By Living Waters

I recently came across the following quote. I thought I’d share with you.

In speaking of the fear of religion…I am talking about…the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God, and, natural, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God’ I don’t want the universe to be like that… My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind.

This is one of the most candid, and, I might note, honest and insightful statements I’ve read in a long time. This comes from Thomas Nagel’s The Last Word (Oxford University Press, 1997) 130-1.

This is a very good debate. It illustrates both D’Souza’s and Hitchens’s learning and skill.

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Dinesh D’Souza and Michael Shermer debated the truth and comparative utility of Christianity and atheism, 15 October 2007.

It is interesting to note how Shermer can assert moral rules, and their importance, without offering a sufficient grounding for them.

I do appreciate Shermer’s willingness to acknowledge some strengths of the Christian faith, contrary to other contemporary atheivangelists, such as Hitchens and Dawkins.

I’ve just received a copy of, and would like to bring your attention to, Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice, by Francis J. Beckwith (Cambridge University Press, 2007) (click here for a UK link to the book).

This nearly 300-page book breaks out into three parts with a total of nine chapters, plus an introduction and a robust 55 pages of endnotes (many of which are substantial).

I’m honored to know Frank and his wife, Frankie as friends and fellow faculty member of Summit Ministries summer seminars. He is a sharp mind, a keen intellect, and a very quick wit.

Below is the table of contents complete with links to some of Beckwith’s earlier essays relevant to the respective chapters (the essays are in a PDF format so you may download them and read them now). (more…)

New Age ideas are alive and well in our day. This is no more evident than in Oprah Winfrey, whom I suspect is the most prominent portal for all things New Age in our day. Recently, The Secret, has become a prominent exemplar of New Age ideas and ideology. Thankfully, James K. Walker and Bab Waldrep have produced a helpful volume, The Truth Behind The Secret: A Reasoned Response to the Runaway Bestseller. A fast-paced volume of 149 pages, 16 chapters, and 8 pages of endnotes, this exists as the most thorough volume exposing, assessing and countering Rhonda Byrne’s worldview.

FYI, this may prove to be extremely useful for researchers and research-oriented activities.

http://www.zotero.org/

–BOQ—

An extension to the popular open-source web browser Firefox, Zotero includes the best parts of older reference manager software (like EndNote)—the ability to store author, title, and publication fields and to export that information as formatted references—and the best parts of modern software and web applications (like iTunes and del.icio.us), such as the ability to interact, tag, and search in advanced ways. Zotero integrates tightly with online resources; it can sense when users are viewing a book, article, or other object on the web, and—on many major research and library sites—find and automatically save the full reference information for the item in the correct fields. Since it lives in the web browser, it can effortlessly transmit information to, and receive information from, other web services and applications; since it runs on one’s personal computer, it can also communicate with software running there (such as Microsoft Word). And it can be used offline as well (e.g., on a plane, in an archive without WiFi).

–EOQ–

I’ve not used it yet, though I couldn’t keep myself from letting you know about it.

I’d like to recommend another piece of technology we’ve greatly appreciated.

We purchased this phone just prior to returning to the UK. We tried it out in the US and it worked quite well. After arriving here in the UK, I purchased a couple appropriate power supplies and got the system up and running. (more…)

I’ve been unusually ill over the last couple of weeks. It has been difficult to concentrate for longer than about twenty minutes at a time. But in order not to feel like I’m losing too much of my time, I’ve been listening to some programs from Mars Hill Audio. Years ago I had a Mars Hill Audio subscription. It must have been ages ago since I received the programs on cassette! Well, I decided to get a download subscription and give the audio journal another listen. I’ve not be disappointed at all! In fact, I feel that those times when I’ve not felt able to read or type have been richly rewarded by the Mars Hill Audio Journal. If you commute to work, use in iPod while walking or biking or exercising, then you should consider getting a subscription. Browse the Mars Hill Audio site a bit and you’ll find some material to sample. Enjoy!