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Creationism dismissed as 'a kind of paganism' by Vatican's astronomer - 0 views

news.scotsman.com/international.cfm ksm quickd
shared by ken meece on 08 Dec 07 - Cached
  • He described creationism, whose supporters want it taught in schools alongside evolution, as a "kind of paganism" because it harked back to the days of "nature gods" who were responsible for natural events. Brother Consolmagno argued that the Christian God was a supernatural one, a belief that had led the clergy in the past to become involved in science to seek natural reasons for phenomena such as thunder and lightning, which had been previously attributed to vengeful gods. "Knowledge is dangerous, but so is ignorance. That's why science and religion need to talk to each other," he said.
  • "Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition and keep it close to reality, to protect it from creationism, which at the end of the day is a kind of paganism - it's turning God into a nature god. And science needs religion in order to have a conscience, to know that, just because something is possible, it may not be a good thing to do."
  • the idea of papal infallibility had been a "PR disaster". What it actually meant was that, on matters of faith, followers should accept "somebody has got to be the boss, the final authority"
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Faith vs. the Faithless - New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...07brooks.html ksm quickd
shared by ken meece on 08 Dec 07 - Cached
  • It is not always easy to blend an argument for religious liberty with an argument for religious assertiveness, but Romney did it well.
  • The supposed war between the faithful and the faithless has exacted casualties. The first casualty is the national community.
  • The second casualty of the faith war is theology itself.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • In this calculus, the faithful become a tribe, marked by ethnic pride, a shared sense of victimization and all the other markers of identity politics. In Romney’s account, faith ends up as wishy-washy as the most New Age-y secularism. In arguing that the faithful are brothers in a common struggle, Romney insisted that all religions share an equal devotion to all good things. Really? Then why not choose the one with the prettiest buildings?
  • In order to build a voting majority of the faithful, Romney covered over different and difficult conceptions of the Almighty. When he spoke of God yesterday, he spoke of a bland, smiley-faced God who is the author of liberty and the founder of freedom. There was no hint of Lincoln’s God or Reinhold Niebuhr’s God or the religion most people know — the religion that imposes restraints upon on the passions, appetites and sinfulness of human beings. He wants God in the public square, but then insists that theological differences are anodyne and politically irrelevant. Romney’s job yesterday was to unite social conservatives behind him. If he succeeded, he did it in two ways. He asked people to rally around the best traditions of America’s civic religion. He also asked people to submerge their religious convictions for the sake of solidarity in a culture war without end.
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Karl Rove is an Atheist - Telic Thoughts - 0 views

telicthoughts.com/karl-rove-is-an-atheist ksm qdiigo
shared by ken meece on 20 May 07 - Cached
  • Seneca said, Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
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E. J. Dionne Jr. - Answers To the Atheists - washingtonpost.com - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2007040501790_pf.html ksm qdiigo
shared by ken meece on 07 Apr 07 - Cached
  • Answers To the Atheists
  • The most serious believers, understanding that they need to ask themselves searching questions, have always engaged in dialogue with atheists. The Catholic writer Michael Novak's book "Belief and Unbelief" is a classic in self-interrogation. "How does one know that one's belief is truly in God," he asks at one point, "not merely in some habitual emotion or pattern of response?"The problem with the neo-atheists is that they seem as dogmatic as the dogmatists they condemn. They are especially frustrated with religious "moderates" who don't fit their stereotypes.
    • ken meece
      ken meece on 07 Apr 07
       
      Indeed, mystical christianity has always insisted that "unknowing" i sthe path to divine union; "unknowing" in Greek is "agnosis" -- so agnosticism is a requirement for union with God.  Neither theism nor atheism, but a more humble agnosticism, proves to be the path without rationalistic pride. 
  • What's really bothersome is the suggestion that believers rarely question themselves while atheists ask all the hard questions. But as Novak argued -- in one of the best critiques of neo-atheism -- in the March 19 issue of National Review, "Questions have been the heart and soul of Judaism and Christianity for millennia." (These questions get a fair reading in another powerful commentary on neo-atheism by James Wood, himself an atheist, in the Dec. 18 issue of the New Republic.) "Christianity is not about moral arrogance," Novak insists. "It is about moral realism, and moral humility." Of course Christians in practice often fail to live up to this elevated definition of their creed. But atheists are capable of their own forms of arrogance. Indeed, if arrogance were the only criterion, the contest could well come out a tie.
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The Atheist Illusion - 0 views

prosthesis.blogspot.com ksm quickd
shared by ken meece on 06 Apr 07 - Cached
  • The Atheist Illusion (or, here is where I psychoanalyze the "New Athiests") Sam Harris is in the media again, this time conversing with Rick Warren. Overall, I was somewhat disappointed with Warren, but he said one thing that I believe is a pretty devastating critique of the new atheists. Warren says to Harris,"You will not admit that it is your experience that makes you an atheist, not rationality."
    • ken meece
      ken meece on 06 Apr 07
       
      this section is just the start of come very good thinking....
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Is the Christian Right a Fascist Movement? - 0 views

theamericanmuslim.org/...0013562 ksm qdiigo
shared by ken meece on 06 Apr 07 - Cached
  • Is the Christian Right a Fascist Movement?
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