I wouldn’t want you to think I’ve forgotten the twins. Chris popped his head around the door the other day to say ‘Here’s another favorable review’ (funny how both of them either ignore the bad reviews or pretend they were good reviews). While he was at it he also said ‘and here’s someone who thinks what we think – no actually he said her comment was ‘revealing’ and then said ‘It seems to me that Hannah is our ally in the cause of better public acceptance of science–and I for one, am glad for it.’ In other words, same old thing: keep ignoring what critics say and keep doggedly repeating what the twins say in the hopes that sheer repetition … Read the rest

Another comment from Eric.

Based on the linked interview, it seems pretty clear that Karen Armstrong never really left the convent. The mind has mountains, frightful, sheer, no man fathomed, as Hopkins said.

It also has walls. Take her claim that “The golden rule is that you treat everyone with absolute respect and you don’t exclude any creature, even a mosquito, from your radius of concern.” You have to have put up a wall somewhere to be able to say this. These are just empty words, and they reveal something about her use of language. Laurie Taylor says that he noticed “how carefully Karen constructs her sentences, her care with words, her capacity to alight on a perfect phrase with … Read the rest

I was doing some research for an article earlier and found an interview of Karen Armstrong from a few years ago.

“I’m off to America tomorrow. I have a little book on the Buddha coming out in paperback, so I’m going to a literary festival to talk about it. Which is a nice rest from Islamic fundamentalism.” Was she regarded as an expert on Islam in the States? “Well, it has turned out a bit like that. I was supposed to be flying to America to take up a post at Harvard on September 12 in 2001 and was actually packing when the terrible news came through. So, when I got to Harvard I never even had a chance to