Is Karen Armstrong a quiet Muslim now? I get that sense of it.

(unlike real intellectuals like Richard Dawkins who backs up everything with evidence or dismisses ideas for the lack thereof).

Like, say, his idea of memes, for which there is approximately ZERO empirical evidence, and for which no falsifiable hypothesis to test their validity has ever been proposed?

When Dawkins answers a question like "why do people ask what the purpose of human existence is" by saying "just because you can formulate an English question beginning with the word why doesn't make it valid" (as he did in Salon's own interview) he's being just as nebulous, vague, and semantically nitpicky as you accuse Armstrong of being. Just because you don't agree with somebody's views doesn't mean they are intellectually invalid. And just because somebody agrees with you, it doesn't mean all their views ARE valid. To fail to recognize that is the sign of either a closed mind or a small one. And I say that as what most people would consider an atheist.

The issue of whether Adolf Hitler was a Christian, atheist, or neither has been much discussed on the Internet. The arguments are summarized, with proof texts, at http://tinyurl.com/5y7ym

Hitler was a master propagandist and we can't believe anything he ever said, But, we can judge him by his actions.

No one doubts that he was a vegetarian. Obviously, he is the perfect example of the kind of monster you can turn into if you practice the religion of vegetarianism ;-)

Armstrong is very intelligent and her ideas and interpretations are highly thought provoking. I'd like to add my own version of the "i don't know" in the form of what John Keats referred to as "negative capability" - the ability to live in the unknown. We struggle for answers to questions we really have yet to conceive. We have to learn to live in this negative capability as we leap, trudge and shuffle through our lives, to find some beauty in life's ugly truths and to bear our pain and our joy with compassion towards ourselves as well as others.

i admire the scope of karen armstrong's books, but wonder if it's possible to talk about faith traditions w/o sounding like an antrhopologist(?)

Paulson asks if the religions of the Axial age developed independently of each other and Armstrong responds to the affirmative. Buddha and Mahavira were both born into the "Hindu" fold, I don't understand how anyone can make the case that the Indic religions of that age did not greatly influence each other greatly...

I've recently come into material about the moral system of the afterlife and found resonance in it for my present and eternal life. Curious readers may find the following links of interest. I have not read the letters to the Editor on this interview. Please forgive any duplication of information.

THE SPIRITS' BOOK by Allan Kardec (1804-1869) a French educator, a meticulous codification of the moral system of heaven in 1, 019 organized , numbered questions and answers. http://www.spiritwritings.com/kardec.html

The classification of souls is also found in Kardec's book in "book 2 chapter 1" http://www.spiritwritings.com/kardecspiritsbook2chapt1.html

(There are 4 books within this book)

LIFE IN A WORLD UNSEEN - medium Anthony Borgia, author spirit Monsignor Hugh Benson.,1871-1914, http://anthony3741.tripod.com/lifeintheworldunseen/index.html

TEACHINGS OF A QUIET MIND by White Feather , contemporary medium Robert Goodwin, http://www.whitefeather.org.uk/page4.htm

A LAWYER PRESENTS THE CASE FOR THE AFTERLIFE 2006, by Victor J. Zammit

http://www.victorzammit.com/book/4thedition/index.html

TEACHINGS OF ZARETH, channelled from 1976-1981 in Vancouver BC at public gatherings. http://www.angelfire.com/ok/ZarethsGraphics/TCon.html

TEACHINGS OF SILVER BIRCH channelled by Maurice Barbannell 1902 - 1981)

http://www.angelfire.com/ok/SilverBirch/index.html

Deepak Chopra MD says that birth and death are the parentheses of life.

SIGNED ........Joy......(1947.........- )..................

Religion is fantasy, wishful thinking, imagination, belief in The Great Invisible Friend, an attempt to feel significant by "knowing God" through a disguised, self-deluded belief in magic (whether magic ritual, magic belief, or pretending to understand magic ("sacred") texts . . . ), i.e., a manifestation of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Thanks, Karen Armstrong . . . you do contradict yourself a little bit, but you do hit the nail on the head (even if you are unaware when you do it . . . . ) .

... I find that what Armstrong says about religion is intuitively true and am surprised that her perspective is not shared by most people who have a post elementary level of education.

The sad thing is that while there is a great deal of interest in religion today, there is a kind of Gresham's Law in operation by which TV religion with its pontificating, puffed-up, ignorant little men with microphones stands in the way of people who are truly seeking spiritual enlightenment.

What I particularly like about her approach is her understanding of how religions originally developed as a response to particular historical situations, which is something that religion in the US seems to completely ignore.

Instead of seeing Islam as something sinister, if we see Mohammed's teachings orginally as a way of providing a better way forward for primitive warmongering tribes who worshipped stones, then we will be a lot closer to understanding the true spirit of Islam, as well as understanding better how some of the extreme manifestations of that faith are just as far off track as the perverted religion of people like Pat Robertson.

I was thrilled reading this interview. My own sense of wonder and a quest for meaning is stated quite well in her words.

My only beef with Karen's words is the use of the word religion in any positive context. Just as she feels the Western, common view of God is infantile, so is the use of the word religion as it is unconsciously understood from years of indoctrination.

We have boxed the term religion into the same tough-skinned mold as the word God. The mere use of the word religion is dogmatic and filled with traps, it seems. Religion conjures up a meaning, a set of values that are hard and unquestionable, thus, it seems, removing the ability to search with an open mind into what Being encompasses.

I hope she soon rejects that word with the same dexterity that she has disavowed our immature ideas of God within our entirely limited consciousness.

Al C