religion
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Atheism, naturalism, and the way things ought to be
In an occasionally thoughtful but mostly silly attempted takedown of the so-called New Atheists (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and such), philosopher John Gray writes that there is an irresolvable contradiction between viewing religion naturalistically — as a human adaptation to living in the world — and condemning it as a tissue of error and illusion. -John…
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Higgs vs Religion on the Radio: no contest
The Higgs day continues (and I’m not even a particle physicist). At about 5pm, just as I was dialling into one of my several-times-a-week Planck teleconferences, I had an email from Tim at the BBC, who works with the World Service “World Have Your Say” show, coming on at 6pm. Would I be able to…
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Conditional Probability explained
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Before it happened, I would have said slim. But since it happened, 100%. –Lawrence Fishburne, CSI, on the chances of being hit in the head by a tortoise dropped by a bird of prey. (This goes well with Ted Bunn’s exegesis of the Daily Show’s brief foray into probability theory for their segment filmed at…
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Yom Kippur
Saturday was Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. Jews are meant to fast (among other prohibitions), and spend the day in Temple, communally asking forgiveness for our sins. I’m a secular, atheist Jew. So why do I feel guilty for all of my meals yesterday? It’s not Pascal’s Wager; it’s not a lurking agnosticism.…
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Logical Proof, Scientific Proof, Religious “Proof”
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With yesterday’s article on “Faith” (vs Science) in the Guardian, and today’s London debate between bioligist Lewis Wolpert and the pseudorational William Lane Craig (previewed on the BBC’s Today show this morning), the UK seems to be the hotbed of tension between science and religion. I’ll leave it to the experts for a fuller exposition,…
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God, Man and Katrina
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I watched Channel 4’s documentary The Trouble with Atheism. I assume my secular fellow travellers in the blogosphere will take it and its presenter, Rod Liddle, to task for its myriad stupidities, misrepresentations and annoyances so I can leave them unremarked (except to point out that, with no offence intended, John Polkinghorne is a good…
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“Freak chances of evolution in an indifferent cosmos”
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In a criticism of Richard Dawkins’ upcoming series, The Root of All Evil, attacking religion, Guardian columnist Madeleine Bunting tries to find space leftover for, well, god: “It’s also right for religion to concede ground to science to explain natural processes; but at the same time, science has to concede that despite its huge advances…
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