simply noting what you have yourself often stated.  

[Joseph_F]

The personal aspects of this discussion are going to stop right now. Not after a few more posts. Now.

[Adelle]

Well, she wrote, almost nonplussed.

Much time passes.

Finally, choosing to accord with what I take to be Joseph's call to simply move forward and thus not commenting on the last few posts beyond gently but firmly stating----because I must so state or I cannot move forward and participate----that I believe that I have been very honest in my posts on this board and that I believe in the honesty of all the participants.    All the participants.  

I see that many of the posters---posters of all viewpoints---believe strongly in their positions.   I admire that particular aspect in all those people.   I really do admire that they are willing to put forward their viewpoints and discuss them openly.  

On a subject as ...  sensitive .... as this to most people, such an open discussion is seldom to be had face to face.    That's why it is such a delight---at least I see it as such---to engage in determined back and forth here.

I truly have enjoyed following the posts and participating in the posts here.   And my best wishes to one and all.