Is Religion a Force for Good or Evil?

This is the most respectful debate I have seen on this issue. It’s like a breath of fresh air!

“In this debate on what are arguably two of the most important questions in the culture wars today[most important questions in life!] — Is Religion a Force for Good or Evil? [man is the force for good or evil. Religion is only a tool] and Can you be Good without God? — the conservative Christian author and cultural scholar Dinesh D’Souza and the libertarian skeptic writer and social scientist Michael Shermer, square off to resolve these and related issues, such as the relationship between science and religion and the nature and existence of God. This event was one of the liveliest ever hosted by the Skeptics Society at Caltech, mixing science, religion, politics, and culture.“

Also see:

Holons and The Four Ways of Being

Unlocking the Mysteries of Life.

Nietzsche’s Warning:Madman in The Marketplace

A Thought From Alexis De Tocqueville

Part One:

Part Two:

Part Three:

Part Four:

Mortimer Adler on the Constitution

Adler addresses how we no longer teach what it means to be a citizen. I recently posted an article titled, “The Death of Liberal Education”where I pose the same argument. Books such as Democracy In America, by Alexis De Tocqueville, and documents such as the Federalist Papers are no longer read and discussed. We are slipping deeper into vulgarity each day. People are no longer taught how to think; therefore they fall prey to ideas by a process of intellectual drift rather than critical thinking.

Menuhin – Beethoven violin concerto

from video.google.com posted with vodpod

The Fall From Humility

After I posted the articles on Intelligent Design I sure received a rise in traffic, but man, what a waste of time. It is truly sad that conversations turn into personal attacks so fast. When I woke up the following morning I felt so dirty. How the possibility of there being a God became so ridiculous I just don’t know.

One of the first signs of attaining some small amount of wisdom, is when we begin to realize just how much we don’t know. We sit on this small blue ball, like ants on a dirt hill. We can’t even get past our own moon, yet we think that we are masters of the universe.

That’s the story in the garden. Pride is the gateway to sin. Our arrogance and pride. I know that it’s gotten me in trouble more than once. Humility is a hard thing. I think that when I pray, I ask most for forgiveness for my pride, and to seek more humility.

It’s a good thing that we can’t think our way into heaven. Sure, the name of my blog is Thoughts on God, but that is all they are; thoughts. The real deal is when I get on my knees before The Creator. And then when I stand back up, I need to remember to hold to humility.

In the end, I have to accept that I can only know in part, for now, until that day comes when I will breath my last, part from this world, and then see face to face.

A Thought From Chesterton

“This, incidentally, is almost the whole weakness of Nietzsche, whom some are representing as a bold and strong thinker. No one will deny that he was a poetical and suggestive thinker; but he was quite the reverse of strong. He was not at all bold. He never put his own meaning before himself in bald abstract words; as did Aristotle and Calvin, and even Karl Marx, the hard, fearless men of thought. Nietzsche always escaped a question by a physical metaphor, like a cheery minor poet. He said, “beyond good and evil,”because he had not the courage to say, “more good than good and evil,” because he had not courage to say, “more evil than good and evil.” Had he faced his thought without metaphors, he would have seen that it was nonsense. So, when he describes his hero, he does not dare to say, “the purer man,” or “the happier man,” or “the sadder man,” for all these are ideas; and ideas are alarming. He says “the upper man,” or “over man,” a physical metaphor from acrobats or alpine climbers. Nietzsche is truly a very timid thinker. He does not really know in the least what sort of man he wants evolution to produce. And if he does not know, certainly the ordinary evolutionists, who talk about things being “higher,” do not know either.” From Orthodoxy