Category Archives: Uncategorized

Metaphorical religion

Posted on September 13, 2009 by Heather Mac Donald

Karen Armstrong and Richard Dawkins have companion essays on the implications of evolution for religion in the Wall Street Journal.  I am not very familiar with Armstrong’s writings.  I tried her book on Islam and found it saccharine, and I … Continue reading →

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Obama’s Speech to The Children

Posted on September 8, 2009 by Heather Mac Donald

The overheated right-wing pundits were on to something after all.   Obama’s speech to the “nation’s students” was pompous, ridiculously long, chock-full of ed-school bromides, and wholly beyond a president’s proper role.  Why should students study, according to Obama?  Because they … Continue reading →

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Gaia and Her Pals

Posted on September 7, 2009 by Andrew Stuttaford

Via the Guardian: Religious leaders should play a frontline role in mobilising people to take action against global warming, according to a leading scientist. Lord May, a former chief scientist to the [British] government, said religious groups could use their … Continue reading →

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James Wood is not *that* kind of non-believer

Posted on September 6, 2009 by Heather Mac Donald

Literary critic James Wood has again announced to the world that he alone possesses the requisite sensitivity and depth to be a non-believer.  In 2006, he castigated the so-called New Atheists for their shallow criticisms of faith while recounting at … Continue reading →

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Religion Unplugged

Posted on September 6, 2009 by Andrew Stuttaford

Wandering through Queens on Friday night, I came across a botánica, a fascinating small store of a type that I had never seen before. Wikipedia has a useful description here, and although as John knows all too well, Wikipedia is … Continue reading →

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Putting the Natural in Supernatural

Posted on September 6, 2009 by Andrew Stuttaford

There’s nothing too new about this, but here via the London Times is yet more reinforcement for those of us who believe that the religious impulse is innate. Various scientists are cited, so read the whole piece, but this is, … Continue reading →

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Death panels and science

Posted on September 1, 2009 by Heather Mac Donald

Conservative pundits of a religious bent periodically criticize Enlightenment rationalism and the scientific world-view as presumptuous, inadequate, or dangerous.  (Leftist believers are hardly immune from science condescension.  In his new book Reason, Faith, and Revolution, Terry Eagleton opines that the … Continue reading →

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A Whitewashed Sepulchre

Posted on August 30, 2009 by Andrew Stuttaford

Not content with being Britain’s most destructive prime minister in at least half a century, Tony Blair continues to irritate with a series of nauseating, preening and self-righteous lectures (often ‘faith’-tinged) on how he sees the world. Over at the … Continue reading →

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The Urge to Believe

Posted on August 30, 2009 by Andrew Stuttaford

…In this case in the ‘Jesus of Siberia’.

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Over-egging the Pudding

Posted on August 30, 2009 by Andrew Stuttaford

Over at First Things, James Poulos writing about, I think, the need to find some sort of meaning in life, worries about (inter alia) the plight of the agnostic: …the failure of the agnostic to find repose, in faith or … Continue reading →

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