Aug 21
Why do people believe and behave as they do? Especially people who believe and behave differently than we do. Or who believe and behave in ways that we think are dangerous, imprudent, confusing, stupid, or just plain irritating. There are so many people who believe such strange things, after all. Why? Read more
Regular readers of this blog will know that the subject of my masters thesis a few years ago was the rise of “The New Atheism” (the late Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett) and that I interpreted this phenomenon not as the inevitable triumph of scientific rationality over superstition (as many of the authors were fond of claiming) but as a form of protest atheism against the evil in the world and against a God that they expected better from.
One of the books that I have been looking forward to reading for some time is Marilynne Robinson’s recent collection of essays called When I Was a Child I Read Books. Happily, a little brown package arrived in the mail today! I have enjoyed Robinson’s fiction immensely (Gilead and Home obviously come to mind), but haven’t had a chance to read her nonfiction just yet. I am very glad for the opportunity to correct this regrettable deficiency. Read more
Alain de Botton has been in the news a lot recently. His Religion for Atheists has garnered considerable attention, whether from atheists who think he is entirely too appreciative of religion or from religious folks who think he is rather selectively and inconsistently describing and accessing their traditions. In the last week alone, I’ve come across no fewer than ten reviews, articles, and interviews trying to make sense of his strange (to some) project of trying to take the best parts of religion and use them to construct a more meaningful secularism. Read more
The secular world is full of holes. We have secularized badly.
These words come near the beginning of Alain de Botton’s recent TED Talk called Atheism 2.0, and preface what could, I suppose, be categorized as an atheist’s best attempt to affirm the positives of religion and attempt to incorporate these positives into a more well-rounded and satisfying secular worldview. For de Botton, while it is transparently obvious that supernatural beliefs are false, it is equally obvious that religion confers many benefits upon its adherents—benefits which are inaccessible, or at least less easily attainable, to those who reject religion. Read more
“They must not believe in God.”
These words from my daughter came after a conversation we had been having at bedtime about someone who she had heard yelling at their baby. For her, it was clear: someone who believed in God simply would not do something as monstrous as scream “shut up!” at an infant. People who believe in God don’t do such things, after all. Right? Read more
This morning, I read of Christopher Hitchens’ passing and felt very sad.
I did not know the man personally, of course, nor did I share many of his convictions about the world. Indeed, Hitchens spent a good deal of time and energy (articulately and entertainingly) attacking some of the things most important to me. But today’s news really hit me. It was kind of like hearing that a friend had died—or at least a distant cousin that you once stayed up late into the night having an intense conversation where you both got really worked up and ended up simply having to agree to disagree! Read more
I’ve been tracking the evolution of the blog Wondering Fair over the past year with great interest, not least because of the excellent writing and theological engagement with culture that it contains. I have appreciated the diversity of voices, the spectrums of issues raised, and the overall vision of a safe and interesting place to talk about the things that matter most to us. René has really done a great job in articulating and implementing a vision for constructive and stimulating conversation about faith, God, and truth in a post-Christian world that is often suspicious about these very things.
Not surprisingly, when I was asked to be a regular contributor to WF, I leaped at the opportunity. Read more
Now that I have started to jog periodically, I have done what all good joggers do: I have created a playlist on my iPod full of bone-rattling, heart-pounding, anthemic rock songs to provide the requisite boost of adrenaline and inspiration once the legs start to feel like jelly, the breathing gets laboured, and the going starts to get pretty rough. For me, this takes place after about half a kilometre or so.
One of the tracks on my playlist is a song called “Nietzsche” by The Dandy Warhols, which contains the following lyric:
I want a god who stays dead
not plays dead.
It’s a fascinating line—one that could allude to any number of points and experiences on the psychological/spiritual/philosophical landscape in postmodernity. God is dead, but God won’t away. We want nothing to do with God, but we can’t live without meaning and the hope of redemption. We cannot escape the shadow God casts. Read more
In the summer of 2006, I had just completed my first year at Regent College, and was looking for a few interesting summer courses to accelerate my degree. When I sat down to my first class with Prof. Alister McGrath on Christian Apologetics—a course that spent a lot of time on the ideas of Richard Dawkins—I had no idea that a few months later The God Delusion would hit the shelves, kick starting a half decade or so of fairly lively debate in the Western world on questions about the existence of God, the role of religion in public life, and the nature of belief.
I also had no idea that a year later I would be getting very well-acquainted with Messrs. Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, and Dennett, during my Masters thesis attempting to locate the phenomenon of the new atheism as a response to the problem of evil. Read more
“The more scientifically literate, intellectually honest, and objectively sceptical a person is, the more likely they are to disbelieve in anything supernatural, including god.”
So begins a video compilation sent by a friend yesterday, assembled by British medical doctor Jonathan Pararajasingham, and consisting of clips of 50 academics talking about their views on God, religion, and the afterlife. One suspects, from the quote at the outset, that there will be little diversity of opinion forthcoming and—34 minutes or so later—this suspicion is certainly validated. The smart people have unanimously spoken: Religion is for the weak and the uninformed. God is a myth. This world is all there is. Get used to it. Read more
I just returned from a glorious five days spent motorcycling through Washington and Oregon. We crossed the border into the United States last Sunday and then headed over the Cascade Mountains, wound our way down to northern Oregon, then meandered through the central part of the state, before heading back north up the Oregon Coast, and catching a ferry back to Vancouver Island from Port Angeles, WA last night. All in all, a fantastic trip. Read more
Apr 10
Just because it made me chuckle on this rainy Sunday afternoon…
(h/t to Waving or Drowning)
From the “interesting things I’ve come across over the last week or so but haven’t had time to post about” file, comes Vancouver Sun religion columnist Douglas Todd’s latest piece on the increasing polarization of religion in Canada. The sociological data is in, and apparently we Canadians (and West Coasters, in particular) are increasingly abandoning the “ambivalent middle” when it comes to questions of faith. Whether it’s the existence of God or the nature of religious observance, we’re either really for it or really against it. Read more
I’ve been reading books/articles related to science, faith, and philosophy over the last few weeks as I finished off an article on the (increasingly not so) new atheism for Direction Journal. One article I came across this week was Jesse Bering’s “Are You There God? It’s Me, Brain” over at Slate. The article is not terribly original or new in the approach it takes—the basic idea is that our evolved psychological capacity to imaginatively reconstruct the mental states of others is thought to lead to the conclusion that our idea of God is just the biggest and most elaborate version of this process—but I think it provides an opportunity to identify a common error in discussions around this topic: the idea that if this or that feature of human thought and behaviour can be shown to have been evolutionarily useful at some point in human development, it is therefore explained without remainder by its function. I believe it was Holmes Rolston III who called this the “if functional, false” fallacy. Read more
So Advent has come and gone and with it, the liturgical theme of “waiting” for God. Every year, we rehearse the story, we light the candles, we read the Scriptures, and we wait for the Christ child. Every year, we are told, Jesus comes to us anew. Every year, our waiting ends on Christmas day only to begin again next year. Waiting, it sometimes seems, is endless. Read more
Nov 16
Well, I just returned from a wonderful week away and am spending a good chunk of today slowly wading through a very clogged in-box! One of the more humourous discoveries I have made thus far in my wading is this cartoon sent by a friend last week.
As is so often the case, it is funny because it is true… Read more
This past Saturday, I attended John Stackhouse’s lectures on faith, reason, and the new atheism down at the Vancouver Island Conference Centre. Evidently, there is still some interest in this topic as the event sold out—even in hyper-secular Nanaimo! Around twenty people from our church attended which was fantastic to see! I was in and out of the sessions throughout the day due to carting kids to hockey, friends’ houses, etc, but a couple of things struck me about his presentations: Read more
 | inquisitivelypinkcd4… on “Don’t Put Words in My Mo… |
 | Kevin Koop on Tuesday Miscellany (On Weaknes… |
| inquisitivelypinkcd4… on Tuesday Miscellany (On Weaknes… |
 | Ryan on Tuesday Miscellany (On Weaknes… |
| Ryan on Tuesday Miscellany (On Weaknes… |
Rumblings 