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How Does an Atheist Come to Believe in God?: An Interview with Jacob Needleman

By Lisa Webster

…t to practice what I preach and listen to a person I totally disagree with about a subject I know a lot about. So we started having a conversation, and one of the subjects had to do with interpretation of scripture. At one point we were back and forth and I realized: this man, I disagree with him a lot but he has a heart. This is not a maniac—he has a heart, he’s feeling something. And I started respecting his being, really, in a sense, without an…

Single Greatest Idea Ever: On the 150th Anniversary of Darwin’s Origin of Species

By Lauri Lebo

…inant groups are reinforced and maintained at every level. In other words, science isn’t science; it’s a way of bending the stories we tell about nature in order to support a larger political goal. It’s going to take a lot more than scientific evidence, rational thought, and reasoned debate to get people to accept the very real fact that in the scientific community, there is no debate over whether evolution is real. Sadly, most of the fighting con…

Capricology: Television, Tech, and the Sacred

By Diane Winston

…is not so much an act of creation as re-creation. This is also a theme in science fiction (think about A.I. and Astroboy as two examples) where a sense of profound loss—in all three cases, that of the father of a dead child—leads them to technological breakthroughs and the creation of alternative life forms. I was most taken though by the plight of Adama’s daughter, who is brought back from the dead not through an act of self-creation but against…

But ‘Natural’ is Better, No? ‘How Faith in Nature’s Goodness Leads to Harmful Fads, Unjust Laws, and Flawed Science’

By Andrew Aghapour

…you value, that’s potentially problematic and you might want to just think about those things on their own terms instead. If you value what’s natural because you think there is something sacred about a force that comes beyond and before humans that has made beautiful things in the world, then I think, “Go for it.” The important thing [is] to be able to reflect about what it is that’s valuable in nature and make sure we’re not confusing that with a…

Prepare for Attack on Science by Newly-Elected Republicans

By Lauri Lebo

…rutalized too. Last night’s Republican victories swept in a cadre of anti-science senators – Rand Paul (R-KY), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), John Hoeven (R-ND), Pat Toomey (R-PA). Most of the anti-science candidates are targeting climate change as their attack issue du jour, and will likely join forces with the new congressional Republican leadership, which has vowed to lead witch hunts in the form of congressional…

Creationism 3.0: Meet Intelligent Design’s Huckster

By Michael Schulson

…ence we see in the fossil record. You can make that case. It just won’t be science. Science, after all, isn’t a random game of accumulating evidence. It’s a very particular method for organizing specific kinds of observations. And when it comes to history, science relies on patterns of cause and effect staying constant across time and space—and not the sudden interpolation of otherwise scientifically unobservable beings. To say otherwise is to ask…

Some Thoughts on Richard Dawkins’ Terrible Tweet

By Haroon Moghul

…winning Nobel Prizes? What do Nobel Prizes measure, except an ‘abstracted’ science? And what does abstract science do for us? The number of nuclear bombs used by the West outweighs the number used by the entire planet. Muslims did not invent nuclear weapons, nor have they used them. (Let’s pray that stands.) When Saddam Hussein was our ally, he unleashed chemical weapons on Kurds at Halabja, the only confirmed instance of a Muslim regime using che…

Freeman Dyson, American Heretic

By Michael J. Altman

…d for all of us invested in protecting the planet and life on it, it isn’t about the science. It’s about the ideology. Though I completely disagree with Dyson on the issue of climate change he does bring out a salient point about the role of Science in our current culture. It is driven by ideology as much as religion. Science has its own sacred character. This is not a new claim but Dyson offers an important reminder. Richard Dawkins and other sci…

GMO or No: Problematic Intersections of Religion, Biotechnology, and Food

By Brittany Shoot

…ld be permissible for Buddhist practitioners. Loy also admits that because Buddhism has such porous boundaries, it can be difficult to find commonality in diverse traditions. Buddhists surveyed by Loy were not so much concerned with the outcome of genetic modification but the motivations behind it. Because everything is connected in Buddhism—human technology is linked to natural phenomenon—it is important to consider if genetic modification will r…

The Atheist Encounter with Christianity: A Failure to Disbelieve?

By Paul Wallace

…deas that should be periodically shed, but philosophical beliefs and ideas about other people and ideas about ourselves. For example, one may believe that religion is merely a naked emperor, that it is foolishness and self-deception all the way through. One may believe that Christianity is a simple fear-based superstition that will eventually be outgrown and tossed out, that it is about nothing but ignorance and make-believe. But maybe these belie…