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Confronting Religious Denial Of Science
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Book Synopsis Confronting Religious Denial of Science by : Catherine M. Wallace
Download or read book Confronting Religious Denial of Science written by Catherine M. Wallace and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2016-07-05 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Confronting Religious Denial of Science: Christian Humanism and the Moral Imagination traces the cultural backstory of contemporary conflicts between biblical literalists who oppose evolution and "New Atheists" who insist that religion is so pernicious it should be outlawed, if not exterminated. That's a clash of fundamentalisms. It's a zero-sum game derived from high Victorian misunderstanding of both religion and science. The God whom science supposedly replaces is the Engineer Almighty sitting at his keyboard, controlling every event on earth. But that's not a viable concept of God. Far better, Wallace argues, to understand Christianity in Clifford Geertz's terms as a system of symbols that both constitutes a worldview and, according to David Sloan Wilson, encourages prosocial behavior. That reframing makes it possible to reclaim what biblical scholars have said for decades: the miracles of Jesus were confrontational symbolic actions. They contradicted the political status quo in colonial Palestine, not the laws of biology. Prayer, she explains, is not magical thinking. It's a creative, highly disciplined introspective process, most familiar to many people in forms like mindfulness meditation. Wallace offers an intriguing exploration of issues that believers seldom discuss in ways that make sense to the religiously unaffiliated. .embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }
Book Synopsis Confronting Religious Denial of Science by : Catherine M. Wallace
Download or read book Confronting Religious Denial of Science written by Catherine M. Wallace and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2016-07-05 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Confronting Religious Denial of Science: Christian Humanism and the Moral Imagination traces the cultural backstory of contemporary conflicts between biblical literalists who oppose evolution and "New Atheists" who insist that religion is so pernicious it should be outlawed, if not exterminated. That's a clash of fundamentalisms. It's a zero-sum game derived from high Victorian misunderstanding of both religion and science. The God whom science supposedly replaces is the Engineer Almighty sitting at his keyboard, controlling every event on earth. But that's not a viable concept of God. Far better, Wallace argues, to understand Christianity in Clifford Geertz's terms as a system of symbols that both constitutes a worldview and, according to David Sloan Wilson, encourages prosocial behavior. That reframing makes it possible to reclaim what biblical scholars have said for decades: the miracles of Jesus were confrontational symbolic actions. They contradicted the political status quo in colonial Palestine, not the laws of biology. Prayer, she explains, is not magical thinking. It's a creative, highly disciplined introspective process, most familiar to many people in forms like mindfulness meditation. Wallace offers an intriguing exploration of issues that believers seldom discuss in ways that make sense to the religiously unaffiliated.
Book Synopsis Science Vs. Religion by : Tad S. Clements
Download or read book Science Vs. Religion written by Tad S. Clements and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are scientific and religious ways of knowing compatible or forever at loggerheads? Can the cognitive claims of both religion and science be held simultaneously, or are they mutually exclusive? And what criteria ought we to use to form a judgment? These are the central questions posed by the author who strips away the long-held idea that science and religion can be safely relegated to their own separate spheres -- science to the empirical, religion to the spiritual -- by illustrating the many ways in which religion encroaches upon the domain of science by claiming to have unassailable, revealed knowledge about the universe and human nature. The clashes between these powerful worldviews have steadily increased in number and intensity as more and more people have turned to science for answers to life's mysteries. But are science's ways of knowing to be preferred to those of the world's religions? The author shows that the professed aims of science -- logical compatibility and clarity of explanation based upon observable data and experience -- are the more congenial to human thought and reasoning, unlike religion with its reliance on tradition, mystery, parable and revelation -- none of which can be emprically demonstrated.
Book Synopsis Confronting Religious Denial of Gay Marriage by : Catherine M. Wallace
Download or read book Confronting Religious Denial of Gay Marriage written by Catherine M. Wallace and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2015-10-27 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writing in part for secular humanists, non-Christians, and ex-Christians, Wallace locates the beginning of religious vilification of LBGTQ Americans: these attacks recycle earlier, equally reactionary political opposition to racial desegregation and equal rights for women. Then, step by step, she lays out three major flaws in the religious argument against gay marriage. First, it derives from Plato and Greco-Roman sexual anxieties, not from Jesus. Second, opposition to gay marriage takes Bible verses out of context, ignoring their roots in Iron Age biology, sexual politics in the classic era, and pagan ritual practices. Third and most importantly, this opposition reflects an inadequate moral theology based on a denial of contemporary science and social science. Then and only then does she offer her own concept of marriage as a morally rooted, creative process, laying out common ground easily shared by Christian humanists and secular humanists alike. Her nimble, accessible account, richly leavened by personal stories, will facilitate new conversations and alliances among all those, believers and nonbelievers alike, who affirm the moral dignity of gay marriage.
Book Synopsis Confronting Religious Absolutism by : Catherine M. Wallace
Download or read book Confronting Religious Absolutism written by Catherine M. Wallace and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2016-10-27 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Papal infallibility and biblical inerrancy provide the conceptual foundations of theocracy, which is to say religiously-based totalitarianism. These absolutist doctrines emerge for the very first time among the Victorians: they are not ancient beliefs at all. They appear in the 19th century, right alongside secular varieties totalitarian thought, and in response to all the same cultural anxieties. Reactionary religious leaders used these doctrines to oppose scholarly conclusions in geology and evolutionary biology. That much everyone knows. What's not as well known is the fact that their principal target was Christian-humanist biblical scholarship, an unbroken 500-year tradition of inquiry undertaken primarily by Christian clergy and seminary faculty. The alternative to faith-based totalitarianism is faith based upon the imagination, our most sophisticated cognitive skill. Faith rooted in the moral imagination does not depend upon abject deference to an array of rigid doctrines and improbable claims. Wallace contends that faith is best understood as a creative process, and religion is best understood as a multi-media art (and originally the Mother of all arts). The arts convince, they do not command. They persuade, they do not prove. The arts provide humane resources whereby we grapple with life's deepest mysteries. Symbolism, like quantum mathematics, is a tool for grappling with inescapable paradox at the heart of reality. It is an ancient strategy for articulating what we discover at the elusive mind-body interface.
Book Synopsis Confronting Religious Violence by : Catherine M. Wallace
Download or read book Confronting Religious Violence written by Catherine M. Wallace and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2016-03-28 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Confronting Religious Violence: Christian Humanism and the Moral Imagination tells the tale of Christian theocracy in the West. Who converted whom was never entirely clear: the empire did stop feeding people to the lions for public entertainment; but Christianity was theologically corrupted by its official role in legitimating empire-as-usual. That theological corruption led to crusades, inquisitions, torture, and so forth. And it leaves us with a major question: is God violent? More dangerously yet: is violence our only option in response to wrongdoing? Are we morally obligated to injure those who have injured others, to kill those who have killed others? If theocracy is a terrible idea, what is the proper relationship between church and state? We can't say that the state is never morally accountable at all. Furthermore: despite constitutional separation of church and state, hard-right Christian fundamentalism continues to play a culturally significant role in advocating military action abroad and supporting state violence at home. There is a lot at stake in reclaiming the systematic nonviolence and moral imagination of Jesus of Nazareth.
Book Synopsis Confronting Religious Judgmentalism by : Catherine M. Wallace
Download or read book Confronting Religious Judgmentalism written by Catherine M. Wallace and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2016-05-23 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Come to church or go to hell. That's religious bullying. It's judgmentalism. And it's a theological distortion, a distortion insisting that shame and self-loathing are morally appropriate. In Christian humanist tradition, God is not some cosmic judge eager to smite all of us for our sinfulness. God is compassion. We are cherished by God beyond our wildest imagining. We are called to radical hospitality, not to crass judgmentalism. So where does this religious judgmentalism come from? It is the heritage of medieval theocracy: a violent, vindictive God of command and control was far more useful politically than a God of compassion, hospitality, and forgiveness. It comes from literal-minded misreading of the story of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit, a story about shame, not disobedience. And it comes from political success in exploiting deep-seated liabilities in the American soul: we spend our lives trying to "prove ourselves," a hopeless task. There's an alternative. In the Christian humanist tradition, authentic moral judgment is rooted in conscience as a creative process. Morality is an art demanding both rigorous consideration of the facts and thoughtful introspection. Conscience properly understood and thoughtfully practiced is an antidote to shame, incessant self-criticism, and chronic self-doubt. .embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }
Book Synopsis Confronting Religious Denial of Gay Marriage by : Catherine M. Wallace
Download or read book Confronting Religious Denial of Gay Marriage written by Catherine M. Wallace and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2015-10-27 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writing in part for secular humanists, non-Christians, and ex-Christians, Wallace locates the beginning of religious vilification of LBGTQ Americans: these attacks recycle earlier, equally reactionary political opposition to racial desegregation and equal rights for women. Then, step by step, she lays out three major flaws in the religious argument against gay marriage. First, it derives from Plato and Greco-Roman sexual anxieties, not from Jesus. Second, opposition to gay marriage takes Bible verses out of context, ignoring their roots in Iron Age biology, sexual politics in the classic era, and pagan ritual practices. Third and most importantly, this opposition reflects an inadequate moral theology based on a denial of contemporary science and social science. Then and only then does she offer her own concept of marriage as a morally rooted, creative process, laying out common ground easily shared by Christian humanists and secular humanists alike. Her nimble, accessible account, richly leavened by personal stories, will facilitate new conversations and alliances among all those, believers and nonbelievers alike, who affirm the moral dignity of gay marriage. .embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }
Book Synopsis Confronting a Controlling God by : Catherine M. Wallace
Download or read book Confronting a Controlling God written by Catherine M. Wallace and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2016-08-24 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christianity has lost control of its brand. That matters even for nonbelievers because Christian symbolism permeates Western culture. It shapes the source code for how we think about ourselves and what we expect from one another. If God is all-controlling, then human control is divinely sanctioned. Our efforts to control one another have cosmic legitimacy--the legitimacy claimed by fundamentalists pursuing a political agenda that has nothing to do with Jesus of Nazareth. But if God is defined as compassion and loving-kindness, then Christianity calls the faithful to compassion and radical hospitality. Wallace traces the backstory of this vitally important tension all the way back to competing translations of Moses's argument with the burning bush, arguing for a "Copernican turn" in which the spiritual encounter with compassionate Presence lies at the heart of Christianity. .embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }
Book Synopsis Science and Religion by : Paul Kurtz
Download or read book Science and Religion written by Paul Kurtz and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2013-06-24 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years a noticeable trend toward harmonizing the distinct worldviews of science and religion has become increasingly popular. Despite marked public interest, many leading scientists remain skeptical that there is much common ground between scientific knowledge and religious belief. Indeed, they are often antagonistic. Can an accommodation be reached after centuries of conflict? In this stimulating collection of articles on the subject, Paul Kurtz, with the assistance of Barry Karr and Ranjit Sandhu, have assembled the thoughts of scientists from various disciplines. Among the distinguished contributors are Sir Arthur C. Clarke (author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and numerous other works of science fiction); Nobel Prize Laureate Steven Weinberg (professor of physics at the University of Texas at Austin); Neil deGrasse Tyson (Princeton University astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium); James Lovelock (creator of the Gaia hypothesis); Kendrick Frazier (editor of the Skeptical Inquirer); Steven Pinker (professor of psychology at MIT); Richard Dawkins (zoologist at Oxford University); Eugenie Scott (physical anthropologist and executive director of the National Center for Science Education); Owen Gingerich (professor of astronomy at Harvard University); Martin Gardner (prolific popular science writer); the late Richard Feynman (Nobel Prize-winning physicist) and Stephen Jay Gould (professor of geology at Harvard University); and many other eminent scientists and scholars. Among the topics discussed are the Big Bang and the origin of the universe, intelligent design and creationism versus evolution, the nature of the "soul," near-death experiences, communication with the dead, why people do or do not believe in God, and the relationship between religion and ethics.
Book Synopsis Science and Religion by : John F. Haught
Download or read book Science and Religion written by John F. Haught and published by Paulist Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Has science made religion intellectually implausible? Does it rule out the existence of a personal God? In an age of science can we really believe that the universe has a "purpose"? And, finally, doesn't religion hold much of the blame for the present ecological crisis?" "These questions form the nucleus of today's debate between science and religion. This book is a guide for that debate, identifying the questions, isolating the issues and pointing to ways the questions can be resolved." "There are four possible ways, says John F. Haught, that we can view the relationship between religion and science. First, they can stand in complete opposition - the conflict position. Or, we can believe they are so different that conflict is impossible - the contrast position. A third approach holds that while science and religion are distinct, each has important implications for the other. A fourth way views them as different but mutually supportive."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Book Synopsis Religion Confronting Science by : Donivan Bessinger
Download or read book Religion Confronting Science written by Donivan Bessinger and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Does Science Undermine Faith? by : Roger Trigg
Download or read book Does Science Undermine Faith? written by Roger Trigg and published by SPCK. This book was released on 2018-04-19 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many people assume that science 'disproves' the idea of God, and that we no longer need faith in order to understand the world or why we are in it. Roger Trigg examines these assumptions and considers whether recent developments in science may in fact support religious faith. He goes on to consider the increasing scientific evidence for the inherent orderliness and comprehensibility of the universe, which leads him to ask an even more radical question: Might there be aspects of religious belief that can help to support our science? Contents 1. Does science disprove God? 2. Are science and religion just different? 3. Could science support Christianity? 4. Does science need Christianity?
Book Synopsis Confronting Christianity by : Rebecca McLaughlin
Download or read book Confronting Christianity written by Rebecca McLaughlin and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2019-04-17 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although many people suggest that Christianity is declining, research indicates that it continues to be the world's most popular worldview. But even so, the Christian faith includes many controversial beliefs that non-Christians find hard to accept. This book explores 12 issues that might cause someone to dismiss orthodox Christianity—issues such as the existence of suffering, the Bible's teaching on gender and sexuality, the reality of heaven and hell, the authority of the Bible, and more. Showing how the best research from sociology, science, and psychology doesn't disagree with but actually aligns with claims found in the Bible, these chapters help skeptics understand why these issues are signposts, rather than roadblocks, to faith in Christ.
Book Synopsis Living between Science and Belief by : Charles Villa-Vicencio
Download or read book Living between Science and Belief written by Charles Villa-Vicencio and published by African Sun Media. This book was released on 2021-03-02 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most thoughtful people live in an interregnum between science and religion. Traditional religious answers concerning the beginning, purpose, and end of life are questioned by the natural sciences, with neuroscience conceivably constituting the last frontier where skeptics and believers explore common ground. The question concerns the nature of reflective and creative moments in life. Can these be reduced to the intersect between the nerve cells and molecules of the physical brain? Does this account for the human sense of mystery, or even spirituality? Is there a nexus between the physical and unknown dimensions of existence? The mutation in the history of theism suggest that progressive theology in the West may be set for a further change.
Book Synopsis Not in God's Name by : Jonathan Sacks
Download or read book Not in God's Name written by Jonathan Sacks and published by Schocken. This book was released on 2015-10-13 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ***2015 National Jewish Book Award Winner*** In this powerful and timely book, one of the most admired and authoritative religious leaders of our time tackles the phenomenon of religious extremism and violence committed in the name of God. If religion is perceived as being part of the problem, Rabbi Sacks argues, then it must also form part of the solution. When religion becomes a zero-sum conceit—that is, my religion is the only right path to God, therefore your religion is by definition wrong—and individuals are motivated by what Rabbi Sacks calls “altruistic evil,” violence between peoples of different beliefs appears to be the only natural outcome. But through an exploration of the roots of violence and its relationship to religion, and employing groundbreaking biblical analysis and interpretation, Rabbi Sacks shows that religiously inspired violence has as its source misreadings of biblical texts at the heart of all three Abrahamic faiths. By looking anew at the book of Genesis, with its foundational stories of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Rabbi Sacks offers a radical rereading of many of the Bible’s seminal stories of sibling rivalry: Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers, Rachel and Leah. “Abraham himself,” writes Rabbi Sacks, “sought to be a blessing to others regardless of their faith. That idea, ignored for many of the intervening centuries, remains the simplest definition of Abrahamic faith. It is not our task to conquer or convert the world or enforce uniformity of belief. It is our task to be a blessing to the world. The use of religion for political ends is not righteousness but idolatry . . . To invoke God to justify violence against the innocent is not an act of sanctity but of sacrilege.” Here is an eloquent call for people of goodwill from all faiths and none to stand together, confront the religious extremism that threatens to destroy us, and declare: Not in God’s Name.
Book Synopsis The Confrontational Wit of Jesus by : Catherine M. Wallace
Download or read book The Confrontational Wit of Jesus written by Catherine M. Wallace and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2016-07-27 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jesus did not die to save us from God. He died because the Romans did not tolerate charismatic teachers who attracted a lively following. Jesus attracted that following through his personal compassion, his confrontational inclusivity, and his skill in using laughter as a nonviolent weapon of mass disruption. The Gospel authors picked up Jesus' witty techniques. They adeptly parodied the literary conventions of heroic biography, laying out "the kingdom of God" in a point-for-point contrast with the empire of Caesar Augustus. Most of this contrast was Jewish Prophetic Rant, Standard Edition: the God of the Jews had always demanded justice for workers, food for the hungry, care for those unable to earn a living, and an end to monopolizing natural resources for private and imperial profit. Jesus added a fourth and telling point: God is nonviolent. God smites no one. God's loving-kindness and compassionate presence embraces all of humanity equally. We are all the children of God. Then and now, that's a revolutionary claim. It portrays our obligation to the common good as a sacred obligation. It's owed to God. In cultural terms, that's the most potent variety of obligation. This is the cultural heritage at risk from fundamentalism, which portrays God as both crazy-violent and vindictive.
