Parts IV & V

"God is for the poor and ignorant" and "God is bad for women" are the next two characterizations of religion that Armstrong considered. Her answers are "No" and "Yes."

Certainly, the example of America, even with an increasing number of people who claim to be an atheist or to disdain organized religion, is enough to dispute the first statement. The USA is both the richest country in the world and the most religious.

Looking deeper, the major world religions all "developed initially in a nascent market economy" to quote Armstrong. Max Weber's classic "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" linked the religious fervor of protestantism and the development of modern capitalism.

That is not to say that religions embrace the unbridled and self-centered greed that is a core driving force for many in business. As Armstrong notes, To recover from the ill effects of the last year, we may need exactly that conquest of egotism that has always been essential in the quest for the transcendence we call “God.” Religion is not simply a matter of subscribing to a set of obligatory beliefs; it is hard work, requiring a ceaseless effort to get beyond the selfishness that prevents us from achieving a more humane humanity.

As for religion and women, Armstrong notes, Even when a tradition began positively for women (as in Christianity and Islam), within a few generations men dragged it back to the old patriarchy. This leads to her affirmation of the initial statement.

Here, I would wonder whether it is the religion or the male's use of religion that is to blame. Just as human beings have been adept at using religion to justify their violent responses against others, so too, it seems, males have been adept to use religious rules of their own making to subjugate the female.

So, what do you think?

Thinking Again - Part III

God Breeds Violence and Intolerance . . . is the third point which Armstrong thinks has been too readily accepted.

Certainly, it is easy to go through the recitation of wars and acts of atrocity that have been laid at the feet of religion - think Crusades, 9/11, religious suicide bombers, Muslim-Hindu violence in India, Protestant-Catholic violence in Ireland, the Inquisition, et al - and conclude that to be religious leads to violent acts. But, as Karen Armstrong puts it:
No, humans do. For Hitchens in God Is Not Great, religion is inherently “violent … intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism and bigotry”; even so-called moderates are guilty by association. Yet it is not God or religion but violence itself -- inherent in human nature -- that breeds violence. As a species, we survived by killing and eating other animals; we also murder our own kind. So pervasive is this violence that it leaks into most scriptures, though these aggressive passages have always been balanced and held in check by other texts that promote a compassionate ethic based on the Golden Rule: Treat others as you would like them to treat you. Despite manifest failings over the centuries, this has remained the orthodox position.
In claiming that God is the source of all human cruelty, Hitchens and Dawkins ignore some of the darker facets of modern secular society, which has been spectacularly violent because our technology has enabled us to kill people on an unprecedented scale.

So, human beings may well be innately violent - nature red in tooth and claw - and that tendency may well be held in check by the power of religion. What do you think?

God and Politics Shouldn't Mix

The second point that Karen Armstrong addressed is whether one's politics should be informed by, shaped by, or decided by one's religious views.

Certainly, we think, Americans know the answer to that one. We look with disdain at those countries where religion and politics overlap. We point with pride to our separation of church and state; or, at least, some of us point to that ideal with pride.

Truth be told, we know of many people in our country, just like millions more in countries around the globe, whose political understandings and religious understandings are one and the same. The current GOP candidate for governor in Virginia has a history of involvement with Christian Reconstructionism, for example. If you do not know about that movement, you should.

Armstrong's answer to the consideration of "God and politics shouldn't mix" was "Not Necessarily." In her concluding paragraph, she made this point:
Of course, the manner in which religion is used in politics is more important than whether it’s used at all. U.S. presidents such as John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama have invoked faith as a shared experience that binds the country together -- an approach that recognizes the communal power of spirituality without making any pretense to divine right. Still, this consensus is not satisfactory to American Protestant fundamentalists, who believe the United States should be a distinctively Christian nation.

Obviously, if you are a person of faith or a person of no faith, that will have some bearing on your political views. That fact about you cannot not influence your perspective on some political question. Yet, the questions of how much, in what way, and what does this mean for those of other religious views continue to bedevil us. What do you think?