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Armstrong declares, unconvincingly, that historically believers haven’t taken their holy texts literally. Her argument is unconvincing because it’s demonstrably false. Islam, for example, has hundreds of millions of adherents who would declare her claim ridiculous and demonstrate their disagreement vehemently. Their mythology is so literal to them that many of them live a life that's more similar to their religion's 7th century origins than it is to the modern world.

Entire nations live under systems, legal, moral, educational, that are ancient. A tiny percentage, of course, (royalty and oil barons) enjoy the fruits of a modern economic and political system, but the truth, the day-to-day realty, is that the vast majority live in a world that moved on without them centuries ago.

Armstrong claims that myth without liturgy is impotent. I would argue that myth without liturgy is exactly where the world needs to be - where an educated 40% (or so) of American are, where large swathes of Europeans have been for decades, even centuries.

I agree with other parts of her thesis: her realization that most religious figures were myths. She recognizes the historicity of the Buddha and Mohamed, though she inaccurately declares Jesus as an absolutely real historical figure. While many historians may agree that the anecdotal evidence points toward such a person having lived, not one shred of empirical evidence has been unearthed to prove this.

She also fails miserably in her argument when she states (twice) that humans are at the end of their biological evolution. This is not knowable. She’s basically declaring that she can see 10,000 or 20,000 years (or further) into the future. We simply cannot know what she claims to know, but the evidence of life on earth over the last 500 million years or so would demonstrate her claim as unlikely, if not outright ridiculous.

She seems to decry the awfulness of science, as exemplified by her obvious example of the atomic bomb, while completely, utterly and totally ignoring the crimes of religion. Her anti-science argument ignores that for the vast majority of people throughout history science has been lifesaving: vaccines, sanitation, transportation, education and discovery. Religion, while perhaps personally uplifting for some, has been the cause of misery, war and death.

Her affection for faith (which she calls myth, but who does she think she’s kidding?) would be charming, if it wasn’t so appalling in its one-sidedness.