Re: [asa] Richard Dawkins, atheism, and religious liberty

Ted's "play-by-play" commentary brought to mind a few loosely connected thoughts. First, and very trivial, it's "Commonweal" magazine, not "Commonwealth".
 
Second, with respect to taking the slam out of the dunk, I stumbled upon an article in Criterion, a publication of the Univ. of Chicago Divinity School [of all places!!]. "Religion and Science, Faith and Reason: Some Pascalian Reflections" by Daniel Garber.
 
http://divinity.uchicago.edu/research/criterion/winter_02.pdf
 
It doesn't really say anything that participants here haven't heard before, but it's concise, not agressive (Garber is a nonbeliever), has wonderful Pascal quotes, and IMO would be great for use in an adult study group. It provokes lots of open-ended questions for discussion. I suspect I will be using it in the future, but check it out for yourself.
 
Third, Slate e-zine is running articles on brain studies, including "neurotheology". Now I cite Slate not as an authority, but as an example of questions of neuroscience entering popular magazines. Plenty of popular level questions there that could easily be used for faith/science study groups.
 
See www.slate.com/id/2165026 and related links.
 
Just a few random thoughts, inspired by Ted. [He should not be blamed however!]
 
Karl
*********************
Karl V. Evans
cmekve@aol.com
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: TDavis@messiah.edu
To: asa@lists.calvin.edu
Sent: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 7:52 AM
Subject: [asa] Richard Dawkins, atheism, and religious liberty

Not long ago we had a discussion about Dawkins' anti-religious bigotry, and
in this connection I strongly recommend the following article, from this
week's "Commonwealth" magazine:

http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/print_format.php?id_article=1914

This is the type of thing that makes me wonder how Pim can possibly defend
Dawkins--how can anyone see Dawkins as not a hater of religious people? He
simply wants to take away fundamental religious liberties.

This type of hatred in the name of science is one of the foremost reasons
why ID is so appealing to many Christians, why an apparent "slam dunk"
against Dawkins and company is such an attractive option. And, frankly, if
it actually were a slam dunk I would likely sign up myself. I don't believe
that it is--I think one can always say, and sometimes with very good
reasons, that we simply don't know enough about a given piece of science at
this point to say that a given phenomenon can't be explained without an
appeal to design. And that, IMO, takes the slam out of the dunk. It leaves
room for faith--on all sides, including honest doubt about science as well
as honest doubt about those doubts. Some will use this doubt to proclaim
God (er, the intelligent designer); others will proclaim the complete
absence of design, despite the absence of complete knowledge; and others
will simply say that the case isn't closed.

[big snip]

Ted

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Received on Thu Apr 26 13:05:22 2007