While attending a book fair at the age of 17, I bought a Catechism published in 1850 1850 catechism excerpts.pdf Back then, I found it sycophantic, scientifically backward and full of veiled threats. Fast forward 33 years . . . I now find it sycophantic, scientifically backward and full of…
For centuries, established religions have asserted that science should be viewed through the lens of religion. Over the past few years, scientifically-oriented writers have turned that view on its head. They have asserted that it is more appropriate to view religious practices through the lens of science.
The recent flurry of books includes the following:
Though I own each of these books, I have completely read only half of them; I’m partly through the others. They are a priority on my reading list given the high stakes of failing to understand religious practices (religious tensions and wars everywhere one cares to look).
For anyone just getting started in this area, I recommend Dennett’s 2006 work, Breaking the Spell. This book is classic Dennett: eloquent, heartfelt and clear. He works extra hard so that he is not only preaching to the choir. He spends the first one-hundred pages working to convince Believers to give him a chance. It’s quite an extraordinary opening gambit.
Most of the above books concern …
I have long been confounded that otherwise intelligent people can claim, straight-faced, that the earth is only 6,000 years old or that a virgin got pregnant. Such people are utterly sincere, of course. Many of them excel at highly technical jobs and they generally embrace the results of science (they choose doctors who use high-tech medicine and they dare to fly on airplanes) and they are capable of great skepticism (they scoff at the dogma of everyone else’s religion and if one of their own unmarried daughters gets pregnant, they don’t believe her story that she didn’t have sex).
I’ve spent much of my life trying to understand this unevenness of skepticism. Though fundamentalists are generally intelligent, inquisitive, and skeptical, they are science-adverse only with regard to a limited range of topics. While in their “Believer” mode, they seem to be totally transformed people. What is grabbing their brains and making them say such things, I’ve often wondered.
The deepest, most treasured, assumptions of many religious Believers are somehow cordoned off. Once hooked on religion, they seem incapable of truly considering whether God exists. They seem psychologically and intellectually incapable of considering that the writings and history of the Bible seem flawed, self-contradictory and all-too-human.
Before you start thinking that I’m picking on religious fundamentalists . . . well, I am. But I’m also picking on anyone else who’s ever shuddered and become glassy-eyed at simple questions aimed at their most basic assumptions. I’m talking about all of us, …
Imagine for a moment that you go into your neighbor's home one day and discover a large homemade bomb sitting in the middle of his living room. "Don't touch that." your neighbor tells you, "If you do, the bomb will explode and our entire block will be destroyed." How would…
I have had the opportunity to exchange email and links with a man named Josh, who I invited to visit this blog. Josh’s initial comment was: “Thanks for the Invite! But I must say… you and I are in for many future debates!” I could also tell that Josh and I were different by looking at the homepage of his blog, where he writes: “I enjoy apologetics, studying the Bible, and reading various amounts of other important literature. My passion in life is to please Christ.”
Recently, Josh referred me to an article he wrote last year, an article entitled “The Scientific Truth” published on his blog: http://defendtruth.blogspot.com/. Below is my reaction to his article.
Josh:
Thank you for bringing my attention to your article: I’m truly glad we can have this conversation. We certainly come from different perspectives. Different perspectives, but not necessarily different backgrounds. When I was young, I was told to fear God and to read the Bible. I was told that my questions were “just a phase” and that I would learn to simply love God and stop asking impertinent questions. I was sent to Christian (Catholic) schools for 15 of my years of education.
I don’t pretend to know all the answers. I am now an agnostic regarding many things. I believe that the evidence only goes so far and we need to be brave enough to repeatedly say “I don’t know.” I struggle to find explanations that make the most sense …