12Dec 2019 by Post

New Atheism: A Shipwreck of Fools

aquinas, Arc Digital, Asherah poles, Atheism, autopsy, bacteria, book deals, child sacrifice, Christopher Hitchens, computer program, creation myth, Edward Feser, evolutionary theory, Faith & Science, First Amendment, Five Ways, Gaia, genetic information, John Haldane, Lawrence Krauss, Ludwig Wittgenstein, meat machines, New Atheists, Nobel Prize, paganism, plagiarism, religion, Richard Dawkins, Valley of Hinnom
New Atheism is dead. It was conceptually dead from birth, but now it’s stopped twitching. Ben Sixsmith at Arc Digital has a good article with a lot of insight into its demise. From  “New Atheism: An Autopsy”: To be sure, New Atheists could be very, very bad at arguing that God does not exist. There was, for example, Lawrence Krauss writing a book about how something can come from nothing while attributing material qualities to the latter. There was Richard Dawkins trying to refute the famous “Five Ways” of Aquinas without even attempting to understand their terms. (“Whereof one cannot speak,” groaned Wittgenstein, “Thereof one must remain silent.”) There was Christopher Hitchens striding into philosophy like an elephant onto an ice skating rink and saying: “…the postulate of a designer…
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06Dec 2019 by Post

Letter from San Diego: Science for Seminaries or Materialism for the Masses?

American Academy of Religion, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Andover Newton Theological Seminary, biomimicry, Columbia Theological Seminary, creationism, Darwinian materialism, Decatur, dialogue, DoSER program, ecological problems, Faith & Science, Georgia, Intelligent Design, Jeffrey Kripal, materialism, McCormick Theological Seminary, pastors, priests, religion, Rice University, San Diego, science, Science for Seminaries, scientific orthodoxies, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, The Flip, The Mystery of Evolutionary Mechanisms
I recently traveled to San Diego to attend the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion. While there, I participated in a workshop organized by the Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion (DoSER) program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. A current project of the DoSER program called “Science for Seminaries” aims to enhance the scientific literacy of pastors, priests, and rabbis by making cutting edge scientific resources available to seminary and rabbinical school professors. Though the DoSER program also states as one of its goals to help scientists engage with pastors, priests, and theologians, I got the feeling at this workshop that the DoSER program might better be renamed MoSER, the Monologue on Science, Ethics, and Religion. There was definitely more emphasis on getting science…
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16Nov 2019 by Post

Bioethics Coming to Elementary and High Schools?

abortion, animals, assisted suicide, bioethics, Culture & Ethics, dead donor rule, elementary school, end of life, euthanasia, futile care, high school, ideology, Jacob M. Appel, Leon Kass, Medicine, morality, organ harvesting, philosophy, prenatal screening, President’s Council on Bioethics, puberty, religion, Scientific American, sex education, students, textbooks
Bioethicist Jacob M. Appel wants the bioethics movement to educate your children about the policy and personal conundrums that involve medical care and health public policy. He claims that “most of us give little thought” to issues that may arise, such as end-of-life care and prenatal screening. Then, when an issue does come up, people are unprepared to make wise and informed decisions. From, “The Silent Crisis of Bioethics Illiteracy,” published in Scientific American: Change will only occur when bioethics is broadly incorporated into school curricula [at an early age] and when our nation’s thought leaders begin to place emphasis on the importance of reflecting meaningfully in advance upon these issues… Often merely recognizing such issues in advance is winning the greater part of the battle. Just as we teach…
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