God's Zeal by Peter Sloterdijk

See this review of Slot's book. A few excerpts follow that support what I've been saying in recent posts:

"Peter Sloterdijk warns 'none of what will be said here can, whether theologically, politically or religion-psychologically, be thought of as harmless. [...] The civilizing process of the monotheisms will be complete once people are ashamed of certain statements made by their respective god.'”

"Sloterdijk argues that the belief in a 'personal' monotheistic God leads inexorably to belief in a monarch-like being who directs the lives of the believers with disastrous results. He does not view the 'ontological' conception of 'the highest,' which he likens to the impersonal 'god of the philosophers,' with the same level of skepticism.”


"Chapter Six (The Pharmaka) presents Sloterdijk’s attempt to solve what he views as the intransigent exclusive 'either-or' elements of Aristotelian logic at the base of monotheistic thought. His solution to the 'either-or' is 'polyvalent' thinking about transcendence that accepts 'both-and' propositions, a middle ground which he describes as a 'halfway world of graded shades of grey. [...] He envisions polyvalence leading to what he terms 'mature religious cultures.'"