Sunday, June 17, 2007

This Weekend's Examples of our Course Dialectic

This weekend's examples that I found of the course dialectic on the God question are from Scientific American and Foreign Policy, via, of course, our friends at Arts & Letters Daily.
  1. Two prominent defenders of science exchange their views on how scientists ought to approach religion and its followers....the authors explained their respective tactics for engaging the enemy and tackled some of the questions that face all scientists when deciding whether and how to talk to the faithful about science: Is the goal to teach science or to discredit religion? Can the two worldviews ever enrich one another? Is religion inherently bad?
  2. Jürgen Habermas, a veteran leftist German philosopher stunned his admirers not long ago by proclaiming, “Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter.”

2 comments:

Edera said...

I have been reading this top article with enthusiasm, but I noticed an incongruency. Mr. Dawkins says: “'It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that),'" then goes on to say that because of this statement, he has been called a slew of names designed to discredit him. Clearly, it is not safe to say this. Mr Dawkins seems to have got his facts wrong.

Also, is there perhaps a psychological discussion of mythology we could bring into this debate? It seems to me vital to the understanding of religion to be able to discuss the psychological effects mythology has and their utmost importance. In my opinion, this is where religion should get its highest scientific due.

Anonymous said...

It may well be that Dawkins is wrong, but don't assume that it's clear. In fact, please clarify. What exactly is the fact that Dawkins has got wrong here?

-J.L.