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POPSFree Lectures and Courses... This was clipped some time ago by someone to whom I add thanks. Newer clippers may find it interesting. I've detailed the astronomy items as that is what I was searching for.
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POPSPhilosophical Weblogs This is a list of weblogs that are devoted to topics in and around analytic philosophy, or that are by analytic philosophers
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POPSGoodness! Evolution and the War between Fundamentalist Atheism and Religion
This will settle nothing, but it is a good read. The clip is a 'taster'' of an article focused on debates around evoulution and moral motivation. It ends: <<< Of course, religion doesn’t have a monopoly on awe and inspiration. The story that science tells, the story of nature, is awesome, and some people get plenty of inspiration from it, without needing the religious kind. What’s more, science has its own role to play in knitting the world together. The scientific enterprise has long been on the frontiers of international community, fostering an inclusive, cosmopolitan ethic — the kind of ethic that any religion worthy of this moment in history must also foster. William James said that religious belief is “the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto.” Science has its own version of the unseen order, the laws of nature. In principle, the two kinds of order can themselves be put into harmony ...(more follows)
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POPSWe are Storytelling Apes: let Faith decline A pithy, powerful critique of Armstrong and the apothatic tradition. Fairly clearly (I think) an equally pithy response could be made centred upon the fact that the criticisms partly support Armstrong's position, and do not contradict it. However, the critique of her overarchingness is totally valid: the examples of Hamas and women are indicative of the near universal tendency of a certain class of writers/thinkers to believe they need to pull a definitive view of everything from their glittering theories. The Case for God: What Religion Really Means, Karen Armstrong, The Bodley Head, 2009
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POPSThe Case for God: Karen Armstrong (review) <<<Armstrong's new book is shaped as a response to these two distortions. She wishes to remind us of the mystery of God. Her sympathy is with the great Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologians who have denied that any human attempt to put the divine into words will be accurate. We are simply too limited to be able to know God; our apprehension must hence be suffused with an awareness of our provisional and potentially faulty natures. She writes: "He is not good, divine, powerful or intelligent in any way that we can understand. We could not even say that God 'exists', because our concept of existence is too limited.">>>
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POPSScience, Reason & Religion: Eagleton v 'Ditchkins' <<<Eagleton is not anti-science or reason. He merely points out that science has produced Hiroshima as well as penicillin. And liberal rationalism, in addition to its many undoubted triumphs, has provided the intellectual underpinning for exploitative capitalism and the wanton destruction of the environment on an unprecedented scale. Indeed Eagleton is stronger on reason than Ditchkins, for he thinks carefully about what his opponents say whereas Dawkins & Co prefer knockabout rhetoric to serious engagement with mainstream religious thought. This is, then, a demolition job which is both logically devastating and a magnificently whirling philippic. Ditchkins, he says, makes the error of conflating reason and rationality. Yet much of what seems reasonable in real life turns out not to be true. And much that is true, like quantum physics, seems rationally impossible. >>> (from review)
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POPSBeing, Consciousness and Everything The World is as It is, .... and the world is as you see it. As the limited self, we appear to be localized co-creators subject to imperfection and death. As the Self, we are eternally coincident with the Original Base. In Reality, we are that Supreme Being. I am That, you are That, all of this is That, there is nothing but That ...... Natural Great Perfection. Why are we here? How did we get here? Where are we going? I am always on the hunt for the union of religion, philosophy and science and this article was great read if you're into stuff like that. :)
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POPSIlliterate Bible Readers <<<Now, here's the rub: Evolution is, according to this view, inconsistent with the existence of God because it causes a few headaches for biblical literalism. So it's God or Darwin; you can't have both. From there it follows that we'd better be sure that our kids learn about God—or at least not about Darwin. And it isn't enough for me to worry about my own children; I have to worry about yours, too. Because if our kids learn about evolution in high school, they will end up having no moral code to live by. It's Lord of the Flies all over again. That is a classic false dichotomy. Most people of faith don't think that the question of God's existence turns on what some archaeology graduate student uncovers with the next shovelful of sand. And most people don't worry that their neighbor might kill them in their sleep if the Earth is more than 6,000 years old. The Bible and On the Origin of Species both offer insights about the world and our place in it. Religion and science can work tog
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POPSThe World Needs Faith and Reason, science and religion Pithy article. There has been much interesting debate on CM about science and reason. I thought that by throwing in this viewpoint of a scientist, the possibility of comments motivated by precise delineation and fairly tight holding frames may arise.
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POPSOn Stupidity Similar critiques in UK. It may be itself an example of populism - simplifying things overmuch - and certainly the full two articles require careful reading.
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POPSBiocultural Evolution in the 21st Century: The Evolutionary Role of Religion My outline introduces the concept of biocultural evolution, particularly with reference to the Twentieth Century and the prospects for the Twenty-First Century. I then explore the concept of complex distributed systems to characterize all highly creative processes in both culture and nature. Subsequently, I turn to the problem of complexity horizons and the challenge that these present for traditional moral reflections. Humans are then characterized as a Lamarckian wild card in epic of evolution. I close by discussing the evolutionary role of religion. See source for the full paper: http://metanexus.net/magazine/ArticleDetail/tabid/68/id/8779/Default.aspx
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POPSConscience versus Belief and Dogma Although those with deep beliefs and expressed values do any amazing job of advertising their compassion and calls for justice in the names of far away people, only conscience cam motivate love for the person next door. Who is my neighbour?
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POPSscience/theology coming together I have only clipped a very short piece but this article goes deeply into the subject. I find my religion needs scientific confirmation or at least is basically rational
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POPSThe Courage to Be Useful overview of Tillich's The Courage to Be, supported by general account of existential approaches to anxiety of non-being, including Kierkegaard and Heidegger.
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POPSDavid Hume's epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, 1734 In his early 20s, the great Scottish philosopher, David Hume, wrote this "letter to a physician" (unidentified, but probably Arbuthnot) giving an account of his melancholic symptoms and his efforts at self-treatment.
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POPSHow to abandon your God
and have taken up another one, or none at all, or maybe more than one because polytheism certainly sounds tasty and, you know, what the hell, right? It's not really all that shocking. People change religions. People swap denominations. People evolve, go to college, learn to think (and seek meaning) for themselves, change their minds or marry someone of a different belief or go through a personal revelation, or actually experience the spiritual/intellectual epiphany that reveals how all religions are one and God is not "out there" and you are not here to be its meek sinful guilty mindless servant. And maybe you go even further, as you realize that it's actually quite dangerous and small-minded to hew too closely to one narrow way of seeing/feeling/tasting the divine as you perhaps come to the slippery conclusion that it's all about co-creating God in your own way and, therefore, any religion that contains more than one person (that is to say, you) is deviously suspicious and apoc
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