Congratulations to Trent and Sarah Dougherty on the birth of their son John Paul! You can find details and pictures on Trent's personal site.
Here is the latest in Salon's "Atoms and Eden" series on science and religion. (Not the latest, actually, but the interviews with Dawkins and Dennett would be redundant to the discussions here.) B. Alan Wallace discusses the relationship of modern science and Buddhism and their commensurability. Salon is a subscription site, so you'll have to watch a brief ad to read the article, but it's relatively painless.
Lewis died at 5:30 p.m. at The Kilns, one week before his 65th birthday on Friday, November 22, 1963; the same day on which President Kennedy was assassinated and Aldous Huxley died. Every year at this time, for my Thanksgiving treat, I read Peter Kreeft's _Between Heaven and Hell_.
Most of you will have it--it was the first Kreeft I ever read. If you don't,it's a delightful mythical dialog between JFK--playing the role of modern humanist--Huxley--the "New Ager"--and Lewis. It's a sort of Areopagus scenario with Paul battling Epicureans on one side and Stoicism on the other. It's barely over 100 pages and super-easy reading. It's still my "go to" book for people outside the academy who want to read something on the reasonableness of Christianity.
The Times is at it again. In “A Free-for-All on Science and Religion” George Johnson discusses the growing animus scientifically minded folk have towards religion. Rather than enter the fray—which would be rather like entering the debate about whether one was for or against the present state of the universe—I have a constructive proposal. Let’s teach critical thinking and logic in high school. When people can grasp theories of the universe or what-have-you teach them simple confirmation theory. If we did this we could move away from an indoctrination model of education to a model of intellectual discovery. We might then avoid quotes like this: “We should let the success of the religious formula guide us,” Dr. Porco said. “Let’s teach our children from a very young age about the story of the universe and its incredible richness and beauty. It is already so much more glorious and awesome — and even comforting — than anything offered by any scripture or God concept I know.”
Heath White has an interesting post at Pea Soup about whether you can be thankful to the universe (or thankful in general) without someone (i.e. God) to be thankful to.
Perhaps theists could modus tollens this sort of thing and turn it into the Thanksgiving Argument for the Existence of God!
Too good to be true! This is half-review, half mutual admirations society. It's full of great Dennettisms like this one:
"If you encounter people who think it might still be intellectually respectable to believe in God in any literal sense, direct them to The God Delusion, where they will get their heads dismantled-and reassembled with a different perspective."
And this followed only a few pages later by "Serious argument depends on mutual respect, and this is often hard to engender when disagreements turn vehement."
Gotta love it...
Thanks to Ted for the tip (I love a little alliteration).
Bill's been holding out on us! He posted on his personal blog today about Dawkins's central argument against God.
PS--I've, um, uploaded that picture. The link is in the comments of the original post.
The new Gourmet Report is up.
“Options and Issues in Christian Ethics”
20-21 April 2007
Hosted by The Humanities Department at Columbia International University, Columbia, South Carolina
The Society of Christian Philosophers invites papers for a conference on various theories in Christian ethics today. The conference will feature the following keynote addresses:
- "The Idea of a Regulative Virtues Epistemology."
Robert C. Roberts, Distinguished Professor of Ethics at Baylor University - “Objections to Divine Command Theories of Moral Obligation”
C. Steven Evans, University Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Baylor University - "God and Nature in the Explanation of Moral Norms"
Mark Murphy, Professor at Georgetown University
