In an article entitled "When Words Decide," Barry Schwartz (writing in the August/September 2007 edition of Scientific American Mind [not available online]) gives some good examples demonstrating the great power of default choices. These examples add more fuel for a long burning fire-that people are not the rational careful-thinking beings…
If you’re tired of hearing heated yet worn-out arguments regarding religion and science, check out this intellectually nimble and energized exchange published by Edge.org: Responses by David Sloan Wilson, Michael Shermer, Sam Harris, P. Z. Myers and Mark D. Hauser to Jonathon Haidt’s “Moral Psychology and the Misunderstanding of Religion.” Here’s a link to Haidt’s original article (“Moral Psychology and the Misunderstanding of Religion.”).
David Sloan Wilson sets the tone by challenging “the new atheists” to answer all four of the following questions:
1. Is there any empirically verifiable evidence for the existence of supernatural agents?
2. If not, how can we explain the phenomenon of religion in naturalistic terms?
3. What are the impacts of religion, good or bad, on human welfare? and
4. How can we use our understanding of religion to advance the goals of a stable and peaceful society?
Wilson argues that the new atheists sometimes neglect questions 2, 3 and 4. “This is like a debater leaving the debate after the opening round.”
For his part, Sam Harris reaches even deeper than usual in two his arsenal of weapons to present the many stupidities exhibited by many religions. In the process, Harris suggests that Haidt had incorrectly argued that all religious ways of life contains some wisdom and insights. In his response, Haidt makes it clear that he is suggesting no such thing. I won’t review the challenges and criticisms issued by the other reviewers point by point, but I’ll skip to Haidt’s …
Bob Cesca raises the issue of Bush's inappropriate smirking and provides the images to substantiate the problem. I went to Catholic grade school and high school and I've seen nuns beat the holy crap out of you for smirking at something innocuous. So here's the alleged leader of the free…
I’m a newcomer to an extremely popular website called Lifehack. The site specializes in “hacks, tips and tricks that get things done quickly by automating, increase productivity and organizing.” There is obviously a lot to consider at Lifehack.org. One might wonder, though, how much time one should spend on productivity lest…
I struggle to see through the rampant commercialism, the over-consumption and the glazed-eyed happiness of the holiday season. But maybe I’ve had a break-through. It keeps recurring to me this month that kind and thoughtful atheists/agnostics have an immense amount in common with millions of kind and thoughtful people who believe in God.
Too many of us have too much in common, in fact, for me to stand by silently while the “new atheists” (led by Richard Dawkins) repeatedly belittle Believers. Most of these new atheists claim that religious moderates, by their silence, are enabling the social destruction wrought by fundamentalists. I think that is often true. By the same token, moderate atheists/agnostics are adding unnecessary fuel to the belief/non-belief wars when they fail to speak up during the new atheist hyper-scoldings of believers.
I suspect that many of the new atheist criticisms of religion underestimate the function served by the type of religion practiced by most religious moderates (I think that David Sloan Wilson has it right on this point) and that they over-estimate the ability of science to provide substitutes for whatever it is that religious moderates get out of their practice of religion (on this point, see this Salon.com interview of theologian John Haught).
In fact, many of the new atheist scoldings smell of schadenfreude and vengeance. I agree that much of criticism is warranted on an intellectual level, but it seems like we really need to sit down and figure out how to get …