{"product_id":"the-battle-for-god-isbn-9780345391698","title":"The Battle for God","description":"In the late twentieth century, fundamentalism has emerged as one of the most powerful forces at work in the world, contesting the dominance of modern secular values and threatening peace and harmony around the globe. Yet it remains incomprehensible to a large number of people. In \u003cb\u003eThe Battle for God\u003c\/b\u003e, Karen Armstrong brilliantly and sympathetically shows us how and why fundamentalist groups came into existence and what they yearn to accomplish.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe see the West in the sixteenth century beginning to create an entirely new kind of civilization, which brought in its wake change in every aspect of life -- often painful and violent, even if liberating. Armstrong argues that one of the things that changed most was religion. People could no longer think about or experience the divine in the same way; they had to develop new forms of faith to fit their new circumstances. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eArmstrong characterizes fundamentalism as one of these new ways of being religious that have emerged in every major faith tradition. Focusing on Protestant fundamentalism in the United States, Jewish fundamentalism in Israel, and Muslim fundamentalism in Egypt and Iran, she examines the ways in which these movements, while not monolithic, have each sprung from a dread of modernity -- often in response to assault (sometimes unwitting, sometimes intentional) by the mainstream society.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eArmstrong sees fundamentalist groups as complex, innovative, and modern -- rather than as throwbacks to the past -- but contends that they have failed in religious terms. Maintaining that fundamentalism often exists in symbiotic relationship with an aggressive modernity, each impelling the other on to greater excess, she suggests compassion as a way to defuse what is now an intensifying conflict.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Karen Armstrong's \u003ci\u003eTwelve Steps to a Compassionate Life.\u003c\/i\u003e\"One of the most penetrating, readable, and prescient accounts to date of the rise of the fundamentalist movements in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.\"\u003cbr\u003e--The New York Times Book Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"EXCELLENT . . . HIGHLY INTELLIGENT AND HIGHLY READABLE . . . This is a book that will prove indispensable . . . for anyone who seeks insight into how these powerful movements affect global politics and society today and into the future.\"\u003cbr\u003e--The Baltimore Sun\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"ARMSTRONG SUCCEEDS BRILLIANTLY . . . With her astonishing depth of knowledge and readily accessible writing style, [she] makes an ideal guide in traversing a subject that is by its very nature complex, sensitive and frequently ambiguous.\"\u003cbr\u003e--The San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A USEFUL AND REWARDING BOOK.\"\u003cbr\u003e--The Boston GlobeKaren Armstrong is one of the foremost commentators on religious affairs in both Britain and the United States. She spent seven years as a Roman Catholic nun, took a degree at Oxford University, teaches at Leo Baeck College for the Study of Judaism, and received the 1999 Muslim Public Affairs Council Media Award. Her previous books include the best-selling \u003cb\u003eA History of God: The  4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam\u003c\/b\u003e; \u003cb\u003eJerusalem: One City, Three Faiths\u003c\/b\u003e; and \u003cb\u003eIn the Beginning: A New Interpretation of Genesis\u003c\/b\u003e.\u003cb\u003eIntroduction\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne of the most startling developments of the late twentieth century has\u003cbr\u003ebeen the emergence within every major religious tradition of a militant\u003cbr\u003epiety popularly known as \"fundamentalism.\" Its manifestations are\u003cbr\u003esometimes shocking. Fundamentalists have gunned down worshippers in a\u003cbr\u003emosque, have killed doctors and nurses who work in abortion clinics,\u003cbr\u003ehave shot their presidents, and have even toppled a powerful government.\u003cbr\u003eIt is only a small minority of fundamentalists who commit such acts of\u003cbr\u003eterror, but even the most peaceful and law-abiding are perplexing,\u003cbr\u003ebecause they seem so adamantly opposed to many of the most positive\u003cbr\u003evalues of modern society. Fundamentalists have no time for democracy,\u003cbr\u003epluralism, religious toleration, peacekeeping, free speech, or the\u003cbr\u003eseparation of church and state. Christian fundamentalists reject the\u003cbr\u003ediscoveries of biology and physics about the origins of life and insist\u003cbr\u003ethat the Book of Genesis is scientifically sound\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003ein every detail. At a time when many are throwing off the shackles of\u003cbr\u003ethe past, Jewish fundamentalists observe their revealed Law more\u003cbr\u003estringently than ever before, and Muslim women, repudiating the freedoms\u003cbr\u003eof Western women, shroud themselves in veils and chadors. Muslim and\u003cbr\u003eJewish fundamentalists both interpret the Arab-Israeli conflict, which\u003cbr\u003ebegan as defiantly secularist, in an exclusively religious way.\u003cbr\u003eFundamentalism, moreover, is not confined to the great monotheisms.\u003cbr\u003eThere are Buddhist, Hindu, and even Confucian fundamentalisms, which\u003cbr\u003ealso cast aside many of the painfully acquired insights of liberal\u003cbr\u003eculture, which fight and kill in the name of religion and strive to\u003cbr\u003ebring the sacred into the realm of politics and national struggle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis religious resurgence has taken many observers by surprise. In the\u003cbr\u003emiddle years of the twentieth century, it was generally taken for\u003cbr\u003egranted that secularism was an irreversible trend and that faith would\u003cbr\u003enever again play a major part in world events. It was assumed that as\u003cbr\u003ehuman beings became more rational, they either would have no further\u003cbr\u003eneed for religion or would be content to confine it to the immediately\u003cbr\u003epersonal and private areas of their lives. But in the late 1970s,\u003cbr\u003efundamentalists began to rebel against this secularist hegemony and\u003cbr\u003estarted to wrest religion out of its marginal position and back to\u003cbr\u003ecenter stage. In this, at least, they have enjoyed remarkable success.\u003cbr\u003eReligion has once again become a force that no government can safely\u003cbr\u003eignore. Fundamentalism has suffered defeats, but it is by no means\u003cbr\u003equiescent. It is now an essential part of the modern scene and will\u003cbr\u003ecertainly play an important role in the domestic and international\u003cbr\u003eaffairs of the future. It is crucial, therefore, that we try to\u003cbr\u003eunderstand what this type of religiosity means, how and for what reasons\u003cbr\u003eit has developed, what it can tell us about our culture, and how best we\u003cbr\u003eshould deal with it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut before we proceed, we must look briefly at the term \"fundamentalism\"\u003cbr\u003eitself, which has been much criticized. American Protestants were the\u003cbr\u003efirst to use it. In the early decades of the twentieth century, some of\u003cbr\u003ethem started to call themselves \"fundamentalists\" to distinguish\u003cbr\u003ethemselves from the more \"liberal\" Protestants, who were, in their\u003cbr\u003eopinion, entirely distorting the Christian faith. The fundamentalists\u003cbr\u003ewanted to go back to basics and reemphasize the \"fundamentals\" of the\u003cbr\u003eChristian tradition, which they identified with a literal interpretation\u003cbr\u003eof Scripture and the acceptance of certain core doctrines. The term\u003cbr\u003e\"fundamentalism\" has since been applied to reforming movements in other\u003cbr\u003eworld faiths in a way that is far from satisfactory. It seems to suggest\u003cbr\u003ethat fundamentalism is monolithic in all its manifestations. This is not\u003cbr\u003ethe case. Each \"fundamentalism\" is a law unto itself and has its own\u003cbr\u003edynamic. The term also gives the impression that fundamentalists are\u003cbr\u003einherently conservative and wedded to the past, whereas their ideas are\u003cbr\u003eessentially modern and highly innovative. The American Protestants may\u003cbr\u003ehave intended to go back to the \"fundamentals,\" but they did so in a\u003cbr\u003epeculiarly modern way. It has also been argued that this Christian term\u003cbr\u003ecannot be accurately applied to movements that have entirely different\u003cbr\u003epriorities. Muslim and Jewish fundamentalisms, for example, are not much\u003cbr\u003econcerned with doctrine, which is an essentially Christian\u003cbr\u003epreoccupation. A literal translation of \"fundamentalism\" into Arabic\u003cbr\u003egives us usuliyyah, a word that refers to the study of the sources of\u003cbr\u003ethe various rules and principles of Islamic law. Most of the activists\u003cbr\u003ewho are dubbed \"fundamentalists\" in the West are not engaged in this\u003cbr\u003eIslamic science, but have quite different concerns. The use of the term\u003cbr\u003e\"fundamentalism\" is, therefore, misleading.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOthers, however, argue simply that, like it or not, the word\u003cbr\u003e\"fundamentalism\" is here to stay. And I have come to agree: the term is\u003cbr\u003enot perfect, but it is a useful label for movements that, despite their\u003cbr\u003edifferences, bear a strong family resemblance. At the outset of their\u003cbr\u003emonumental six-volume Fundamentalist Project, Martin E. Marty and R.\u003cbr\u003eScott Appleby argue that the \"fundamentalisms\" all follow a certain\u003cbr\u003epattern. They are embattled forms of spirituality, which have emerged as\u003cbr\u003ea response to a perceived crisis. They are engaged in a conflict with\u003cbr\u003eenemies whose secularist policies and beliefs seem inimical to religion\u003cbr\u003eitself. Fundamentalists do not regard this battle as a conventional\u003cbr\u003epolitical struggle, but experience it as a cosmic war between the forces\u003cbr\u003eof good and evil. They fear annihilation, and try to fortify their\u003cbr\u003ebeleaguered identity by means of a selective retrieval of certain\u003cbr\u003edoctrines and practices of the past. To avoid contamination, they often\u003cbr\u003ewithdraw from mainstream society to create a counterculture; yet\u003cbr\u003efundamentalists are not impractical dreamers. They have absorbed the\u003cbr\u003epragmatic rationalism of modernity, and, under the guidance of their\u003cbr\u003echarismatic leaders, they refine these \"fundamentals\" so as to create an\u003cbr\u003eideology that provides the faithful with a plan of action. Eventually\u003cbr\u003ethey fight back and attempt to resacralize an increasingly skeptical\u003cbr\u003eworld.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo explore the implications of this global response to modern culture, I\u003cbr\u003ewant to concentrate on just a few of the fundamentalist movements that\u003cbr\u003ehave surfaced in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the three\u003cbr\u003emonotheistic faiths. Instead of studying them in isolation from one\u003cbr\u003eanother, I intend to trace their development chronologically, side by\u003cbr\u003eside, so that we can see how deeply similar they are. By looking at\u003cbr\u003eselected fundamentalisms, I hope to examine the phenomenon in greater\u003cbr\u003edepth than would be possible in a more general, comprehensive survey.\u003cbr\u003eThe movements I have chosen are American Protestant fundamentalism,\u003cbr\u003eJewish fundamentalism in Israel, and Muslim fundamentalism in Egypt,\u003cbr\u003ewhich is a Sunni country, and Iran, which is Shii. I do not claim that\u003cbr\u003emy discoveries necessarily apply to other forms of fundamentalism, but\u003cbr\u003ehope to show how these particular movements, which have been among the\u003cbr\u003emost prominent and influential, have all been motivated by common fears,\u003cbr\u003eanxieties, and desires that seem to be a not unusual response to some of\u003cbr\u003ethe peculiar difficulties of life in the modern secular world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere have always been people, in every age and in each tradition, who\u003cbr\u003ehave fought the modernity of their day. But the fundamentalism that we\u003cbr\u003eshall be considering is an essentially twentieth-century movement. It is\u003cbr\u003ea reaction against the scientific and secular culture that first\u003cbr\u003eappeared in the West, but which has since taken root in other parts of\u003cbr\u003ethe world. The West has developed an entirely unprecedented and wholly\u003cbr\u003edifferent type of civilization, so the religious response to it has been\u003cbr\u003eunique. The fundamentalist movements that have evolved in our own day\u003cbr\u003ehave a symbiotic relationship with modernity. They may reject the\u003cbr\u003escientific rationalism of the West, but they cannot escape it. Western\u003cbr\u003ecivilization has changed the world. Nothing -- including religion -- can\u003cbr\u003eever be the same again. All over the globe, people have been struggling\u003cbr\u003ewith these new conditions and have been forced to reassess their\u003cbr\u003ereligious traditions, which were designed for an entirely different type\u003cbr\u003eof society.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was a similar transitional period in the ancient world, lasting\u003cbr\u003eroughly from 700 to 200 BCE, which historians have called the Axial Age\u003cbr\u003ebecause it was pivotal to the spiritual development of humanity. This\u003cbr\u003eage was itself the product and fruition of thousands of years of\u003cbr\u003eeconomic, and therefore social and cultural, evolution, beginning in\u003cbr\u003eSumer in what is now Iraq, and in ancient Egypt. People in the fourth\u003cbr\u003eand third millennia BCE, instead of simply growing enough crops to\u003cbr\u003esatisfy their immediate needs, became capable of producing an\u003cbr\u003eagricultural surplus with which they could trade and thereby acquire\u003cbr\u003eadditional income. This enabled them to build the first civilizations,\u003cbr\u003edevelop the arts, and create increasingly powerful polities: cities,\u003cbr\u003ecity-states, and, eventually, empires. In agrarian society, power no\u003cbr\u003elonger lay exclusively with the local king or priest; its locus shifted\u003cbr\u003eat least partly to the marketplace, the source of each culture's wealth.\u003cbr\u003eIn these altered circumstances, people ultimately began to find that the\u003cbr\u003eold paganism, which had served their ancestors well, no longer spoke\u003cbr\u003efully to their condition.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the cities and empires of the Axial Age, citizens were acquiring a\u003cbr\u003ewider perspective and broader horizons, which made the old local cults\u003cbr\u003eseem limited and parochial. Instead of seeing the divine as embodied in\u003cbr\u003ea number of different deities, people increasingly began to worship a\u003cbr\u003esingle, universal transcendence and source of sacredness. They had more\u003cbr\u003eleisure and were thus able to develop a richer interior life;\u003cbr\u003eaccordingly, they came to desire a spirituality which did not depend\u003cbr\u003eentirely upon external forms. The most sensitive were troubled by the\u003cbr\u003esocial injustice that seemed built into this agrarian society, depending\u003cbr\u003eas it did on the labor of peasants who never had the chance to benefit\u003cbr\u003efrom the high culture. Consequently, prophets and reformers arose who\u003cbr\u003einsisted that the virtue of compassion was crucial to the spiritual\u003cbr\u003elife: an ability to see sacredness in every single human being, and a\u003cbr\u003ewillingness to take practical care of the more vulnerable members of\u003cbr\u003esociety, became the test of authentic piety. In this way, during the\u003cbr\u003eAxial Age, the great confessional faiths that have continued to guide\u003cbr\u003ehuman beings sprang up in the civilized world: Buddhism and Hinduism in\u003cbr\u003eIndia, Confucianism and Taoism in the Far East; monotheism in the Middle\u003cbr\u003eEast; and rationalism in Europe. Despite their major differences, these\u003cbr\u003eAxial Age religions had much in common: they all built on the old\u003cbr\u003etraditions to evolve the idea of a single, universal transcendence; they\u003cbr\u003ecultivated an internalized spirituality, and stressed the importance of\u003cbr\u003epractical compassion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eToday, as noted, we are undergoing a similar period of transition. Its\u003cbr\u003eroots lie in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of the modern era,\u003cbr\u003ewhen the people of Western Europe began to evolve a different type of\u003cbr\u003esociety, one based not on an agricultural surplus but on a technology\u003cbr\u003ethat enabled them to reproduce their resources indefinitely. The\u003cbr\u003eeconomic changes over the last four hundred years have been accompanied\u003cbr\u003eby immense social, political, and intellectual revolutions, with the\u003cbr\u003edevelopment of an entirely different, scientific and rational, concept\u003cbr\u003eof the nature of truth; and, once again, a radical religious change has\u003cbr\u003ebecome necessary. All over the world, people are finding that in their\u003cbr\u003edramatically transformed circumstances, the old forms of faith no longer\u003cbr\u003ework for them: they cannot provide the enlightenment and consolation\u003cbr\u003ethat human beings seem to need. As a result, men and women are trying to\u003cbr\u003efind new ways of being religious; like the reformers and prophets of the\u003cbr\u003eAxial Age, they are attempting to build upon the insights of the past in\u003cbr\u003ea way that will take human beings forward into the new world they have\u003cbr\u003ecreated for themselves. One of these modern experiments -- however\u003cbr\u003eparadoxical it may superficially seem to say so -- is fundamentalism.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe tend to assume that the people of the past were (more or less) like\u003cbr\u003eus, but in fact their spiritual lives were rather different. In\u003cbr\u003eparticular, they evolved two ways of thinking, speaking, and acquiring\u003cbr\u003eknowledge, which scholars have called mythos and logos. Both were\u003cbr\u003eessential; they were regarded as complementary ways of arriving at\u003cbr\u003etruth, and each had its special area of competence. Myth was regarded as\u003cbr\u003eprimary; it was concerned with what was thought to be timeless and\u003cbr\u003econstant in our existence. Myth looked back to the origins of life, to\u003cbr\u003ethe foundations of culture, and to the deepest levels of the human mind.\u003cbr\u003eMyth was not concerned with practical matters, but with meaning. Unless\u003cbr\u003ewe find some significance in our lives, we mortal men and women fall\u003cbr\u003every easily into despair. The mythos of a society provided people with a\u003cbr\u003econtext that made sense of their day-to-day lives; it directed their\u003cbr\u003eattention to the eternal and the universal. It was also rooted in what\u003cbr\u003ewe would call the unconscious mind. The various mythological stories,\u003cbr\u003ewhich were not intended to be taken literally, were an ancient form of\u003cbr\u003epsychology. When people told stories about heroes who descended into the\u003cbr\u003eunderworld, struggled through labyrinths, or fought with monsters, they\u003cbr\u003ewere bringing to light the obscure regions of the subconscious realm,\u003cbr\u003ewhich is not accessible to purely rational investigation, but which has\u003cbr\u003ea profound effect upon our experience and behavior. Because of the\u003cbr\u003edearth of myth in our modern society, we have had to evolve the science\u003cbr\u003eof psychoanalysis to help us to deal with our inner world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMyth could not be demonstrated by rational proof; its insights were more\u003cbr\u003eintuitive, similar to those of art, music, poetry, or sculpture. Myth\u003cbr\u003eonly became a reality when it was embodied in cult, rituals, and\u003cbr\u003eceremonies which worked aesthetically upon worshippers, evoking within\u003cbr\u003ethem a sense of sacred significance and enabling them to apprehend the\u003cbr\u003edeeper currents of existence. Myth and cult were so inseparable that it\u003cbr\u003eis a matter of scholarly debate which came first: the mythical narrative\u003cbr\u003eor the rituals attached to it. Myth was also associated with mysticism,\u003cbr\u003ethe descent into the psyche by means of structured disciplines of focus\u003cbr\u003eand concentration which have been evolved in all cultures as a means of\u003cbr\u003eacquiring intuitive insight. Without a cult or mystical practice, the\u003cbr\u003emyths of religion would make no sense. They would remain abstract and\u003cbr\u003eseem incredible, in rather the same way as a musical score remains\u003cbr\u003eopaque to most of us and needs to be interpreted instrumentally before\u003cbr\u003ewe can appreciate its beauty.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the premodern world, people had a different view of history. They\u003cbr\u003ewere less interested than we are in what actually happened, but more\u003cbr\u003econcerned with the meaning of an event. Historical incidents were not\u003cbr\u003eseen as unique occurrences, set in a far-off time, but were thought to\u003cbr\u003ebe external manifestations of constant, timeless realities. Hence\u003cbr\u003ehistory would tend to repeat itself, because there was nothing new under\u003cbr\u003ethe sun. Historical narratives tried to bring out this eternal\u003cbr\u003edimension. Thus, we do not know what really occurred when the ancient\u003cbr\u003eIsraelites escaped from Egypt and passed through the Sea of Reeds. The\u003cbr\u003estory has been deliberately written as a myth, and linked with other\u003cbr\u003estories about rites of passage, immersion in the deep, and gods\u003cbr\u003esplitting a sea in two to create a new reality. Jews experience this\u003cbr\u003emyth every year in the rituals of the Passover Seder, which brings this\u003cbr\u003estrange story into their own lives and helps them to make it their own.\u003cbr\u003eOne could say that unless an historical event is mythologized in this\u003cbr\u003eway, and liberated from the past in an inspiring cult, it cannot be\u003cbr\u003ereligious. To ask whether the Exodus from Egypt took place exactly as\u003cbr\u003erecounted in the Bible or to demand historical and scientific evidence\u003cbr\u003eto prove that it is factually true is to mistake the nature and purpose\u003cbr\u003eof this story. It is to confuse mythos with logos.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLogos was equally important. Logos was the rational, pragmatic, and\u003cbr\u003escientific thought that enabled men and women to function well in the\u003cbr\u003eworld. We may have lost the sense of mythos in the West today, but we\u003cbr\u003eare very familiar with logos, which is the basis of our society. Unlike\u003cbr\u003emyth, logos must relate exactly to facts and correspond to external\u003cbr\u003erealities if it is to be effective. It must work efficiently in the\u003cbr\u003emundane world. We use this logical, discursive reasoning when we have to\u003cbr\u003emake things happen, get something done, or persuade other people to\u003cbr\u003eadopt a particular course of action. Logos is practical. Unlike myth,\u003cbr\u003ewhich looks back to the beginnings and to the foundations, logos forges\u003cbr\u003eahead and tries to find something new: to elaborate on old insights,\u003cbr\u003eachieve a greater control over our environment, discover something\u003cbr\u003efresh, and invent something novel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the premodern world, both mythos and logos were regarded as\u003cbr\u003eindispensable. Each would be impoverished without the other. Yet the two\u003cbr\u003ewere essentially distinct, and it was held to be dangerous to confuse\u003cbr\u003emythical and rational discourse. They had separate jobs to do. Myth was\u003cbr\u003enot reasonable; its narratives were not supposed to be demonstrated\u003cbr\u003eempirically. It provided the context of meaning that made our practical\u003cbr\u003eactivities worthwhile. You were not supposed to make mythos the basis of\u003cbr\u003ea pragmatic policy. If you did so, the results could be disastrous,\u003cbr\u003ebecause what worked well in the inner world of the psyche was not\u003cbr\u003ereadily applicable to the affairs of the external world. When, for\u003cbr\u003eexample, Pope Urban II summoned the First Crusade in 1095, his plan\u003cbr\u003ebelonged to the realm of logos. He wanted the knights of Europe to stop\u003cbr\u003efighting one another and tearing the fabric of Western Christendom\u003cbr\u003eapart, and to expend their energies instead in a war in the Middle East\u003cbr\u003eand so extend the power of his church. But when this military expedition\u003cbr\u003ebecame entangled with folk mythology, biblical lore, and apocalyptic\u003cbr\u003efantasies, the result was catastrophic, practically, militarily, and\u003cbr\u003emorally. Throughout the long crusading project, it remained true that\u003cbr\u003ewhenever logos was ascendant, the Crusaders prospered. They performed\u003cbr\u003ewell on the battlefield, created viable colonies in the Middle East, and\u003cbr\u003elearned to relate more positively with the local population. When,\u003cbr\u003ehowever, Crusaders started making a mythical or mystical vision the\u003cbr\u003ebasis of their policies, they were usually defeated and committed\u003cbr\u003eterrible atrocities.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLogos had its limitations too. It could not assuage human pain or\u003cbr\u003esorrow. Rational arguments could make no sense of tragedy. Logos could\u003cbr\u003enot answer questions about the ultimate value of human life. A scientist\u003cbr\u003ecould make things work more efficiently and discover wonderful new facts\u003cbr\u003eabout the physical universe, but he could not explain the meaning of\u003cbr\u003elife.9 That was the preserve of myth and cult.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy the eighteenth century, however, the people of Europe and America had\u003cbr\u003eachieved such astonishing success in science and technology that they\u003cbr\u003ebegan to think that logos was the only means to truth and began to\u003cbr\u003ediscount mythos as false and superstitious. It is also true that the new\u003cbr\u003eworld they were creating contradicted the dynamic of the old mythical\u003cbr\u003espirituality. Our religious experience in the modern world has changed,\u003cbr\u003eand because an increasing number of people regard scientific rationalism\u003cbr\u003ealone as true, they have often tried to turn the mythos of their faith\u003cbr\u003einto logos. Fundamentalists have also made this attempt. This confusion\u003cbr\u003ehas led to more problems.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe need to understand how our world has changed. The first part of this\u003cbr\u003ebook will, therefore, go back to the late fifteenth and early sixteenth\u003cbr\u003ecenturies, when the people of Western Europe had begun to develop their\u003cbr\u003enew science. We will also examine the mythical piety of the premodern\u003cbr\u003eagrarian civilization, so that we can see how the old forms of faith\u003cbr\u003eworked. It is becoming very difficult to be conventionally religious in\u003cbr\u003ethe brave new world. Modernization has always been a painful process.\u003cbr\u003ePeople feel alienated and lost when fundamental changes in their society\u003cbr\u003emake the world strange and unrecognizable. We will trace the impact of\u003cbr\u003emodernity upon the Christians of Europe and America, upon the Jewish\u003cbr\u003epeople, and upon the Muslims of Egypt and Iran. We shall then be in a\u003cbr\u003eposition to see what the fundamentalists were trying to do when they\u003cbr\u003estarted to create this new form of faith toward the end of the\u003cbr\u003enineteenth century.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFundamentalists feel that they are battling against forces that threaten\u003cbr\u003etheir most sacred values. During a war it is very difficult for\u003cbr\u003ecombatants to appreciate one another's position. We shall find that\u003cbr\u003emodernization has led to a polarization of society, but sometimes, to\u003cbr\u003eprevent an escalation of the conflict, we must try to understand the\u003cbr\u003epain and perceptions of the other side. Those of us -- myself included\u003cbr\u003e-- who relish the freedoms and achievements of modernity find it hard to\u003cbr\u003ecomprehend the distress these cause religious fundamentalists. Yet\u003cbr\u003emodernization is often experienced not as a liberation but as an\u003cbr\u003eaggressive assault. Few have suffered more in the modern world than the\u003cbr\u003eJewish people, so it is fitting to begin with their bruising encounter\u003cbr\u003ewith the modernizing society of Western Christendom in the late\u003cbr\u003efifteenth century, which led some Jews to anticipate many of the\u003cbr\u003estratagems, postures, and principles that would later become common in\u003cbr\u003ethe new world.Ballantine Reader's Circle With a new introduction by the author\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ballantine Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46299985182949,"sku":"NP9780345391698","price":22.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780345391698.jpg?v=1767738274","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-battle-for-god-isbn-9780345391698","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}