Category Archives: Religion
One of the more interesting sermons I heard during my last bout of churchgoing involved the notion that prayer wasn’t necessary because God knows what’s really in our hearts. Per the dogma of Christianity, that’s actually a true point. (Albeit perhaps a surprising one for a pastor to preach.)
It points out a key distinction between theism and deism. In the former, most religions, God is personally involved with us and hears our prayers (God’s responses have always been a different matter.) In the latter, God is not personally involved and doesn’t.
On the other hand, some see prayer as merely a form of meditation.
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12 Comments | tags: Albert Einstein, belief, deism, Dualism, faith, prayer, Spinoza, theism | posted in Religion, Sunday Sermons
My dad and my dad’s dad were Lutheran ministers, and my dad’s brother taught theology at a Lutheran seminary. Lotta preachers on the paternal side of the tree. (Lotta teachers on the maternal side; mom and sis among them. I grew up with preachers and teachers.)
All of which gave me something of an insider view of religion and the organizational church. It also provided a cornerstone I’ve built on through much of my life: a reconciliation between the Yin of my science side and the Yang of my spiritual side.
One interesting place the two meet is Pascal’s Wager.
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43 Comments | tags: atheism, belief, deism, faith, God, Pascal's Wager, theism | posted in Religion, Sunday Sermons
I’ve been thinking about an aspect of modern life that bothers me at least as much — if not more — than the anti-intellectual, anti-science, anti-thought, bias of our culture.
It’s bad when emotions are elevated above rational thinking, that what matters most is how one feels. It undermines our future when that is not guided by understanding and thoughtfulness. And all too often those feelings don’t involve compassion and acceptance, but fear, hate, and rage.
What’s worse, what makes we wonder if we’ll ever find a decent path again, is that we’ve become a culture of lies.
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21 Comments | tags: Albert Einstein, lies, pi day, Service Today | posted in Rant, Religion, Sunday Sermons
When I started this blog back in 2011, it was always my intention to write about the Yin and Yang of our physical reality and a putative metaphysical one. Call it programming if you wish, but I have a life-long commitment to the perceived reality of the latter. I have a faith, deliberately irrational though it be.
I also have a life-long commitment to science and the physical world, and I’ve never had much trouble reconciling the two. That’s the thing I’ve been wanting to write about; how a spiritual life is not contrary or exclusive to a scientific one.
In fact, I believe they are the Yin-Yang of a complete person.
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9 Comments | tags: God, science and spirituality, science fiction, spirituality | posted in Religion, Sunday Sermons
“Space is big. Really big.”
When I started blogging here, one of the first bloggers I followed was Robin, of Witless Dating After Fifty. Over the years, she’s several times mentioned a great question her dad often posed when discussing religion with someone: “How big is your god?”
Last week my buddy and I were having our weekly beer- and gab-fest and our (typically very meandering) conversation came to touch on the problems with young Earth creationism — the Christian fundamentalist idea that the universe is only thousands of years old.
In fact, there’s a pair of real whopper problems involved!
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46 Comments | tags: atheism, creationism, deism, galaxy, God, science and spirituality, solar system, spirituality, stars, Sun, theism, universe, young Earth creationism | posted in Religion, Sunday Sermons
As one ventures ’round the ‘web, a topic that arises time and again is the endless debate — or perhaps war might be a better term — between the poles of theism and atheism. I’ve determined, at least as far as my participation elsewhere, to recuse myself from that war. I’ve served my time on both sides, and I’ve pretty much heard it all, said it all, bought many tee-shirts and a couple of souvenir coffee mugs.
So, this isn’t about the war itself, but about a topic that frequently arises as part of that debate: the idea of morality and/or ethics. A sub-question is whether those are different things, but the main question is how we define morality and how we ground that definition.
Here’s my stab at defining the difference along with some ideas about morality.
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56 Comments | tags: absolute morality, agnostic, atheism, consciousness, equality, ethics, Immanuel Kant, intrinsic meaning, moral philosophy, morality, morals, morals and ethics, relative morality, social mores, teleology, The Golden Rule, theism | posted in Religion
This is a long-winded comment in reply to Mike Smith’s recent blog post (and comments therein), Steven Weinberg’s new book on the history of science. We got to discussing a personal letter written by Albert Einstein about a year before his death in 1955. The letter — which seems to present religion as “childish” — surfaced in the public eye when it was sold at an auction in 2008. Given Einstein’s generally expressed views about religion, the letter appears to undercut those views.
Or does it? Atheists and theists alike have tried to claim Einstein as their own, but his views are complex enough to resist a clear victory by either side. The letter seems a point in favor of atheism, but that may be an over-simplification.
In any event, my reply ran long (and was getting kind of off-topic), so I decided to use it as an excuse to try to get back into blogging again…
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42 Comments | tags: Albert Einstein | posted in Opinion, Religion
Sometimes, when discussing the possible existence of God (or Gods), there is the question: “Where is the evidence God exists?” One problem with that question is that different groups (believers and non-believers) are seeking different kinds of evidence. It’s a bit like how different groups — often the same two groups — get stuck on meanings of the word “theory.”
Evidence can be probative, circumstantial or even merely suggestive. When it comes to the question of God, some require probative evidence to prove God’s existence. Others, believing faith is central to belief, require only circumstantial or suggestive evidence.
Here are some thoughts about evidence I find suggestive.
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28 Comments | tags: awe, beauty, belief, Cape Canaveral, circumstantial evidence, Death Valley, evolution, God, Mallory Square, Mt. Everest, North Pole, probative evidence, South Pole, starry sky, suggestive evidence | posted in Music, Religion
Two things collided. I saw Leon Wieseltier on The Colbert Report and was enthralled by his view of modern social life. That moved a friend of mine to look for other YouTube videos of Wieseltier. She posted a good one that then moved me to look at more. Bottom line, I ended up watching a fair bit of the man last week. Still enthralled.
Meanwhile, after my last post about religion and atheism, a reader commented that she found the article so balanced she couldn’t tell on which side I stood. As an agnostic, that’s the goal. Yet, in one of the videos, Wieseltier expresses an idea that really grabbed me.
It has to do with on which side of what line I stand.
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57 Comments | tags: Dualism, Leon Wieseltier, materialism, Monism, Philosophical materialism, physicalism, reality, spirituality, teleology, The Colbert Report, virtual reality | posted in Religion, Sunday Sermons
Despite the title, this post isn’t as strongly related to the previous three as the naming convention suggests. I don’t really have much to say about religious predestination. If anything, my views on spirituality are key to a belief in free will and choice. The religion I was raised in seems (at least to my eye) quite clear that we are allowed to choose our actions.
The connection to those other posts lies in picking up the thread of physical determinism — normally a necessarily atheist point of view — and doing a riff on religion, spirituality and atheism. This is the post I started to write last Sunday when my mind took off in a completely different direction.
This time I’m going to try sticking to the subject!
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66 Comments | tags: atheism, atheists, beliefs, Dawkins Scale, deism, Dogma (movie), God, Grand Canyon (movie), ideas and beliefs, materialism, physicalism, science and spirituality, Spinoza, spirituality, theism | posted in Religion, Sunday Sermons
Logos con carne 