Of Gandalf and Darwin

Salvo Magazine has a very interesting and thought provoking discussion entitled, Gandalf on Mars: What Bleeping Codes Say About Intelligent Design by Richard W. Steven. It is rational, entertaining, and persuasive. Give it a go! (Its even got Turing machines!)

Taki talks turkey about God and Science

The online journal Taki's Magazine this week includes a refreshing essay entitled Viva Christianity! by James Jackson. It's worth your time reading; below are snippets.

Albert Einstein’s damning-if-quirky verdict on Marie Curie’s character was that she “has the soul of a herring.” I am reminded of his words every time I hear yet another bloodless and desiccated scientist pronounce that God is finished and has no place in modern life. What spoilsports. And how cruel to the old man up there with the world-weary look and long white beard.

Without faith in something, it is hard to find meaning. In a changing world, a creed that is constant and unafraid to make moral judgment or declare there is such a thing as right and wrong is no bad thing. We may disagree—sometimes profoundly—but thank God for the conscience and dimension religion provides.

Read the whole article here.

European Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholics Unite ... on Crucifix Ban

This from the BBC. A few snippets follow:

Although the Greek Orthodox Church has been at odds with Roman Catholicism for 1,000 years, the judicial threat to Christian symbols has acted as a unifying force.

The Greek Church has ostensibly [italics added by the Rambler] intervened in this case in response to an appeal by a Greek mother whose son is studying in Italy.

Helsinki Monitor is urging trade unions to challenge the presence of religious symbols in Greek schools.

The socialist government here is also considering imposing new taxes on the Church's vast fortune, but at the same time is urging it to do more to help immigrants and poor Greeks.

Read the entire article here.

Oh, and while you're at it, check out Touchstone Magazine's Mere Comments for this note of interest: Lithuania to EU: We Will Not Give Our Minors to Homosexualist Indoctrination.

And then there's this "old news" from Germany as reported over at LifeSiteNews, also covered here at Sign of the Times.

And some quarters wonder why parents might choose to home school their children, and why conversions and membership in Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches are on the rise.

(Hint: We don't cater to the current corrupt culture.)

Is Darwin Compatible with Materialism?

Over at the First Thoughts blog of First Things, Joe Carter has a provocative quote from atheist philosopher Raymond Tallis asserting that in considering the question of consciousness one must either adhere to materialism or Darwinian evolution, but not both. The piece is entitled The Unnatural Selection of Consciousness.

Does the fact of consciousness exclusively drive us either to materialism or the modern interpretation of Darwinian evolution? It's an interesting question which, of course, ignores any place for a theistic position in relation to evolution.

Give it a read. Your comments are welcome here (as well as there).

Does Evil Exist?

From the mouth of babes....

Source: Orthodox Video of the Day.

How Logical is Science regarding Atheism?

Michael Novak - the Compassionate Theist

Townhall.com features an article on Michael Novak's new book No One Sees God: The Dark Night of Atheists and Believers by Ken Blackwell entitled Novak Makes the Case for God to the Godless. Below are two snippets to whet your whistle:

In the book, Mr. Novak discusses faith and compassionately engages, with great charity and respect, the new atheist movement. This is a movement led by authors such as Richard Dawkins, Dan Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens. From my readings of their work, the answers they give to metaphysical questions are frequently lacking and often consist only of mean-spirited insults hurled at the reportedly 92% of us who believe in God. Mr. Novak, however, sees the positive in the popularity of these anti-religion books, as they challenge believers to question and carefully exam their own faith....

Mr. Novak correctly understands, as did many of America's founders, that it is divine providence from which freedom and civilized society flow. And for any faults one may find with Christian regimes throughout history, they pale in comparison to the abhorrent atrocities of the dogmatically atheists regimes of China and the former Soviet Union. Without the guiding moral compass that faith provides, those regimes slaughtered millions. And modern society, without a Judeo-Christian ethics, would have little reason to oppose, for example, to the despicable eugenics movement as espoused by Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger.

Read it all here.

Michael Novak Examines Evil and the Atheism

First Things' On the Square today features an essay by Michael Novak that is worth your attention. It's titled Atheism and Evil. Here is a snippet to whet your whistle.

Could it possibly improve things to believe that the long pain of human evolution was set in motion by chance alone? The atheist view of the world is actually rather bleaker than that of Jews and Christians: Suffering under the weight of evil is meaningless, and so is any struggle against evil. Everything in the atheist’s world begins and ends in randomness and chance.

Read the entire essay here.

Incidentally, Mr Novak also has an interesting article recently printed in USA Today and available on his website. It's entitled, Reconciling Evil with Faith.

It's high time we all did some serious meditation on evil and suffering.

First Things is On the Square Again!

First Things' On the Square today features a thought-provoking essay by R. R. Reno entitled The Offense of Piety. One paragraph follows to entice you to read the entire essay, which itself will certainly stimulate cogent reflection.

Christians should seek to enlist as many as possible in the cause of humanity. It is one of the central principles of Catholic theology that grace perfects rather than destroys nature. Faith fulfills rather than subverts reason. For this reason, the Catholic tradition (like most other Christian traditions) has never formulated sharp antagonisms between Christ and culture, between church and world, between revealed truths and the truths accessible by natural reason, or between men and women of goodwill and believers in Christ. As the Second Vatican Council made clear, we don’t all need to be believers in order to share and support a humane social order.

The essay is found here.

Fr Oakes, Atheism and Violence

A hat tip to Amy Wellborn for referencing the On the Square article by Edward T. Oakes, S.J. over at First Things. The article is entitled, "Atheism and Violence." Here are a couple of excerpts to whet your whistle. Then go read the article.

One would think that, given their insistence that faith and violence are inextricably linked, these authors would be a bit more circumspect about their own rhetoric. As it happens, one does not have to read too far into these books to see an underlying advocacy of violence animating their venom, an advocacy made most explicit in Sam Harris’s The End of Faith, which openly avows: “Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them. This may seem an extraordinary claim, but it merely enunciates an ordinary fact about the world in which we live. . . . There is, in fact, no talking to some people. … We will continue to spill blood in what is, at bottom, a war of ideas.” To which I can only respond with one of Blaise Pascal’s more mordant observations, “Thinking too little about things or thinking too much both make us obstinate and fanatical.” Pascal called civil war the worst of all evils and openly admitted that no evil is greater than that committed under the guise of religion. If he were living today, I am sure his response to Harris would be: yes, Mr. Harris, you’re right, and the reason atheism brings so much violence in its wake is because it is its own kind of religion—and that’s your problem: your atheism is too religious.
...
Such are the contradictions of atheism. With hope in progress gone, with the lessons of the twentieth century still unlearned in the twenty-first, with technology progressing, in Adorno’s words, from the slingshot to the atom bomb (a remark cited in Spe Salvi), with a resurgence of religiously motivated violence filling the headlines, all that the new atheists can manage is to hearken back to an Enlightenment-based critique of religion. But they find their way blocked, not so much by Nietzsche (whom, as we saw, they largely ignore) but by the ineluctable realities he so ruthlessly exposed. Not Nietzsche, but the history of the twentieth century has shown that godless culture is incapable of making men happier. All Nietzsche did was to point out that no civilization, however “progressive,” can dispel the terrifying character of nature; and once progress is called into question, the human condition appears in all its forsaken nakedness.

Find the article here.

Jose Yulo on Atheism and the Beatitudes

Over at Ignatius, Dr Jose Yulo has written an article on Atheism, morality and his experiences teaching a Western Civilization class. It is well worth the time spent to read it.

Below is an excerpt.

But the topic that easily garnered the most attention in the class and generated spirited debate was a seemingly unlikely product of the Beatitudes. Christ warns His followers that they would be "persecuted for righteousness' sake," at the very least an intriguing notion. If the followers of Christ begin laying down the temptation of Agamemnon and all of those cut of the same imperial brocaded cloth, how could this lead to them being subject to ostracism, today often performed by the atheism advocate du jour?

Read the article here.

Atheists Help Build Belief

It's the Third Day of Christmas, and Canada's Michael Coren has written a nice observation on how his faith has been strengthened ... by radical atheism. A few excerpts follow to whet your whistle.

I suppose it's the greatest joke of all. Deliciously ironic as well. My Christian faith has been profoundly encouraged by those most eager to smother it. Put simply, I was helped along the road from indifference to belief by the banality of atheism. Since reaching the age of reason, I've had the usual old regulars thrown at me. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why doesn't He make Himself more obvious? Why is evil committed in the name of religion? Throw in the Inquisition, the Crusades and some lies about Papal culpability during the Holocaust and you have the standard God-hating manifesto.

The more I dealt with all this, the more I realized that the very belief being attacked was absolutely and abundantly true. More than this, the reason it was under attack in the first place was precisely because it was true.

...

What became apparent to me was that the opposition to faith was as unappealing and bland as faith was appealing and thrilling. I read, prayed and thought myself into faith more than 20 years ago. It was gradual but inevitable. Miracles occurred but they need not have. I do not need a miracle to remind me that water quenches my thirst. Christ was there in my life, with me and in me and around me. Atheists showed me the way. God bless the little devils.

For the whole article, go here.

Dinesh Triumphant! (up 3-0)

Everyone visiting this blog knows that I am quite impressed with Dinesh D'Souza. His clear and precise analysis is worth reading whether one agrees or not with him. Recently, I posted reference to his ongoing battle with neo-atheists ("irrational" atheists, as I am fond of calling them). Given the vitriol that has been spat at him, one could forgive him a bit of strutting while admitting that his use of logic and common sense have trounced the God-hating opposition three to nothing.

Click here to read his most recent column.

Dinesh D'Souza is at it again!

Dinesh D'Souza has written an excellent book defending Christianity against the irrationalist pseudo-scientific atheists called, What's So Great About Christianity. In Monday's Townhall, a column by Dinesh highlights the myths behind the Galileo versus the Church arguments. Here is the opening paragraphs:

Many people have uncritically accepted the idea that there is a longstanding war between science and religion. We find this war advertised in many of the leading atheist tracts such as those by Richard Dawkins, Victor Stenger, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. Every few months one of the leading newsweeklies does a story on this subject. Little do the peddlers of this paradigm realize that they are victims of nineteenth-century atheist propaganda.

About a hundred years ago, two anti-religious bigots named John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White wrote books promoting the idea of an irreconcilable conflict between science and God. The books were full of facts that have now been totally discredited by scholars. But the myths produced by Draper and Dickson continue to be recycled. They are believed by many who consider themselves educated, and they even find their way into the textbooks. In this article I expose several of these myths, focusing especially on the Galileo case, since Galileo is routinely portrayed as a victim of religious persecution and a martyr to the cause of science.

As always, Dinesh is fresh and precise in his research and analysis. I highly recommend the article and the book!