What a terrific resource! GodChecker.com. Who would you like to look up? The Aztec god HUITZILOPOCHTLI? The Mesopotamian gods TIAMAT or ENKI? The South American god PERIBORIWA? They are all here, complete with sassy yet informative descriptions. Here's an example of the writing concerning the South American god "Sinaa": SINAA:…
In a recent interview published in Salon.com, Richard Dawkins was asked what we should do when science cannot provide answers we crave. Here's what he said: There are two ways of responding to mystery. The scientist's way is to see it as a challenge, something they've got to work on,…
An evangelical acquaintance recently wrote me a letter arguing that the pro-stem cell research proposal (Missouri Amendment 2) A) is geared to financially enrich its sponsors, B) that it will invite reproductive cloning and C) that poor women will result in poor women selling their eggs. She urged me to oppose the Amendment and oppose various promising forms of stem cell research.
For information on the proposed amendment, see here.
Even before receiving this letter, I knew that my acquaintance believed that a one-minute old fertilized human egg in a Petri dish is a baby that deserved full legal protection and priority over the children with horrible illnesses who occupy hospital beds. My acquaintance indicated that she was part of an organized effort to defeat Missouri Amendment 2.
I am not thrilled with my response (see below), but I couldn’t think of anything better. If anyone has any ideas as to a more effective way to deal with those who oppose stem cell research on religious grounds, I’m all ears.
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Dear [Acquaintance]
I realize that you feel hurt and attacked by my previous email. In this e-mail, I will attempt to put our recent exchange of e-mail in perspective.
The technology for making insulin is currently based on recombinant DNA techniques; the human gene which codes for the insulin protein is cloned and then inserted in bacteria. I want you to assume for a moment, though, that my religion holds that both the cloning of genes and recombinant DNA …
Debate goes on, seeming forever, about the issue of religious belief in a secular society. The validity of sacred texts becomes grist for the mill and sides line up over What Would Jesus Do bumper stickers. We see competing fish on cars–Darwin fish with feet in answer to the unembellished christian fish symbol, then a bigger fish labeled Truth swallowing the diminutive Darwin fish, and on and on.
What is really at issue here hasn’t got one thing to do with who believes in god or evolution. Belief is a self-contained, private matter. The issue that gets lost in all the polemic is very simple: behavior.
Those who would sap the poison from the “inerrant word” crowd are defending their assumed right to live the way they want. One might argue that belief in god doesn’t really limit people, and as far as it goes, that is true. If you, as an individual, choose to believe in god, then you have elected to reform your life according to the tenets of your new faith. You may adopt whatever modest or byzantine traditions and habits you wish. After all, you have chosen this, you get to do it.
What you don’t get to do is tell everyone else to behave accordingly, and that’s where the meat of the issue lies.
Because fundamentalists–and we’re talking about fundamentalists here for the most part, of any stripe–do not adopt such an extreme view of faith out of intellectual curiosity or even spiritual need. They …
The Bible version of God doesn’t ring true to me. I don’t believe in any traditional sort of God. I am not that sort of person who finds any purpose in worshipping or asking favors from invisible Beings. I don’t ascribe any emotions or sentience (certainly, no vindictiveness) to any Person or Thing that might have created our universe. How the universe came into being is beyond what I can know.
I do cherish my universe, though, and I realize that I am an incredibly tiny and incredibly ignorant part of it. Many fervent believers (though not all) would characterize my beliefs as “atheism” although that word, as commonly construed, would characterize me in a misleadingly cartoonish way.
Given my beliefs, most people would be surprised to hear that I sometimes go to church to be inspired and energized. What’s my secret? I go to church when no one else is there—I like to go to empty churches. When nothing else is going on other than one’s own breathing, meditating, thinking and writing, going to church can even be exhilarating.
With a pad of paper and a pen in my hands, in search of solitude, I walked to church twice this week. I had previously noticed a huge church a few blocks from a courthouse where I sometimes work. Only after walking to this church on Monday did I learn that it was called “Saint Peter’s Roman Catholic Cathedral” in Belleville, Illinois. Here’s a photo I took on Wednesday …