Religion

“Making Life Meaningful Without Religion” republished [Church and State]

Leave a Comment / Philosophy, Religion /

My “Making Life Meaningful Without Religion” is now republished at Britain’s Church and State site: “… There’s a half-serious taxonomy that divides Christians into three types: Christmas Christians, Good Friday Christians, and Easter Sunday Christians. Christmas is about celebrating birth, benevolence, and the bounties of life. Good Friday is about suffering, sacrifice, and destruction. Easter […]

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“On Natural Morality and Religious Amoralism” [CHURCH and STATE]

Leave a Comment / Ethics, Religion /

My “On Natural Morality and Religious Amoralism” is now republished at Britain’s Church and State site: “… religious belief is often autobiographical. That is, all religions have many messages and practices — some peaceful, some violent, and so on — and individuals choose among them to put together a personal religion that reflects the morality

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The Wages of Sin, according to Osama bin Laden

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In his “Letter to the Americans,” bin Laden issued a call for morality: “We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gamblings, and trading with interest.” Americans’ failure to cleanse themselves of these sins is one of the justifications bin Laden

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Friedrich Schleiermacher in Explaining Postmodernism

1 Comment / Philosophy, Religion /

Theologian Richard Niebuhr called Friedrich Schleiermacher “the Kant of modern Protestantism.” Here is Schleiermacher himself: “The essence of religion is *the feeling of absolute dependence*. I repudiated rational thought in favour of a theology of feeling.” For more on Schleiermacher and his contributions to postmodernism, see p. 57 of my Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism from Rousseau

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Religion and capitalism? Alvaro Vargas Llosa

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Some questions: Has religion helped or hindered the development of modern free societies? Did the Protestant work-ethic make capitalism? Do Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox explain why the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain) have been among the most economically-troubled European nations? Is the economic backwardness of much of the Middle East due to Islam?

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“Is Political Evil Built Into Religion?” [CHURCH and STATE]

Leave a Comment / Politics, Religion /

At Britain’s CHURCH and STATE site, my article “Is Political Evil Built Into Religion?” has been republished. It is common in debates for atheists to cite the long history of fanaticism, torture, and war that religion has caused and for theists to respond that such evils are aberrations and that their own preferred religion, properly

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“No Reformation for Islam, Please” [CHURCH and STATE]

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My “No Reformation for Islam, Please” is now republished at Britain’s Church and State site: “Islam needs reforming but definitely not a Reformation. “The history matters here, so consider first what the Reformation activists were fighting against. During the Renaissance, the dominant Catholic religion had become worldly. Its thinkers read the naturalistic Greeks and Romans

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