Religion

St. Augustine against anatomy and science

Following up on two posts on the achievements of modern anatomy (“The Knife Man” and “Anatomy and Philosophy”), here is St. Augustine (354-430) disapproving of the practice: “With a cruel zeal for science, some medical men, who are called anatomists, have dissected the bodies of the dead, and sometimes even of sick persons who have […]

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Christian Socialism and C. S. Lewis [Open College transcript]

We’re now posting serially at thinkspot the transcripts of my Open College podcasts. Here’s the seventeenth: C. S. Lewis said forthrightly: “A Christian society would be what we now call Leftist.” If we were to imagine, he asks us, a real Christian society, we would see that “its economic life was very socialistic.”  Audio versions of

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Is religion a feeling of dependence?

My livestream The Religion Course — concludes this Wednesday at thinkspot. What is religion? Is it true? Is it good? If neither necessarily, is it useful? Does the meaning of life depend upon religion? For example, here are some candidates from major intellectuals: “The essence of religion consists in the feeling of absolute dependence.” (Theologian

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Third and final lecture in my “What Is Religion?” mini-course at thinkspot

My mini-course on religion — now running at thinkspot — wraps up on Wednesday evening at 7:30 Central Time. I will cover the major and varied moral and social dimensions of religions and conclude with my definition of religion. Our governing question for this three-lecture course is: What Is Religion? We set aside the questions

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