Religion and Spirituality in Society

From Alain de Botton, in 3 Quarks Daily

Alain de Botton on Auguste Comte in New Statesman:

One of the most fruitless questions that can be asked of religions is whether or not they are “true”. For the sake of argument and the flow of this article, let us simply assume from the start that they aren’t true in the supernatural sense. For a certain kind of atheist, this is the end of the story; but for those of a more ethnographic bent, it is clearly only a beginning. If we made up our gods to serve psychological needs, a study of these deities will tell us a crucial amount about what we require to preserve our sanity and balance, and will raise intriguing questions about how we are fulfilling the needs to which religions once catered.

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By Nadeem F. Paracha, in Dawn.com

I am itching to get my hands on a recently published book, God Created the Universe by Fatehulla Khan. After reading the review of the book, I can safely assume it is yet another document in the long line of glorified assertions that much of what we call scientific truths today was mentioned in scripture a long time ago.

Ever since the late French physician, Maurice Bucaille — on a hefty payroll of the Saudi royal family in Riyadh — wrote Islam, Bible & Science (1976), many believe that ‘proving’ scientific truths from holy books has been the exclusive domain of Muslims. However, in spite of being impressed by the holy book’s ‘scientific wonders’, Bucaille remained a committed Christian.

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By Sørina Higgins, in Curator Magazine

In the first part of my review of Posthumanism, I began by comparing this theory to a nightmare. Although I went on to qualify that simile, saying that Cary Wolfe’s work is serious academic philosophy, I left the nightmare images intact. Indeed, a Christian’s first reaction might very well be horrified fear. Several premises of this book are terrifying: it seeks to problematize humanity’s unique existence; it calls into question universal ethics; it interrogates our assumptions about rationality; and it destabilized distinctions that are essential to religion, such as nature/culture, presence/absence, and human/nonhuman.

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by David Gibson, in Politics Daily

American Catholics by a nearly 2-1 margin think the Vatican has done a “poor job” handling the clergy sex abuse crisis, a dim view that follows months of embarrassing revelations and reports of persistent inaction by top church officials, including then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.

Yet there is some good news for Rome as perceptions of Benedict have improved markedly of late, with 43 percent of Catholics now saying they view the pontiff favorably, up from just 27 percent in March.

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From Matthew Taylor, in Telegraph

Philip Pullman’s new novel The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ is opening another chapter in the often acrimonious debate between religious believers and atheists. This is not, of course, a new argument, but it is one that was given new life by the religious justifications offered by the September 11 terrorists, and there is little sign of it abating.

Although Pullman’s attack is more on organised Christianity than faith, the aim of other strident atheists, such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens or Daniel Dennett, is to use the hammer of science and rationality to break the chains of religious superstition. Indeed, since the Ancient World, intellectuals have predicted that faith would wither away in the face of expanding human knowledge. But the prediction was wrong.

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From Religion and Ethics Newsweekly on PBS

It’s been one year since President Barack Obama lifted the Bush era’s eight-year ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.  Read excerpts from producer Susan Goldstein’s and correspondent Betty Rollin’s recent interview about ethical guidelines, current research, and the limitations of Obama’s policy with Dr. George Daley of Children’s Hospital where a new website is now available on the state of stem cell research.

Stem cells are the master cells of the human body. They are the seeds for our tissues. They come in two varieties. They are pluripotent, which means they can make any tissue in the body, and the classical pluripotent stem cell is the embryonic stem cell which comes from the earliest human embryos. There are also stem cells in our adult tissues, so called adult stem cells, or better somatic stem cells, stem cells of the body, and I think the analogy to plants is a good one. We are talking about the seeds for our tissues, so if our skin is like a lawn of grass, the stem cells of the skin are the grass seeds.

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From Daniel C. Dennett, in The Washington Post

Read “Preachers who are not Believers“, a study by Daniel C. Dennett and Linda LaScola of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University.

I get the impression that most if not all of the early commentators haven’t read our report. They are unanimous in favor of honesty (and apple pie), and are happy to condemn hypocrisy in the pulpit, but few of them show any sign of appreciating what terrible predicaments our good pastors are in. Resign, leave the church, find a congregation more in harmony with your creed, they urge–but apparently without having read the profiles of those they are advising. Let’s suppose that Martin Marty and Marcus Borg and John Shelby Spong are always utterly forthright when they hold forth in churches, “speaking truth to power,” challenging the conservative “common Christianity” that they have moved beyond, but how often–if ever–have they had to face a congregation that could ruin their careers if pushed too hard?

Besides, they and others temper their calls for courage. Brad Hirschfield says that “Responsible religious leaders must find a balance between helping their congregants to wrestle with tough questions and offering them secure answers.” In other professions that is known as spin doctoring. Borg encourages the clergy “to be discerning”: an elderly congregation might be better served with a less forthright challenge to the views that have comforted them, but in “intergenerational churches with a potential future” he calls for a more aggressive approach. From the pulpit? No, that would upset the old folks; in “adult theological re-education.” Yes, we discussed that approach in our report, and our pastors engage in it. But how should they deal with their duties in the pulpit? Borg gives no advice about that. Similarly, Janet Edwards sees the conflict and calls for “afflicting the comfortable” but gives us no examples of how she does this afflicting from the pulpit while sparing those who are afflicted.

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From Mark Vernon in Guardian

In God is Not Great, Christopher Hitchens writes of Buddhism as the sleep of reason, and of Buddhists as discarding their minds as well as their sandals. His passionate diatribe appeared in 2007. So what’s he doing now, just three years later, endorsing a book on Buddhism written by a Buddhist?

The new publication is Confession of a Buddhist Atheist. Its author, Stephen Batchelor, is at the vanguard of attempts to forge an authentically western Buddhism. He is probably best known for Buddhism Without Beliefs, in which he describes himself as an agnostic. Now he has decided on atheism, the significance of which is not just that he doesn’t believe in transcendent deities, but is also found in his stripping down of Buddhism to the basics.

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From Scott Appleby in The Immanent Frame

During his landmark address to the world, delivered in Cairo last June, President Obama proposed to open a new era of engagement with “Muslim communities”—engagement, that is, not just with Muslim states or regimes, but also with other economically and politically influential social sectors, including religious groups, educational institutions, civic organizations, health care institutions, and youth affiliations.

In the hopes of accelerating the process of rethinking America’s attitude toward the Muslim word, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs has issued a Task Force Report (TFR), entitled “Engaging Religious Communities Abroad: A New Imperative for U.S. Foreign Policy.” As co-chair of the task force (with Richard Cizik), which has been convening since the fall of 2008, I welcomed the president’s shrewd remarks about Islam, and I was pleased to work with the dozens of leaders in business, higher education, government, and media who signed the report, which was released today. Our hope is to build on the president’s ideas and explain why they apply not only to Islamic communities, but to religious communities more generally.

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