Barr on Nagel on Dawkins: Physicist Stephen M. Barr comments on a review of Dawkins' new book: “Surfeited as I am with Dawkins’ highly polished put-downs and elegant sneering at his intellectual foes, I am happy to be able to experience his latest book (The God Delusion) at second hand through the philosopher Thomas Nagel’s incisive review in the New Republic. . . . Dawkins regards belief in God as a ‘delusion.’ In my judgment, physicalist reductionism such as his is not a delusion but an illusion caused by a trick of perspective.” (Stephen M. Barr in On the Square, the First Things blog)
Tue 24 Oct 2006 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments
Brooks’ Law: Inspired by David Brooks in the New York Times, on Andrew Sullivan: “I have a rule, which has never failed me, that when a writer uses quotations from Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, and the Left Behind series to capture the religious and political currents in modern America, then I know I can put that piece of writing down because the author either doesn't know what he is talking about or is arguing in bad faith.” (Kathy Shaidle, Relapsedcatholic.com)
Mon 23 Oct 2006 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments
Danger ahead - there are good reasons why God created atheists: “In the perennial battle between our lowest and highest instincts, which is the human condition whether we are atheist or believer, people usually robe their most brutal acts in the mantle of high ideals. In this respect the history of religion, like the history of substitutes for religion, is all too human.” (Jonathan Sacks, The Times)
Mon 23 Oct 2006 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments
Atheist gifts pontifical school in will: Speaking of atheists. “In one of her final interviews, Fallaci told The Wall Street Journal: ‘I am an atheist, and if an atheist and a pope think the same things, there must be something true.'” (Here's the WSJ link to an obit with the link to the interview) (Frances D’Emilio, Associated Press)
Mon 23 Oct 2006 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments
Battle of the New Atheism: “I do call it prayer. Here is the atheist prayer: that our reason will subjugate our superstition, that our intelligence will check our illusions, that we will be able to hold at bay the evil temptation of faith.” Fascinating. Ultimately unsatisfying on any number of levels, but fascinating. We'll have something more to say about this eventually. (Gary Wolfe, Wired)
Mon 23 Oct 2006 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments
A Divine Conspirator: A nice piece on Dallas Willard. “'I thought the fashionable views were a disaster,' says Willard. 'I wouldn't have stayed in philosophy if it weren't for realism.'” (Christine A. Scheller, Christianity Today, September 2006)
Thu 19 Oct 2006 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments
Five Best Novels on Money: “My favorite novels about the pursuit of money.” Also notable is Mark Helprin's Memoir from Antproof Case. (Ward Just, OpinionJournal.com)
Thu 19 Oct 2006 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments
Recommendation: Judas and the Gospel of Jesus by NT Wright: “This book shows Wright at his best in answering a specific contemporary challenge to the traditional creedal view of Jesus. Wright gives a superb overview of gnosticism, gnostic Christianity and the gnostic scriptures. He covers how gnostic writings like the Gospel of Judas both challenge and confirm the church’s ancient and orthodox faith in Jesus.” (Michael Spencer, internetmonk.com)
Thu 19 Oct 2006 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments
Debunking the Debunkers: “There should be more to scepticism than angry rants about stupid religious people or New Age mysticism.” (Ben Pile, Spiked)
Thu 19 Oct 2006 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments
Only Fools Bark at Dogma: “Have you seen the bumper sticker that seeks to emphasize the importance of knowing Jesus by declaring that ‘Christianity is not a religion, it’s a relationship’? This is misleading, because Christianity is both religion and relationship. In fact, it’s a religion founded on a relationship. Without dogma, however, I would not be free to articulate such thoughts, because I wouldn’t have the requisite vocabulary.” A readable defense of logic and dogma. Not just for Catholics. Take a few minutes with this one. (Patrick O'Hannigan, Catholic Exchange)
Wed 18 Oct 2006 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments
The best way of telling the difference between those two opposites—righteousness and self-righteousness—is that righteousness has a sense of humour. Self righteousness never does.
Chief Rabbi Dr Jonathan Sacks, March 2007
A Cultural Manifesto and Showcase
China, Tibet, and the Olympics
The Rise of Global Civil Society: Building Communities and Nations from the Bottom Up by Don Eberly.
A sweeping and hopeful overview of the extraordinary new forces that are prying open closed societies and cultivating democratic norms across the globe.
Orthodoxy: Georgetown’s Father Schall reviews G. K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy on its 100 year anniversary. “In coming to believe in Christianity, Chesterton, as he tells us, did not read a single Christian book in the process. Rather, he read book after book of those who maintained that Christianity could not possibly be true. After he had read many of these tractates, he suddenly realized that the intellectual opponents of Christianity were constantly contradicting themselves about what they were opposing. Chesterton, the most logical of men, figured that anything so odd as to be opposed for the exact opposite reasons must either be quite strange or, in fact, rather normal and true.” A helpful introduction to a lovely book. (James V. Schall, SJ, InsideCatholic.com , 2008 05 05)
Where Were Obama’s Friends?: Friendship under fire: “As for the supersized candidates, what strikes one most about them is their ‘aloneness.’ They look so solitary. Indeed, it is possible that the old and honorable notion of ‘standing with’ a candidate like Obama simply didn’t occur to his famous supporters this week. Everyone has become used to watching celebrity stars and athletes take it in the neck on their own. Even someone running for the nation’s presidency looks like just another personal crack-up.” Makes one pause. (Daniel Henninger, The Wall Street Journal , 2008 05 01)
There’s no way you’re going to convince me: Catholic professor Scott Carson covers the current debates on evil between N T Wright and Bart Ehrman on Beliefnet: “[H]aving had a look at this most recent exchange I have to say that it continues to astound me how simplistic and thoughtless the popular treatment of the problem has become. . . . It’s as if generations of sophisticated and complex theological and philosophical argument amount to nothing when compared to the emotional attitudes of a single individual living in a highly particularized time and place. . . . Just as atheists and agnostics are often—perhaps way too often—tempted to assume that believers only believe for emotional or psychological reasons, so too, it seems rather obvious to me, every non-believer almost certainly has emotional and psychological reasons for not believing that will trump any and every legitimate argument posed against them.” (extensive links from the article to the primary sources) (An Examined Life , 2008 04 27)
The Way We Weren’t: “The fifties really were a time when the culture broadly affirmed Christianity as a Good Thing. I was there. I saw it; I heard it. And yet some kind of demurral is strongly indicated: some sign of recognition that no human society, whatever its good intentions and methods, has lived unburdened, unencumbered by the crushing weight of human fallenness. Good as life may appear to have been in the cities and universities of France and Italy in the thirteenth century, or amid the sweaty fervor of the camp meetings in nineteenth-century America, or among the fierce faith of the emancipators, always human pride and general nuttiness were there to spoil the broth.” (William Murchison, in Touchstone , 2008 04 23)
• Not on Sale (2008 04 14)
• Seven New Deadly Sins, Suitably Updated (2008 04 10)
• The Pope Comes to America (2008 04 09)
• Both Read the Same Bible (2008 04 09)
• Muslims Outnumber World’s Catholics (2008 03 31)
