Download or read book AMORAL SCIENCE and BRAINLESS RELIGION And Chasing Reality written by Ernest Kinnie and published by . This book was released on 2017-04-18 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: AMORAL SCIENCE & BRAINLESS RELIGION---and Chasing RealityThe interface between humankind and Reality.A. Amoral science & brainless religionExplore the tension between science and religion using the ideas of John Stuart Mill from his book, On Liberty.B. Chasing Reality---is The Buddha correct?Explore the nature of Reality and continue to dance between science and religion by answering three questions. Included are many quotations from people on the same journey, and a few funny fillers to give your brain a rest. Your answers and mine are at the end.C. Freedom and JoyA AMORAL SCIENCE & BRAINLESS RELIGION1. Science and Religion2. Understanding and significance3. Albert Einstein1 SCIENCE AND RELIGIONThe quality of the ideas and beliefs held by an individual or organization can best be judged by their willingness to be exposed to alternative ideas and beliefs, competently and forcefully presented. So argued John Stuart Mill in his short book, On Liberty.a. Your point of view may be wrong. To believe otherwise is to assume you are infallible.b. Your opinion almost certainly does not contain the whole truth, and alternative points of view may have valid elements. If you have the honesty and self-confidence to recognize them, understanding increases, and the presentation of your point of view more powerful.c. Even if the other point of view is completely wrong it is important to listen carefully and present your position vigorously and honestly. Otherwise your point of view will lose its vitality and freshness and become dead dogma, mere rhetoric.In the spirit of On Liberty, this paper considers the strengths and weaknesses of the two great interpreters of reality in our culture, science and religion.An honest dialogue has often been made toxic by too many people among such groups as atheists and fundamentalist Christians who cherry pick history, straw man the other side, and indulge in sad, mean-spirited ad-hominem attacks. For instance, atheists I have known accept science as their criterion of Reality and greatly enjoy trivializing and making fun of religion. Along with the hopelessly brainless literal interpretations of the bible, the horrors perpetrated by religion in the name of love are pictured in detail and living color.The politics of the far right is seen as an attempt to return to the good old days, when rack and stake will once again put the fear of Almighty God in the hearts of Satan and his minions, and anyone else who doesn't grovel low enough. And the examination of religion is usually left there, with a fervent commitment to the fight for rationality and freedom wherever ignorance and superstition are found. Such fine words indeed stir the soul.Religious fundamentalists I have known point out that science has no morality. And, the tools of destruction created by Godless scientists have caused more suffering and death than all of the religious wars put together. The picture of all those scientists spreading terror and pain, and threatening all life on this beautiful planet is not pretty. And imagine the terrified last moments of all those millions upon millions of innocent, little babies dying in horrible agony, sliced apart by doctors trained in the scientific tradition. More than ample justification for an even greater commitment to the Holy Crusade to spread God's Love and Mercy to all mankind.The ideologues on both sides trivialize and demonize, and easily knock down the abominable straw men they create. What fun stomping the stuffing into the mud. There is some truth in how each views the other but the selectivity and exaggerations are a little less than honest. Hopefully the following will be a bit more even-handed.

Download or read book AMORAL SCIENCE and BRAINLESS RELIGION Our Interface with Reality written by Ernest Kinnie and published by . This book was released on 2017-07-26 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This was a great book, very well written.PatrickHighly recommend for believers and non believers alike. Hits both sides equally and does not take sides. Seldom is a work like this neutral.Phillip DurbinonAMORAL SCIENCE & BRAINLESS RELIGION: our interface with RealityA. Amoral science & brainless religion---in the spirit of On LibertyB. Dancing science and religion---the wisdom and folly of many peopleC. Our interface with Reality---let's give Reality a great big hugExplore the interface between humans and Reality by answering three questions. Included are many quotations from people on the same journey, and a few funny fillers to give your brain a rest. Your answers and mine are at the end.D. Freedom and Joy---The Buddha and Lao Tzu, Harold and MaudeA. Amoral science & brainless religion1. Science and Religion2. Understanding and significance3. Albert Einstein1. SCIENCE AND RELIGIONThe quality of the ideas and beliefs held by an individual or organization can best be judged by their willingness to be exposed to alternative ideas and beliefs, competently and forcefully presented. So argued John Stuart Mill in his short book, On Liberty.Openness to alternative points of view is necessary because:a. Your point of view may be wrong. To believe otherwise is to assume you are infallible.b. Your opinion almost certainly does not contain the whole truth, and alternative points of view may have valid elements. If you have the honesty and self-confidence to recognize them, understanding increases, and the presentation of your point of view more powerful.c. Even if the other point of view is completely wrong it is important to listen carefully and present your position vigorously and honestly. Otherwise your point of view will lose its vitality and freshness and become dead dogma, mere rhetoric.In the spirit of On Liberty, this paper considers the strengths and weaknesses of the two great interpreters of reality in our culture, science and religion.An honest dialogue has often been made toxic by too many people among such groups as atheists and fundamentalist Christians who cherry pick history, straw man the other side, and indulge in sad, mean-spirited ad-hominem attacks. For instance, atheists I have known greatly enjoy trivializing and making fun of religion. Along with the hopelessly brainless literal interpretations of the bible, the horrors perpetrated by religion in the name of love are pictured in detail and living color.The politics of the far right is seen as an attempt to return to the good old days, when rack and stake will once again put the fear of Almighty God in the hearts of Satan and his minions, and anyone else who doesn't grovel low enough. And the examination of religion is usually left there, with a fervent commitment to the fight for rationality and freedom wherever ignorance and superstition are found. Such fine words indeed stir the soul.Religious fundamentalists I have known point out that science has no morality. And, the tools of destruction created by Godless scientists have caused more suffering and death than all of the religious wars put together. The picture of all those scientists spreading terror and pain, and threatening all life on this beautiful planet is not pretty. And imagine the terrified last moments of all those millions upon millions of innocent, little babies dying in horrible agony, sliced apart by doctors trained in the scientific tradition. More than ample justification for an even greater commitment to the Holy Crusade to spread God's Love and Mercy to all mankind.The ideologues on both sides trivialize and demonize, and easily knock down the abominable straw men they create. What fun stomping the stuffing into the mud. There is some truth in how each views the other but the selectivity and exaggerations are a little less than honest. Hopefully the following will be a bit more even-handed.

Download or read book AMORAL SCIENCE BRAINLESS RELIGION Comgine Them written by Ernest Kinnie and published by . This book was released on 2021-05-28 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are science and religion good friends or bitter enemies? After you answer that question, have a little fun playing around with your scientist and mystic. Don't have one? No problem. Fake it! Have a little fantasy fun. Ride upon the wind and dance like a flame across the mountainside. Be sure and give Reality a great big hug. Careful! It may hug back. Come along, if you have any wild left. I have lived three World Views. A good Catholic Wild-eyed mystic. Hard-headed scientist. Come along and I'll show you the good and bad effects they have had on my life. ____________________ Click the Bar, top right

Download or read book SCIENCE and RELIGION Amoral Brainless written by Ernest Kinnie and published by . This book was released on 2021-05-03 with total page 107 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are science and religion complementary or incompatible? After you've answered that question, have a little fun playing around with your hard-headed scientist and your wild-eyed mystic. Don't have one? No problem. Fake it! Have a little fantasy fun. Ride upon the wind and dance like a flame across the mountainside.Be sure and give Reality a great big hug. Careful! It may hug back.Come along, if you have any wild left. ____________________Click the Bar, top right

Download or read book Just Babies written by Paul Bloom and published by Crown. This book was released on 2013-11-12 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading cognitive scientist argues that a deep sense of good and evil is bred in the bone. From John Locke to Sigmund Freud, philosophers and psychologists have long believed that we begin life as blank moral slates. Many of us take for granted that babies are born selfish and that it is the role of society—and especially parents—to transform them from little sociopaths into civilized beings. In Just Babies, Paul Bloom argues that humans are in fact hardwired with a sense of morality. Drawing on groundbreaking research at Yale, Bloom demonstrates that, even before they can speak or walk, babies judge the goodness and badness of others’ actions; feel empathy and compassion; act to soothe those in distress; and have a rudimentary sense of justice. Still, this innate morality is limited, sometimes tragically. We are naturally hostile to strangers, prone to parochialism and bigotry. Bringing together insights from psychology, behavioral economics, evolutionary biology, and philosophy, Bloom explores how we have come to surpass these limitations. Along the way, he examines the morality of chimpanzees, violent psychopaths, religious extremists, and Ivy League professors, and explores our often puzzling moral feelings about sex, politics, religion, and race. In his analysis of the morality of children and adults, Bloom rejects the fashionable view that our moral decisions are driven mainly by gut feelings and unconscious biases. Just as reason has driven our great scientific discoveries, he argues, it is reason and deliberation that makes possible our moral discoveries, such as the wrongness of slavery. Ultimately, it is through our imagination, our compassion, and our uniquely human capacity for rational thought that we can transcend the primitive sense of morality we were born with, becoming more than just babies. Paul Bloom has a gift for bringing abstract ideas to life, moving seamlessly from Darwin, Herodotus, and Adam Smith to The Princess Bride, Hannibal Lecter, and Louis C.K. Vivid, witty, and intellectually probing, Just Babies offers a radical new perspective on our moral lives.

Download or read book The Sociology of Religion written by George Lundskow and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2008-06-10 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using a lively narrative, The Sociology of Religion is an insightful text that investigates the facts of religion in all its great diversity, including its practices and beliefs, and then analyzes actual examples of religious developments using relevant conceptual frameworks. As a result, students actively engage in the discovery, learning, and analytical processes as they progress through the text. Organized around essential topics and real-life issues, this unique text examines religion both as an object of sociological analysis as well as a device for seeking personal meaning in life. The book provides sociological perspectives on religion while introducing students to relevant research from interdisciplinary scholarship. Sidebar features and photographs of religious figures bring the text to life for readers. Key Features Uses substantive and truly contemporary real-life religious issues of current interest to engage the reader in a way few other texts do Combines theory with empirical examples drawn from the United States and around the world, emphasizing a critical and analytical perspective that encourages better understanding of the material presented Features discussions of emergent religions, consumerism, and the link between religion, sports, and other forms of popular culture Draws upon interdisciplinary literature, helping students appreciate the contributions of other disciplines while primarily developing an understanding of the sociology of religion Accompanied by High-Quality Ancillaries! Instructor Resources on CD contain chapter outlines, summaries, multiple-choice questions, essay questions, and short answer questions as well as illustrations from the book. C Intended Audience This core text is designed for upper-level undergraduate students of Sociology of Religion or Religion and Politics.

Download or read book Why Evolution is True written by Jerry A. Coyne and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2010-01-14 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For all the discussion in the media about creationism and 'Intelligent Design', virtually nothing has been said about the evidence in question - the evidence for evolution by natural selection. Yet, as this succinct and important book shows, that evidence is vast, varied, and magnificent, and drawn from many disparate fields of science. The very latest research is uncovering a stream of evidence revealing evolution in action - from the actual observation of a species splitting into two, to new fossil discoveries, to the deciphering of the evidence stored in our genome. Why Evolution is True weaves together the many threads of modern work in genetics, palaeontology, geology, molecular biology, anatomy, and development to demonstrate the 'indelible stamp' of the processes first proposed by Darwin. It is a crisp, lucid, and accessible statement that will leave no one with an open mind in any doubt about the truth of evolution.

Download or read book Redeeming Science written by Vern S. Poythress and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2006-10-13 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many people think science is antagonistic to Christian belief. Science, it is said, shows that the universe is billions of years old, while the Bible says it is only thousands of years old. And some claim that science shows supernatural miracles are impossible. These and other points of contention cause some Christians to view science as a threat to their beliefs. Redeeming Science attempts to kindle our appreciation for science as it ought to be-science that could serve as a path for praising God and serving fellow human beings. Through examining the wonderfully complex and immutable laws of nature, author Vern Poythress explains, we ought to recognize the wisdom, care, and beauty of God. A Christian worldview restores a true response to science, where we praise the God who created nature and cares for it.

Download or read book Passion of the Western Mind written by Richard Tarnas and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2011-10-19 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[This] magnificent critical survey, with its inherent respect for both the 'Westt's mainstream high culture' and the 'radically changing world' of the 1990s, offers a new breakthrough for lay and scholarly readers alike....Allows readers to grasp the big picture of Western culture for the first time." SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE Here are the great minds of Western civilization and their pivotal ideas, from Plato to Hegel, from Augustine to Nietzsche, from Copernicus to Freud. Richard Tarnas performs the near-miracle of describing profound philosophical concepts simply but without simplifying them. Ten years in the making and already hailed as a classic, THE PASSION OF THE WESERN MIND is truly a complete liberal education in a single volume.

Download or read book Faith Versus Fact written by Jerry A. Coyne and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-05-17 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A superbly argued book.” —Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion The New York Times bestselling author of Why Evolution is True explains why any attempt to make religion compatible with science is doomed to fail In this provocative book, evolutionary biologist Jerry A. Coyne lays out in clear, dispassionate detail why the toolkit of science, based on reason and empirical study, is reliable, while that of religion—including faith, dogma, and revelation—leads to incorrect, untestable, or conflicting conclusions. Coyne is responding to a national climate in which more than half of Americans don’t believe in evolution, members of Congress deny global warming, and long-conquered childhood diseases are reappearing because of religious objections to inoculation, and he warns that religious prejudices in politics, education, medicine, and social policy are on the rise. Extending the bestselling works of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens, he demolishes the claims of religion to provide verifiable “truth” by subjecting those claims to the same tests we use to establish truth in science. Coyne irrefutably demonstrates the grave harm—to individuals and to our planet—in mistaking faith for fact in making the most important decisions about the world we live in. Praise for Faith Versus Fact: “A profound and lovely book . . . showing that the honest doubts of science are better . . . than the false certainties of religion.” —Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith

Download or read book Occult Crime written by and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1993-04 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Problem Of The Soul written by Owen Flanagan and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2008-08-05 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science has always created problems for traditional ways of seeing things, but now the very attributes that make us human -- free will, the permanence of personal identity, the existence of the soul -- are threatened by the science of the mind. If the mind is the brain, and therefore a physical object subject to deterministic laws, how can we have free will? If most of our thoughts and impulses are unconscious, how can we be morally responsible for what we do? If brains and bodies undergo relentless change, how can our identities be constant? The Problem of the Soul shows the way out of these paradoxes. Framing the conflict in terms of two dominant visions of the mind -- the "manifest image" of humanistic philosophy and theology, and the scientific image -- Owen Flanagan demonstrates that there is common ground, and that we need not give up our ideas of moral responsibility and personal freedom in order to have an empirically sound view of the human mind. This is a profoundly relevant work of philosophy for the common reader.

Download or read book American Fascists written by Chris Hedges and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-01-08 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the celebrated author of "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning" comes a startling expos of the political ambitions of the Christian Right--a clarion call for everyone who cares about freedom.

Download or read book Enlightenment Now written by Steven Pinker and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-02-13 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018 ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BOOKS OF THE YEAR "My new favorite book of all time." --Bill Gates If you think the world is coming to an end, think again: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science. By the author of the new book, Rationality. Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing. Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature--tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking--which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation. With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.

Download or read book Technopoly written by Neil Postman and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this witty, often terrifying work of cultural criticism, the author of Amusing Ourselves to Death chronicles our transformation into a Technopoly: a society that no longer merely uses technology as a support system but instead is shaped by it—with radical consequences for the meanings of politics, art, education, intelligence, and truth.

Download or read book The Hedgehog the Fox and the Magister s Pox written by Stephen Jay Gould and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-10 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his final book, Gould offers a surprising and nuanced study of the complex relationship between our two great ways of knowing: science and the humanities, twin realms of knowledge that have been divided against each other for far too long.

Download or read book Battling the Gods written by Tim Whitmarsh and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2015-11-10 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How new is atheism? Although adherents and opponents alike today present it as an invention of the European Enlightenment, when the forces of science and secularism broadly challenged those of faith, disbelief in the gods, in fact, originated in a far more remote past. In Battling the Gods, Tim Whitmarsh journeys into the ancient Mediterranean, a world almost unimaginably different from our own, to recover the stories and voices of those who first refused the divinities. Homer’s epic poems of human striving, journeying, and passion were ancient Greece’s only “sacred texts,” but no ancient Greek thought twice about questioning or mocking his stories of the gods. Priests were functionaries rather than sources of moral or cosmological wisdom. The absence of centralized religious authority made for an extraordinary variety of perspectives on sacred matters, from the devotional to the atheos, or “godless.” Whitmarsh explores this kaleidoscopic range of ideas about the gods, focusing on the colorful individuals who challenged their existence. Among these were some of the greatest ancient poets and philosophers and writers, as well as the less well known: Diagoras of Melos, perhaps the first self-professed atheist; Democritus, the first materialist; Socrates, executed for rejecting the gods of the Athenian state; Epicurus and his followers, who thought gods could not intervene in human affairs; the brilliantly mischievous satirist Lucian of Samosata. Before the revolutions of late antiquity, which saw the scriptural religions of Christianity and Islam enforced by imperial might, there were few constraints on belief. Everything changed, however, in the millennium between the appearance of the Homeric poems and Christianity’s establishment as Rome’s state religion in the fourth century AD. As successive Greco-Roman empires grew in size and complexity, and power was increasingly concentrated in central capitals, states sought to impose collective religious adherence, first to cults devoted to individual rulers, and ultimately to monotheism. In this new world, there was no room for outright disbelief: the label “atheist” was used now to demonize anyone who merely disagreed with the orthodoxy—and so it would remain for centuries. As the twenty-first century shapes up into a time of mass information, but also, paradoxically, of collective amnesia concerning the tangled histories of religions, Whitmarsh provides a bracing antidote to our assumptions about the roots of freethinking. By shining a light on atheism’s first thousand years, Battling the Gods offers a timely reminder that nonbelief has a wealth of tradition of its own, and, indeed, its own heroes.