Don’t I feel special
I skimmed The Observer’s profile of Karen Armstrong yesterday, but I must have done a sloppy job of it, because I failed to notice something that if I’d really been properly skimming, would have jumped out at me. I never would have known about it if Nicholas Lawrence hadn’t told me.
But like Kissinger, Armstrong has enemies. Many devout Catholics quietly accuse her of treachery, while professional theologians despise her for emphasising the opposition between rationality and faith. Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom have accused her of being a religious apologist who covers up inconvenient texts to bolster the idea there is no conflict between modern morality and religion in matters, for instance, of gender and sexuality.
Well now I call that handsome! I should send Vanessa Thorpe a box of chocolates. Really – many devout Catholics, and professional theologians, and JS and me. Pretty select company, do admit. The sum total of Karen Armstrong’s enemies (by which is meant, people who think Karen Armstrong is wrong about some or many things), and I get to be in that august company. I even get to be named. I think that’s pretty exciting.
Mind you, she could have plugged the book while she was at it, but one can’t have everything.
Our commandant should not be modest; it diminishes her minions.
Actually, it’s a perfectly appropriate reference. Karen Armstrong wants us to believe that, by embracing religion, we can temper religions’ excesses, that somehow the route to rationality runs through gentle superstition.
Ophelia Benson articulates, as well as anyone, what a crock of shit that is.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Skeptic South Africa, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: Don’t I feel special http://dlvr.it/6VLsf […]
We’re all used to seeing such bias in mainstream media, but it’s terrible when what is reported is exactly the opposite of the truth. First Thorpe calls Armstrong ‘lucid’, and then she quotes Armstrong as saying that she’s a “a populariser, with the job of making religious doctrine more accessible”.
This is the exact opposite of the truth. Dan Dennett would call pretty much every sentence that Armstrong makes a ‘deepity’; trivial and true on one sense, and profound and false in another.
Ophelia, I just searched B&W and found a number of posts on Karen Armstrong. Looking forward to browsing through them…
Cheers Ophelia, you’re in august company !!
Blimey, that’s what she said …
Comparing Armstrong and Kissinger is a bit strange. One of the commenters asked if this meant god was like RichardNixon.
Be careful, Ophelia. Your role may be as Allende…
Am I missing something here, like irony?
They may well be wonderful people – I’m married to a Catholic, and truly grateful she came into my life – but does the company of devout Catholics and professional theologians burnish or tarnish your reputation, which is sky-high with me, based solely on this blog.
Yes, I don’t think you should sell yourself short, Ophelia. I think that the stage you play on is bigger than you imagine it is.
We are all cats herding together, so to speak, voicing our disapproval of religion. Some cats have more influence than others: some have bigger claws while others use their charm. Perhaps a certain lack of self-confidence or lack of self-righteousness is common among the sceptical, the irreligious. So our voice is filled with self-doubt. And when we do say anything loudly, well then we’re aggressive, strident or shrill.
Although you may not recognise it Ophelia, you are influential. People who are interested in uber atheism want to hear your opinion. I am here among others to lend support and encouragement, and occasionally squeak a meow, here or there, offering some tidbits and treats.
The one positive thing I have to say about Armstrong is this:
When people like Terry Eagleton pitch their “sophisticated theology”, it is a two-faced deception. They argue their sophisticated theology to atheists and other critics, while simultaneously giving a nod and a wink to the conventional faithful. They pretend as if their complicated philosophical defenses of a more abstract poetic theology somehow justify the actual practice of religion in most of the world, where dogma is taken at face value and sometimes enforced with the blade of a knife.
Karen Armstrong, to her credit, doesn’t do that. She argues her “sophisticated theology” to the godless and the faithful alike. The article mentions she has a lot of enemies amongst the faithful as well, and I don’t think that just includes YECs and their ilk. Armstrong’s big thing is the Golden Rule, which aside from “don’t fucking kill people” and “don’t steal my shit, yo” is pretty much the most universal ethical imperative across all societies (one might even call it a “categorical” imperative?), and with good reason. Her agenda, when not defending her (literally) vacuous God against perceived attacks by “atheist fundamentalists”, appears to be to get world religions to refocus themselves on this truly moral dictum, and discard the obviously harmful dogma.
Do I find her arguments vapid and pointless? Yes. Do I think she constructs strawmen (strawpeople?) out of the gnu atheist movement, in such a blatant way that a cynic might suspect it was only for publicity? Yes. But she’s not a goddamn hypocrite like most of the “sophisticated” theologians, and for that I give her at least some credit.
James, yes, but the trouble is that Armstrong doesn’t just say religions should make compassion central, she says they already do and always have, and that is just historically clueless and politically dangerous.
Yes, thank you, Ophelia, and in the course of doing this she ignores practically all the other teachings of the religions. Her white-washing of Islam is particularly egregious. According to Thorpe, Armstrong said:
It’s not altogether clear what this means, though I guess it is referring to some suppositious dismissal of Islam. But has Islam been dismissed? Not enough, I fear! Even after 9/11 everyone seemed to go out of their way to speak of Islam as a religion of peace, and some idiot in the National Cathedral (Billy Graham, I think, or his equally shallow son), said that the terrorists had done all those people who died in the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and the field in Pennsylvania, a favour, since they would not want to come back now, their bliss is so great in heaven.
But I can see why being tagged publicly as an enemy of this rather foolish nun — and, as I’ve said before, she hasn’t left the convent — she retreated to the convent when she was young because she was afraid of the world, and she retreated to religion after her academic career seemed to go arse over tea kettle — but…, as I was saying, I can see why being tagged as public enemy number 1 of this foolish nun might make you feel like preening a bit.
Oh well I seize any opportunity to preen, Eric, we all know that. :- )
Go Ophelia!
Re Eric #12: Given the premises that both of them have accepted, Billy Graham and/or his son were thinking quite clearly.
The idea of a happy heavenly paradise unsurprisingly induces in some people a desire to get there ASAP. In the combined Islamist-Graham scheme of things, it was a win-win situation, both for the 9/11 jihadists and their victims – at least those of the latter who were believers. Clearly not so for those injured, but that should not deter those who keep their eyes fixed on the main game.
Via a video aired recently on Dubai-based television station Al Arabiya, the failed Times Square bomber (Pakistan-born) Faisal Shahzad is quoted as having said: “With jihad, the basis of Islam can be enforced, and the word of Allah and his religion will prevail.” His life sentence would appear to have set that prevailing back a tad.
Tariq Ali made the point on an Australian ABC panel discussion two nights ago that Islamic extremist parties have never won more than about 5% of the vote in Pakistani elections. But 5% of 170 million people is 8.5 million Islamists: quite a population to recruit bombers from.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/failed-times-square-bomber-sentenced-to-life-says-us-should-brace-for-war/story-e6frf7lf-1225934643128
Ajita might be too modest to mention it, but he wrote the best take down of Armstrong’s “The Case For God” I’ve seen. He got skills!
And since when does simple disagreement=blood fued?
I’m reminded of a co-worker who considers himself a “conservative Christian” because he believes he adheres to the original doctrines preached in the New Testament — which, as a result of his interpretation, causes him to believe things that could only be described as a fairly liberal theology. Seriously, the most conservative opinion he seems to hold is that he’s one of those pro-choice-but-anti-abortion types. Oh, and similar with same-sex marriage — he thinks it’s not “real” marriage according to his religious views, but is in favor of government recognition of it anyway.
He even claims to have been against universal health care until he prayed about it, and then became convinced it was the right thing to do. heh…
It’s weird, because on the one hand, his political opinions are more or less all right in a row where they should be — but on the other hand, there seems to be quite a bit of denialism on his part about what the Bible actually preaches and what it means to be a “conservative Christian”. Very confusing.
In any case, I’m not even arguing that Karen Armstrong has a net positive influence on religion. I’m only saying that she’s that rare “sophisticated” theologian who’s not a hypocrite. Now, as to how ridiculous her arguments and her characterization of religion are… yeah, definitely.
On re-reading this, it comes off a little dogmatic, as if I think there is one set of “right” political opinions and anybody who deviates is somehow unacceptable. To be clear: I think there are some political issues on which reasonable people can disagree, and others on which disagreement can only come as a result of some people being unreasonable. Recognition of same-sex marriage would be an example. Then there are issues on which reasonable people might still disagree, but not all opinions on it are valid, e.g. a reasonable person might say something like “I oppose the universal healthcare bill because I do not think it is fiscally feasible in its present form”, but only unreasonable people say “zomg deth panuls!”
So that’s all I meant by that — not that there is some political dogma that all must adhere to, but that there are certain political stances which are not tenable under any circumstances.
And as I commented (as silverwhistle), Armstrong is dishonest and solipsistic as a historian, in her work on the Middle Ages.