One of my many failings is that I acquire books faster than I am able to read them. One of the many books on the to-be-read pile is No God But God by Reza Aslan, a book about the origins, evolution and future of Islam.
I see that Jeremy Stangroom is currently reading this very book. Unfortunately, in the book’s prologue he has already stumbled across a piece of such sloppy thinking that it does not bode well for my being able to read the book without hurling it across the room in disgust. The passage in question:
It is a shame that this word, myth, which originally signified nothing more than stories of the supernatural, has come to be regarded as synonymous with falsehood, when in fact myths are always true. By their very nature, myths inhere both legitimacy and credibility. Whatever truths they convey have little to do with historical fact. To ask whether Moses actually parted the Red Sea, or whether Jesus truly raised Lazarus from the dead, or whether the word of God indeed poured through the lips of Muhammad, is to ask totally irrelevant questions. The only question that matters with regard to a religion and its mythology is “What do these stories mean”?[…] After all, religion is, by definition, interpretation; and by definition, all interpretations are valid. However, some interpretations are more reasonable than others.
Lovely. Now go and read Jeremy’s dissection of this bullshit.
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