Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Does Science Make Belief In God Obsolete?

The third in a series of "big questions" posed by the John Templeton Foundation. It's a fascinating discussion among world-class scientists, theologians, writers, and thinkers. Inexplicably, Chris Hitchens is included on the list. It's a worthwhile read despite this. 

Go check it out.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What is wrong with Christopher Hitchens?

Unknown said...

Alexander,

I think he's a fatuous, pompous ass. I think of him as basically an unusually articulate adolescent. He sounds awfully clever, but when you scratch the surface, there's not much there.

In re: his writing on religion, it's fairly clear he's not really interested in exploring the issue, but merely taking pot shots. He uses the most extreme and silliest examples of believers (low-hanging fruit) to make his case. He doesn't really have anything of substance to say about the issue so I imagine he was included to be representative of so-called New Atheists.

Moreover, he admittedly doesn't have any understanding of a more nuanced approach to spirituality.

In addition, he's vigorously supported this travesty of a war in Iraq, to this day believing we should have gone in though he at least admits Bush et al. buggered it up.

Overall, he's emblematic to me of the worst traits in humanity: rigidity of thought, sanctimony, arrogance, smugness and meanness.

But, hey, credit where it's due, he's great with snark.