I started writing a response to a comment and found it getting too long. Besides, it is personal & a bit off-topic. But in essence, I think Kelly is right. My religious friends – and I am sure, Lex – will find this superficial. Nonetheless, I suspect if viewed as sociology – or perhaps, an anthropological study of the tribe of academics, it may interest.
Religion
Review of “Annihilation from Within”
Annihilation from Within
AfW is eminently worth reading and relatively likely to do some actual good in the world. But you haven’t grazed in here to read a blanket endorsement, and I’d be no blogger if I didn’t contend (with all-but-nonexistent credibility) with some portion of Iklé’s thesis; so for a thoroughgoingly unqualified critique, complete with annoyingly personal speculation and fuzzy intuition-laden commentary, read on!
(~2,700 words; approximate reading time 7-14 minutes, not counting lots of links.)
Merry Christmas
It is an odd thing to be a Roman Catholic co-blogger amongst a bunch of libertarians who are mostly not religious, or are formerly religious, and some of whom are actively hostile. I see more and more of that hostility these days, so I feel more and more free to just say what I think on the subject. I have never had any interest whatsoever in being anything else. But today most of all I a realize how blessed I am.
During Advent, we get ready for the arrival of the baby, and we turn our prayers more and more onto the scene which is coming, which has been reproduced so often, sometimes as masterpieces of art, more often as kitsch. The last day or so, it is easy to imagine Mary and Joseph, real flesh-and-blood people, on the road, tired, worried, not sure where they will be staying, roughing it. You can imagine yourself walking beside them on the road, coming over a rise, Bethlehem ahead at last. Maybe you put your hand on Joseph’s shoulder, “look, it will be OK. You are almost there”. But then, no place to stay, after all that. They carried on, they did what they could with the means at hand. They did not have an easy time. What a small act of kindness it would have been for someone to make room for a pregnant woman for one day. Make an effor to be patient and kind to the people around you, to be alert to their needs, look up from what you are doing and look around. This is harder than it sounds. Decide not to hold personal grudges. If that is too hard, pick one and drop that one.
God Almighty chose to disclose himself, at first, in the most understated possible fashion, silently, obscurely, at the edge of civilization, far away from the powerful and the wealthy and the well-connected, the well-read, the clever. This is so clearly a Divine approach, at least it seems so to me, no need to show off. Humility is a very basic virtue we all lack to some degree, but one which we would do well to work on. I direct this at myself as much as anyone.
The creator of the universe is Love. Hard to grasp. Love is as basic as being itself, love precedes the material existence of the universe. This is not how it seems much of the time. The world itself, despite its many terrors, its many disappointments, which are consequences of original sin, is after all a good place and we are lucky to be here. Love, of course, the real article, is deeds, not sweet words. God in his providence has brought people into your life, so love them by how you treat them, and where appropriate, by telling them so. This time of the year is a good time to decide to turn up the effort a little bit in this department.
I hope all our readers get the presents they want. Around here people are still wrapping things.
God bless all our contributors, our readers, our friends and our enemies.
The Atheist Delusion Part 1
I keep losing my personal heroes.
Richard Dawkins is one of the century’s great evolutionary theorists and someone whose work I really admire. His work revolutionized the way scientists thought about evolutionary theory. I think I can safely say that I have read everything that the man has written in every major forum. So, as an atheist myself, I looked forward to Dawkins weighing in on the subject of religion, from the perspective of an evolutionary theorist, in his new book, “The God Delusion”.
This weekend I made it to my local bookstore, grabbed a copy of the “The God Delusion” and sat down with a cup of coffee to read it immediately — even before buying it. Imagine my shock and even horror to discover that Dawkins’ book is trite, facile and just plain, well, dumb.
A fascinating, colorful tale of religious bigotry and its defeat
When British Airways told London check-in worker Nadia Eweida that she would either have to remove her necklace with its tiny thumbnail-sized cross or hide it under her livery, she refused. Ms Eweida noted that BA allows Sikhs to wear their turbans, although it isn�t required by their faith, and Muslims to wear hijabs, although neither is that a religious requirement. She claims that as a Coptic Christian, wearing her tiny cross to show she is a Christian is part of her religion.
BA, a bullying adherent, despite its name, of multi-culti tolerance for anything as long as it is not British, suspended her without pay. Ms Eweida had a fight on her hands.
To everyone’s amazement, the incident has taken off with a strong tailwind and an amazing cast of characters. Led by the Archbishop of York, who is a black immigrant from Uganda and an articulate, devout and reasoned man, there’s been an unexpected storm of Anglican fury among the supposedly non-religious Brits. A few days later, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who everyone had thought was a Muslim in mufti, announced that the Church of England would sell its �6.6m ($12.7m) shares in BA unless they allow employees to wear a visible cross in keeping with adherents of other religions being allowed to advertise their own faiths. At the same time, Episcopalian churches worldwide rallied as one in support of Nadia Eweida and her right to wear her tiny cross, and threatened to advise hundreds of millions of parishioners not to fly BA.
And for the record, around 100 British MPs, including a Hindu, Conservative Shailesh Vara, and a Muslim, Labour MP Khalid Mahmood, censured BA in the House of Commons.
Faced with this colorful cast of characters, a cowed BA chief curled up and backed down, hoist
by his own petard. In a dazzling display of unintended consequences, he demonstrated that, in the long run, Ms Eweida�s tiny cross proved more powerful than BA�s multi-million pound massive tailfin logo and designer livery.