I went to the library yesterday (finally!). I went specifically to look for books from the bibliography of Karen Armstrong's The Case for God, which I've decided to re read. At least the first half, anyway. I'm very excited about one book in particular -- Mircea Eliade's The Myth of the Eternal Return. It was published in 1950, which means it's one of the oldest books in our library. The last section, titled "The Terror of History," seems like it will be most useful to my project.
There is a point, for Armstrong, at which religion ceases to be useful. It's the point when humans forget that their religion is mythos, that it needs to be interpreted and put into practice in order to be effective. When they lose the transcendent aspect of their religion, it becomes "just" a belief system, as opposed to a practice. Another way to react to the loss of transcendence seems to be literalism. In BSG, some characters, especially President Laura Roslin, make a serious mistake when they begin taking their religion literally. I may be wrong on this, though -- maybe she is just trying to interpret it and put it into practice. I need to watch the series again (oh, darn!). I can't wait till my grading is complete and I can jump into this project for real.
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