What Religion Really Means?

Just to save you the expense should you be tempted to buy "The Case for God: What Religion Really Means" by Karen Armstrong here are some reviews:

Digested Read by John Crace.

This is excellent satire.

All Quiet on the God Front by Simon Blackburn.

"Karen Armstrong takes the reader through a history of religious practice in many different cultures, arguing that in the good old days and purest forms they all come to much the same thing. They use devices of ritual, mystery, drama, dance and meditation in order to enable us better to cope with the vale of tears in which we find ourselves. Religion is therefore properly a matter of a practice, and may be compared with art or music"

Review of The Case for God by Christopher Hart.

"Yet for centuries, ideas of God and the Bible were far more subtle and profound than today’s atheism or fundamentalism can conceive."

ADDENDUM: If you want to experience some more of the subtlety and profundity of modern theology Dan Dennett has been experiencing the joys of "kenotic theology" and "evolutionary christology" at Templeton-sponsored debates during the Darwin-fest in Cambridge.