Religion Discussed and Fussed

I don't like Karen Armstrong (see here).




The feeling, though, is mutual.


In a book review of Armstong's latest, "The Case for God", Ross Douthat wrote this:

...liberal religion tends to be parasitic on more dogmatic forms of faith, which create and sustain the practices that the liberal believer picks and chooses from, reads symbolically and reinterprets for a more enlightened age. Such spiritual dilettant­ism has its charms, but it lacks the sturdy appeal of Western monotheism, which has always offered not only myth and ritual and symbolism (the pagans had those bases covered), but also scandalously literal claims — that the Jews really are God’s chosen people; that Christ really did rise from the dead;,,,

...Such literalism can be taken too far, and “The Case for God” argues, convincingly, that it needs to coexist with more mythic, mystic and philosophical forms of faith. Most people, though, are not mystics and philosophers, and they are hungry for myths that are not only resonant but true. Apophatic religion may be the most rigorous way to go in search of an elusive God. But for most believers, it will remain a poor substitute for the idea that God has come in search of us.

Goodness. Next she'll be thinking that the Land of Israel isn't the homeland of the Jews.

On the other hand, and I do have many Christian friends, the two examples - bing chosen and resurrection, are on two different levels. One truly demands a 'leap of faith', to recall Kierkegaard, whereas even if you are not religious or a person of faith or even one who does not believe in God/Divinity, it takes no problem to know that Jews lived in the Land of Israel for almost 4000 years, developed it and it developed them as no other people and for sure, possessed sovereignty over it 1700 years before someone dreamed/visioned a midnight journey to Jerusalem causing his hordes to conquer and occupy the country.