Tag: religion & science
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‘This Isn’t, Thank God, Another Book about the Proofs for God’s Existence’
The filter blog Arts & Letters Daily is great, and it’s even greater that today it featured Robert Bolger’s excellent Los Angeles Review of Books review of God in Proof. Writes Bolger: Schneider tips his hand a bit with the title God in Proof. This isn’t, thank God, another book about the proofs for God’s…
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The New Theist
For longer than I’d like to admit, I’ve been following the evangelical philosopher William Lane Craig around the country — to Atlanta, Chicago, Indiana, Los Angeles, and Atlanta again. I found out about him while working on my book, God in Proof, and couldn’t seem to get enough. Today, my profile of Craig appears as…
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An Eden Full of Dudes
The end is the beginning is the end (that’s a Smashing Pumpkins line), and all are in Eden. Today at Religion Dispatches, Brook Wilensky-Lanford and I talk about her brand new book, Paradise Lust, out this week. It tells the stories of some bold explorers from the past few centuries who have tried to figure…
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How to Instigate a God Debate
Last week I had the chance to catch what was probably the biggest God debate of the year, in this genre of blockbuster, YouTubed, college-campus bouts. The topic was “Is Good from God?”—is religion necessary for objective morality? The debaters were William Lane Craig, the evangelical philosopher, and Sam Harris, who launched the New Atheism…
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The God of This World
Isn’t it obvious that God, or at least our idea of God, needs saving as much as we do? He—forgive me if necessary for saying “He”—has been run through the mud by terrorists, televangelists, New Atheists, and grandmothers’ guilt. The rest of us are supposed to have a relationship with this guy? Or even just…
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Does Science Need Religion?
When one is out to study religion, or to cover the religion beat, it can be awfully tempting to see religion everywhere you look as the all-satisfying explanation for everything. It’s the whole if-you-have-a-hammer-everything-looks-like-a-nail effect, right? Today at Religion Dispatches I’ve got a review of the new book by Steve Fuller, a rather audacious and…
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The Politics of Big Questions: The John Templeton Foundation
As I’ve worked on questions of religion and reason, both in the academy and as a journalist, the John Templeton Foundation has been around every turn. As I called, corresponded, and visited with many of the leading thinkers in the science-and-religion discussion, caution was the prevailing tone—some even joked that I should get them on…
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The Study of Special Experiences
When I arrived at UC Santa Barbara for my graduate work in 2006, I had some horrible, vague idea about wanting to study issues of interreligious dialog(ue)—it was a mess. I’d just finished an undergraduate thesis about evolution debates and wasn’t sure where to go next. Fortunately, the professor I found myself paired with, Ann…