Category: Faith & Science
Slouching Toward Columbine: Darwin’s Tree of Death
Today at Beliefnet, David Klinghoffer has a provocative essay commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado. Klinghoffer notes that Columbine killer Eric Harris was inspired in part by his fanatical devotion to Darwinian natural selection, a trait Harris unfortunately shared with many opponents of human dignity during the past century. Given the pervasive influence of Social Darwinism in our culture, Klinghoffer suggests that Darwin’s Tree of Life might be more appropriately viewed as a Tree of Death: Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution with its Tree of Life is applauded by most sophisticated Americans and Europeans as a scientific idea pure and simple, without the aura of dread and terror that, properly, should surround it in Read More ›
Metaphysical Indignation at the New York Times
Obviously the book is an allegory for the perennial debate about our own origins.
The End of Morality
Recently, David Brooks published a column titled “The End of Philosophy” in The New York Times (April 7, 2009). Brooks, long one of the most thoughtful writers in public life, addresses an ages-old tension over whether reason controls our moral intuitions and passions, or whether moral intuition/feeling is king and reason is only rationalization. In the latter view, Brooks says,
Logic vs. Emotion: Discovery Institute Fellow William Lane Craig Debates Christopher Hitchens on “Does God Exist?”
On Saturday April 4th, I attended a debate between Discovery Institute fellow William Lane Craig and “new atheist” Christopher Hitchens on “Does God Exist?” As the debate venue was Biola University, the audience was partial towards Craig. But a sizeable number of Hitchens-fans turned out as well, though they probably weren’t energized by Hitchens’ admission during the debate that “there’s nothing new about the new atheists, it’s just that we’re recent.” Craig’s opening statement presented 5 arguments, but I will only recount two (maybe three) at present: the Cosmological Argument, the Teleological Argument, and the Moral Argument. As it turns out, Darwinian evolution and the “cruelty” of biological processes played a major role in Hitchens’ arguments against the proposition that Read More ›
Scientism Called on the Carpet For Blocking Debate on Evolution
There’s an interesting column in today’s Vancouver Sun, “‘Scientism’ infects Darwinian debates An unflinching belief that science can explain everything about evolution becomes its own ideology”. Interesting because it is rare to see sceintism called out and criticized, especially by someone who shows his own high level of faith in evolution. According to the author, Douglas Todd: There are two major obstacles to a rich public discussion on Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and what it means to all of us. The most obvious obstacle is religious literalism, which leads to Creationism. It’s the belief the Bible or other ancient sacred texts offer the first and last word on how humans came into existence. The second major barrier to a Read More ›