You claim that you are dedicated to seek truth and that through science and the scientific method you and your cohorts have the monopoly on Truth. By “your cohorts,” I mean those who take science to be the only source of human knowledge and who champion the scientific method as the only route to acquiring knowledge. You also claim that religion is opposed to Truth just because it is in the domain of faith. For you, faith is any belief that isn’t based on evidence. You assume that science is not like religion because science has no room for faith.

You claim to know a whole bunch of stuff through your science, but alas, in reality science gives you precious little knowledge about a whole bunch of other stuff. Science will be hard pressed, for instance, to tell us about the true nature of light, space and time. Even your most esteemed colleagues argue about the very nature of these matters. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 2% [?]

Technorati Tags: empiricism, scientism, science, scientific method, truth, religion, faith, tolerance, humanity, culture, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, atheism, fundamentalism, dogmatism

So, the Martian Anthropologist wants to assert. A wikipedia article was his source. Wikipedia by the way is also known as the people’s encyclopedia.

As an aside, if you ever want to have a source to back up whatever it is you want to say, all you need to do is to go to wikipedia.org, sign up and write a post that say exactly that! There! You now have an “encylopedia” article that supports your assertion! I am not saying that is what the Martian did. All I am suggesting that it is possible for anyone to contribute anything and say anything on wikipedia. I know! I have done so myself, although I made sure that whatever it is I write on wikipedia is well supported by external sources, including published and publicly-critiqued and adjudicated ones.

In any case, back to Martian’s little post, titled tauntingly, “The Dumber you are the More Religious You are”. When I first read it, I resisted the temptation to take his bait. While walking my wife’s dog this afternoon, watching him do his business by the side of the road, inspired this comment that I left on his site: Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 1% [?]

Just came across an opinion piece from the Sydney Morning Herald that warns Australia against following the polarization of faith and politics that has taken place in the United States and a recommendation for Australians to strike a balance between the separation of church and state on the one hand and the integration of moral values and public policy on the other. In so doing, the article, which is co-written by Tim Costello, and Jim Wallis suggests politicians will be able to help satisfy “the two greatest hungers in the world today [which] are for spiritual integrity on the one hand and for social justice on the other”. Tim Costello is the chief executive of World Vision Australia, who is also a Baptist minister as well as brother of Australian Liberal Party Deputy Leader and Treasurer Peter Costello. Some choice passages:

It is crucial that religion be ideologically free and non-partisan, maintaining moral independence to critique both the left and the right.

After all, religion does not have a monopoly on morality. The issue is not whether a political leader or party has a personal faith but whether they have a moral compass.

The article goes on to suggest that the marrying of right wing politics with faith and religion has clouded the public morality reducing it to big “hot-button” issues such as abortion and gay marriage. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 6% [?]

Technorati Tags: faith, religion, politics, polarization

Apparently, they have finally found out conclusively that praying for other people to get better does not work. Some bloggers are crying, “I told you so” while others are hurriedly writing treatises about the conditions for effective prayer.

It sorta reminds me about a project I conducted in college. My then college president was invited to speak at a prestigious international symposium in Beijing, China, on the start of the art in social science research in the United States. My president hired me to conduct the research and write the speech under his supervision (no, I did not get the credit for the speech, but I did get paid). Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 5% [?]

There are quite a number of occasions when the Scriptural narratives tell of times when Jesus got upset, irritated or angry with the people around Him.

Previously, I meditated on one of the more well known incidents, and uncovered what I think was the real issue with that particular incident: that an institution designed to draw people to God became a purveyor of injustice to those who were deemed to be further away from the commonwealth of the people of God. As it turned out it became a hindrance to those who sought to foster a relationship with God. That enraged the Savior so much that He lashed out at the people who were perpetrating the injustice.

At another occasion the Lord was incited to anger by people who became barriers to those who were seeking to come to Him. As the Scriptures put it, He was indignant. It inflamed His sense of justice. This was recorded in Mark’s gospel, chapter 10. Recently, I heard Chap Clark’s sermon on this passage. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 5% [?]

Technorati Tags: angry, coming to Christ, kingdom, disciples, justice, hindrance, Chap Clark

One of my answers to questions from commenters responding to my Questions post sparked this post at Cat’s Living with Multiple Personalities. Reading her post and her commenter’s response (at the time of this writing there were only one comment so far), sparked another series of thoughts.

If I do not wish to change anything in my life, it is because I am confident that who I am today is not just a result of all that has happened in the past, and all the choices I have made, but also how I live today in response to those choices and circumstances. Part of that has to do with living consciously with the choices I do make today, and the relationships that I have today. For me, that also means connecting with God, with loved ones and with others around me in a way that positively enriches lives all around.

That sparked further thoughts about the lives of my growing children and my role as a parent. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 2% [?]

Churchgoing is probably a common practice for many in Western societies, although apparently this is becoming less popular these days, even among committed followers of Christ. Recently, I read about someone who professes to be atheist yet admits to guilt feelings for sleeping in on Sundays and skipping church. He attributed this to the way he was brought up. As a young person, I remember that missing church services used to be a point of much consternation for some of us. One gimmick some of my friends and I used when we missed Sunday services to assuage the guilt feelings for having missed church was to casually say to a friend when we see them the following week, “Oh, I didn’t see you in church last Sunday!” as a way to distract from the fact that we were the ones who had missed church instead of the other party! What you might call a pre-emptive ambush of sorts!

In any case, for those of us who call ourselves Christians and have been going to church “all our lives” why do we do it? Do we go to church because we want to go, Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 4% [?]

Technorati Tags: Churchgoing

Here is a comment I placed on a post I found at this site.

By way of introduction, the post, and some of the comments received, cast a little anxiety on the so-called frivolous lawsuit that Luigi Cascioli brought against the Rev. Enrico Righi of the Roman Catholic Church about the existence of Christ.

Apparently folks are worried that while the litigant may lose in pre-dominant Roman Catholic Italy, a subsequent appeal to the EU Court may mean that Christianity might be outlawed in Europe, setting a precedent for the rest of the world. Even (gasp) the United States.

My comment: Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 4% [?]

Technorati Tags: frivolous lawsuit, Luigi Cascioli, Enrico Righi