I haven't read bunkum this watered down in ages. But of course the diaphanous dithering comes with a familiar excuse: "Oh, I can't possibly begin to explain my bodacious religio$ity in a four page interview." I guess we'll just have to buy her books, eh? Right. Fortunately the 'Axial Age' - which gave us the ingenious insight "Don't be an asshat" - was succeeded by the Age of Reason - which gave us "Don't be dumb." I pray that someday Karen catches up on her ancient texts.

Karen Armstrong hasn't quite defined what she means by 'ego'; as is the case with lot of other psychological vocabulary, participants may not have the same meaning in mind.

That said, isn't the Golden Rule egotist? As per the article, " And Confucius said, "Look into your own heart. Discover what it is that gives you pain. And then refuse to inflict that pain on anybody else."". My poison may be another's food. The very impetus, to ease or prevent suffering in others, derives from an aversion to suffering in myself, and a belief in my self being able to recognize signs of suffering in others. How is the egotism avoided?

1) It hardly makes for a good argument to state that people who you disagree with are lacking in intelligence and are being kneejerk. Surely you could have made your points without those poor attempts at insult.

2) This seems to be a common response on Salon letter pages. If someone disagrees with you, then they might as well be a Republican- or they're as bad as the Republicans. Yup- Republicans love atheists like me!

3) Jesus existed. Proof?

4) Us atheists may on occasion be dramatic, but we leave the pontification to the pontiffs.

Thanks,

Chrsitian

Armstrong is spewing her own subtle form of hatred in setting up the false equivalence between secularist and humanists on the one hand (supporting reality; arguing that religion is false and leads to bad outcomes), and religion supporters, even relatively liberal ones. There is no equivalence... atheists and secularists are not going around comitting mass murder and starting wars to force others to convert to their view. Only crusaders of alll religions do this. And yes, the Nazis (useed by religious right as supposed example of atheistic killers) used religion and were not secularists or atheists or humanists. Nor for that matter were communists... certainly used communism as a faith based belif system, and like most governments before and after them linked reliogion to nationalism to gain support for killing the other (sound familiar George W.).

Whether Confuscious, Moses, Buddha or Jesus... coming up with "do unto others..." is a wonderful golden rule... but has nothing to do with belief in god or following a religion. Atheists, Secularists and Humanists follow it to... I would submit more purely than theists for whom the need to follow it is just a form of bribery/extortion (hey if I follow the rule, I get rewarded in heaven). Instead of being a good unto itself.

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, still remains."

"The trouble is that we define our God too closely. In my book "A History of God," I pointed out that the most eminent Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologians all said you couldn't think about God as a simple personality, an external being. It was better to say that God did not exist because our notion of existence was far too limited to apply to God."

Yes, you read that right -- Armstrong concedes that many atheists and agnostics are more enlightened than many believers in their refusal to grant a concrete "existence" to God. Please contemplate that insight before using her interview to reshash all the trite old Western arguments for and against God's "existence" for the trillionth ignorant time.

Disbelievers, hold firm in your holy skepticism. Only, don't stop there. Keep pushing that skepticism even further, into mystery and humility. Aim it on your own dogmatism and anger. Use it to unearth the hidden assumptions you've inherited from our age. Recognize that much valuable human knowledge and practice lies outside of what can be proven by math and the five senses, in the same way that much of what you value in YOUR OWN LIVES transcends what can be proven or controlled.

Believers, cling to your faith. It's a rock, and a gift. Only, don't let your belief calcify into concepts, phrases, schtick, smugness, exclusion. Allow your faith to give you the courage to laugh at every concrete certainty. Recognize that, in an ambiguous and relativistic created world such as this one, there's some good in almost every bad and some bad in almost every good. Treat your flaws as fertile opportunities and your virtues as potential traps.

The Divine is big enough for all of us, no matter what any of our relatively puny conscious minds have to say about it at any point in time; It really is.

“I think some atheistic readers read a few words of the article and screamed "OH NO AN ARTICLE ABOUT RELIGION! I'M MELTING... MELLLLTTTIIIIIINNNNG!"”

It’s not articles about religion that annoy atheist readers at Salon IKPO; it’s the approach taken in the interview. When a good interviewer like Steve Paulson lobs softball questions and then doesn’t make the interviewee qualify her simplistic- and I might add -not so logical responses- then atheists are going to get persnickety.

Karen Armstrong blathered on about the coaxial age, mysticism and gave one-line evasions to complex questions, only to have the interviewer answer by salivating. She then slammed secular humanists for having such a “very one sided” worldview (a thinly veiled attack on the scientific method as a valid gauge for so called ‘spiritual matters’), again, only to have the interviewer answer with more saliva.

Atheists have every right to criticize both the methodology and content of the interview.

It's pretty hilarious to see a bunch of diehard atheists get all jittery and pissy and whiney and wailey just at the mention of the very word "God."

Did you guys even *read* the article? Or did you just see the word "God," and then you automatically lined up all your defenses neatly into place instead of listening to what the woman actually had to say?

In any case, "God" is simply the very essence that embodies us and the whole universe and ties us all together. "It" is what gives us life and breath, and you can call "it" whatever you want to call "it." You can call "it" a hockey puck, if you want, if that makes you feel a little better (don't worry, you won't go to hell if you do because there is no hell, which you must secretively believe in, or else you wouldn't pummel us with such vitrol over a simple word). But probably not, because you will either still see that damn hockey puck as an angry old white guy with a white beard on a throne, or you will refuse to believe in a hockey puck. If that's the case, then you've missed mine and Karen Armstrong's point completely.

Re-read the article again, this time with an open heart, if not an open mind.

Peace,

Zippy