The Battle for God

The manner in which the human mind, hard-wired for spirituality, originally related to the inexplicable and the temporal, was to divide existence into what the Greeks called mythos and logos.

Mythos was the myths, fables, legends, stories and parables told, and later written, for the symbolic value of the lessons they imparted. When coupled with cult and ritual, they were able to gain the spiritual dimension that all humans need in order to make ultimate sense of their universe, provide solace and joy, and, as I believe, cleave to their Maker.

Logos was interaction with the real and physical world that was by necessity based on logic, deductive reasoning and practical solutions. As science and civilization progressed, especially in the Western world, mythos came under the type of scrutiny reserved for subjects that pertained more to logos, and thus secularism was born.

This was an attribution error. The stories of the Bible, Koran, Gita and other holy books were never meant to be taken literally. If you had asked the ancients of these texts the same question, they would have been quite perplexed. They saw mythos and logos as two sides of the same coin.

Today, the hallmark of fundamentalists the world over has been to see the world through the eyes of logos, and in a paradoxical error of modernity, give literal and logical reading to mythos. It is impossible to be further off the mark.

This is articulated in a phenomenal book I am now reading called The Battle For God, by Karen Armstrong, a former Catholic nun, turned scholar, author and commentator. Thank you Mikael for this most wonderful gift! On a tangent now, her narrative reminds me so much of Joanna Manning and I wonder if these two amazing women are aware of each other. They should meet. I of course can beam with pride that I lived with Joanna for some time and we continue to be close friends, even after so many years of my wanderings.

If you are curious about religious fundamentalism, as well as how the human psyche has historically processed religion and integrated spirituality with scientific and cultural progress, this is the book for you.