The Case for God
Posted by Leonard | Filed under Religion and Secularism
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The Washington Post’s On Faith has an interesting discussion running about Karen Armstrong’s new book, The Case for God. Armstrong says that she wrote the book partly to counter the aggressive and antagonistic arguments that followed the publication of strongly anti-religious books by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris. When we’re talking about God, she says, “nobody has the last word because what we call God lies beyond the reach of speech.” Read the rest of this entry…
Tags: Faith, God, Reason, Science
Care and Value
Posted by Leonard | Filed under Care
One of the books I’m reading for my dissertation is a book called Welfare and Rational Care by the University of Michigan philosopher Stephen Darwall. He says that caring about someone means more than desiring their well-being; it means desiring their well-being for their sake. If a person we care about suffers misfortune, we are disposed to suffer and grieve ourselves. We’re sad for them, not merely for us. Read the rest of this entry…
Tags: Care, God, Philosophy, Value
Why Go to Church?
Posted by Leonard | Filed under Religion and Secularism
In my last post I was scanning the audience members of an evangelical television broadcast and trying to read their thoughts. This isn’t something you can do very easily in a church. It’s rude to stare. But at home watching a television broadcast, you can watch and wonder. How do these people understand the Christian story? Are they skeptical? Do they want to believe? Do they already believe? Is Christianity literally true for them, or are they interpreting it metaphorically? I’d really love to know what their perspective is. But for now all I can do is tell you about mine. Read the rest of this entry…
Tags: Christianity, Church, Religion
What’s the Attraction?
Posted by Leonard | Filed under Christianity
When I flipped on the satellite receiver this morning to catch Robert Aubrey Davis’ Sirius XM Sunday vocal and baroque music show, it was still tuned in to the channel that had broadcast the old James Bond movie I was watching last night. Roger Moore was long gone. Having saved the world for the umpteenth time, I expect he was enjoying a well-deserved holiday with his female costar. In his place was a face I hadn’t seen in almost as long: Jimmy Swaggart. Read the rest of this entry…
Tags: Christianity, Church, Faith, God
Burning the Straw Man
Posted by Leonard | Filed under Religion and Secularism
When I first started writing philosophy essays in graduate school, a frequent comment from my professors was, “Len, you’re attacking a straw man.” In other words, I was setting up a flimsy caricature of the position I was arguing against and then knocking it down with a few quick arguments. How hard is that? And what does it really prove?
It was only later, when I came to view philosophy as a cooperative search for truth rather than as an arena for showing off my skill in rhetorical combat, that I became truly sensitive to this criticism. What do we learn by ignoring the strengths of the opposing position? Every position worth defending possesses a certain sort of truth. There is almost always something we can learn by taking it seriously, even if we eventually conclude that it is wrong. Read the rest of this entry…
Tags: Philosophy, Religion, Science
The Problem of Our Age
Posted by Leonard | Filed under Religion and Secularism
Western culture gives us two ways to understand who we are as human beings. One is religious and the other is secular. The religious way explains human life in terms of a relationship between man and God. The secular way explains life in terms of empirical science. The religious way is richer in meaning, but the secular way is more believable. Reconciling these two ways of understanding is one of the great problems of our age. Read the rest of this entry…
Tags: Faith, God, Introduction, Meaning of Life, Philosophy, Purpose, Reason, Religion, Science
