Kennedy the Catholic

A brief, charitable, fair yet accurate assessment of Sen. Kennedy. RTWT.

Many will speak and write of the legacy of Ted Kennedy in the days ahead. For me, as an East Coast “ethnic” grandchild of immigrants, Kennedy’s death symbolizes several cogent moments in Catholic America.
 
It marks the passing of a generation that thought that being Catholic, Democratic, and proNew Deal were synonymous. We now live in an age where many Catholic Americans are very happy to be described as pro-market and are suspicious of New Deallike solutions — as, of course, they are entitled to be in a way that they are not on, for example, life issues. Senator Kennedy had it exactly the wrong way around.

The author, Fr. Robert A. Sirico, of the Acton Institute, is a prolific writer and activist on behalf economic freedom: “The Mission of the Acton Institute is to promote a free and virtuous society characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles.”

UPDATE: Here is an excellent article by Carl Cannon, about Sen. Kennedy, entitled “Mary Jo Kopechne and Chappaquiddick: America’s Selective Memory”. It is fair and fact-based.

In similar fashion, the editors of National Review do justice to the man, and end on a charitable note I will also end on: “May he encounter the divine mercy that both the greatest and the least of us will require at the end.” Amen.

Quote of the Day

When I try explaining “global warming” to people in Iran or Turkey they have no idea what I’m talking about. Their life is about getting through to the next day, finding their next meal. Eco-guilt is a first-world luxury. It’s the new religion for urban populations which have lost their faith in Christianity. The IPCC report is their Bible. Al Gore and Lord Stern are their prophets.

Ian Plimer, author of Heaven and Earth: Global Warming, the Missing Science .

See also, Climate change: The sun and the oceans do not lie.

Hat tip: Michael Barone

Quote of the Day

Perhaps the best and only thing that the old can bequeath to the young is a good fight, a truly good struggle in something that matters, a fight that carries a person beyond the confines of a little, self-serving life into something deeper and more lovely.

Fr. Bob Sprott, God, Country, Notre Dame.

The Evolutionary Function of Religion

[Here’s a little light (1,900 words) reading for the weekend. I banged it out rather quickly so I apologize for any typos,  misspellings  or poor grammar. I’ll monitor this thread over the weekend so I don’t end up posting a hot-button topic and then ignoring it like I did last time.]

Robert Wright has a new book out “The Evolution of God“. [h/t Instapundit]  The Amazon description says:

In this sweeping narrative that takes us from the Stone Age to the Information Age, Robert Wright unveils an astonishing discovery: there is a hidden pattern that the great monotheistic faiths have followed as they have evolved. Through the prisms of archaeology, theology, and evolutionary psychology, Wright’s findings overturn basic assumptions about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and are sure to cause controversy. He explains why spirituality has a role today, and why science, contrary to conventional wisdom, affirms the validity of the religious quest. And this previously unrecognized evolutionary logic points not toward continued religious extremism, but future harmony.

I haven’t read the book yet, but based on his previous works I can guess where he is going with this. I’ve been thinking about this subject as well for some time, and I ‘ve been writing up my thoughts on the matter in detail, but since Wright may have beaten me to the punch I thought I would try to get my tiny bit of priority in. (Besides, I owe him for that bar fight in  Tucson.)

I believe that religions and all other facets of human culture are subject to and created by natural selection.  Even though I am a  philosophical  agnostic and a functional atheist, I have come to a science-based understanding that religions serve an evolutionary purpose, and that they provide a vital mechanism for enhancing and maintaining cooperation that no secular mechanism can duplicate.  

Traditionally  atheists  have argued that religions cannot have any functional foundations because there are many different religions with so many different stories about how the universe works. They commonly point out that since most religions  contradict  each other, the vast majority of religions have to be wrong even if we were to assume that one is right. Science produces just one best  explanation  for each phenomenon. We don’t have hundreds of different, equally valid models of the solar system. How could religion be any different? Therefore, the existence of many different religions proves that religions are arbitrary, fictional, fabrications like novels. It follows that religion has little to teach us about life and cannot serve as any kind of rational guide for humanity.  

This seems like a plausible argument. I used to believe it myself but in the last 15 years my ongoing study of evolutionary theory convinced me that atheists have missed one crucial piece of evidence:    We don’t have a vast  variety  of  contradictory  religions, we have  a vast  variety  religions that all teach the same thing.  

In one critical functional area, all religions are identical.

Read more

Explaining Agnosticism

So, I have this running joke that goes, “I don’t care if someone is gay or straight but I hate bisexuals. But that is only because I can’t stand people who can’t make up their minds.”

My son called me on this and said, “If you don’t like people who can’t make up their minds then why are you an agnostic? Agnostics are people who can’t make up their minds.”

So, I explained  agnosticism  like this: Three people, a religious person, an atheist and an agnostic are standing around arguing about the context of a box without being able to open the box.  

The religious persons says, “As a matter of faith I believe there are all kinds of wonderful things inside the box.”

The atheist says, “Using my giant pulsating brain I have reasoned with absolute  certainty  that the box is empty.”

The agnostic says, “I don’t know what, if anything, is inside the box because we haven’t looked inside the box.”

Agnosticism, I explained, is a statement about the limits of human knowledge and not a statement one way or the other about the totality of existence.  

My son thought about this and said, “Most likely, if they managed to open the box, they’ll just find another box inside.”

I’m pretty sure he’s right about that.