Like, DUDES, you've so totally got to read Dangerous Words: Talking About God in the Age of Fundamentalism.

Especially YOU sarge.
:^)

As I wrote at TB, it's a newly released book that examine how changes in the way we communicate have affected how we understand words like "truth", "myth", "religion", and "God". Following the premise of the book, this examination of the history of such words sheds light on the rise of modernism and the reaction to modernism, religious fundamentalism. It really helps to make sense of quite a lot of the arguing that takes place on internet forums as well as out in the real world, especially the debates where people keep talking past one another and seem to have little or no common agreement about the basic premises which they are discussing. That is, it directly tackles the issue of "God" in the postmodern world.



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Dangerous Words: Talking About
God in the Age of Fundamentalism
(Hardcover) by Gary Eberle

ISBN: 1590304322
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Well, here's a key quote:

[M]odern people are being challenged by both fundamentalists and modernists to rethink what religion can mean in the contemporary world. For many fundamentalists, who interprt religious language in a literal way, the worship of the written word has become idolatrous... Clearly this is causing much strife in the world, strife that contradicts the compassionate teachings of the spiritual founders of most world religions. On the other hand, for most modernists, the alternative to the idolatry of the word has been to regard religious language as irrelevant. Seeing its divisive tendencies, they either ignore or ridicule the religious impulse. Both extremes--idolatry and irrelevance--rob the religious dimension of its tremendous power to lead us to a sense of healing, wholeness, compassion, and goodness. (pp.185)

Also, I was dicussing the gist of the book and here are some things I brought up:

The topic of the book is, in my own paraphrasing: "Does seeking the answers to life's important questions require us to choose between those offered by literalist religious fundamentalism or those offered by literalist irreligious modernism (which includes those who consider themselves 'too rational' for all that 'God' and 'religion' nonsense)?" Or to give a specific example, what can religious liberals do when confronted with such fundamentalist claims on religious language and God-talk? Do we reject such language as irrelevant (the extreme secular approach) or do we retreat to a toothless relativism (well, maybe that's true for you)?

The book goes on to discuss the history of certain key words, and how they have changed along with our ideas about what constitutes "truth" and in turn how we approach religious texts, rituals, etc. The idea is that the poetic and metaphorical nature of religious language is not amenable to literalism, but rather it points to important ahistorical truths and insights which cannot be expressed any other way. But because such truths are devalued, and because of failed attempts to translate such language into literal stories (i.e. 6 day creation, etc), many folks are willing to toss the baby out with the bathwater.

Does the author speculate on why he believes there is the possibility of a shift in meaning? Is it the inevitible outcome of the clash of two disparate and woefully inadquate thought systems? Or is the silent middle suddenly getting vocal about their religious curiosity?

Like, dude, that's the whole point of the book. It's a historical analysis of the meaning of key words and events, such as the transition from a primarily oral to primarily textual basis for language and "truth". Here is the table of contents: