What God Is and Isn’t

The most signal contribution of David Bentley Hart's new book, The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, and Bliss (Yale University Press, 2013), is to clarify that serious theists and atheists, though they debate frequently concerning the reality of God, are hardly ever using the word "God" in the same way. This fundamental equivocation contributes massively to the pointlessness and meanness of many of these discussions. It is not so much that Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins... Read More

A Mind Prepared for Wonder

I enjoy reading Edward O. Wilson much more than Richard Dawkins, and recently I started to ask myself why this might be. Both are good writers and present difficult scientific concepts in easy-to-understand language. Both work in the controversial area of sociobiology and the evolution of human beings. Both are post-Christian thinkers with little interest in the nuances and delicacies of theological reasoning. What separates these two men? And, even when I don’t agree with him, what... Read More

Did Pope Francis Criminalize the Reporting of Sex Crimes?

Yesterday morning, the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science Facebook page posted the following bombshell: "According to the new laws, revealing or receiving confidential Vatican information is now punishable by up to two years in prison, while newly defined sex crimes against children carry a sentence of up to twelve years. Because all sex crimes are kept confidential, there is no longer a legal way for Vatican officials to report sex crimes." This was startling stuff, and... Read More

How Do Atheists Define Love?

All my atheist friends and family members believe in “love.” But what is love? Here’s a question: If humans have no soul, and are merely evolutionary advanced animals, is ‘love’ anything more than instinct or hormones? In a letter to his ten-year-old daughter, atheist Richard Dawkins explained the importance of evidence in science and in life: "People sometimes say that you must believe in feelings deep inside, otherwise you’d never be confident of things like ‘My wife loves... Read More

Do Faith and Science Contradict?: Interview with Catholic Physicist Dominique Lambert

Prominent atheists such as Richard Dawkins have consistently chastised religion for thwarting scientific research. But Professor Dominique Lambert, a respected expert in theoretical physics and the philosophy of science at the University of Namur, Belgium, believes not only does the Catholic faith, when correctly applied, not hinder science, but gives it vital intelligibility, meaning, and purpose. In this interview, Professor Lambert speaks about the necessity of a harmonious relationship... Read More

Interview with Atheist Blogger Chana Messinger

Today I have the pleasure of interviewing Chana Messinger, a popular atheist blogger who has written before here at Strange Notions. Chana is a recent graduate of the University of Chicago with a BA in mathematics. She was the president of the University of Chicago Secular Alliance for two years, a Speaker at the 2011 Secular Student Alliance Conference, a panelist at the 2012 Skepticon Conference, and a speaker at the 2013 Chicago Skepticamp and at Chicago Skeptics. She describes herself... Read More

Does It Matter That Many Scientists Are Atheists?

One fact that concerns some Christians and elates some atheists is that 93 percent of the members of the National Academy of Sciences, one of the most elite scientific organizations in the United States, do not believe in God. Atheist Sam Harris says that, “This suggests that there are few modes of thinking less congenial to religious faith than science is.” Should Christians be concerned that so many of these intelligent people don’t believe in God? I don’t think so, and here’s... Read More

I’m a Direct Descendant of Darwin…and a Catholic

"Are you related to the economist?” people sometimes ask when they see my surname. I explain that, yes, John Maynard Keynes is my great-great-uncle—his brother Geoffrey married Margaret Darwin, my great-grandmother. “So you’re related to Darwin too?” Yes, he’s my great-great-great grandfather. Eyes might fall on the cross around my neck: “And you’re a Christian?” Yes, a Catholic. “How does a Darwin end up Catholic?” The question genuinely seems to puzzle people.... Read More

Jesus Would Have Been an Atheist?

In a recent interview with The Guardian, popular atheist Richard Dawkins made a strange and audacious claim:   "I wrote [an] article called ‘Atheists for Jesus,’ I think it was...Somebody gave me a t-shirt: ‘Atheists for Jesus.’ Well, the point was that Jesus was a great moral teacher and I was suggesting that somebody as intelligent as Jesus would have been an atheist if he had known what we know today."   His proposal, of course, gives rise to the question, what new... Read More

“The Greatest Show on Earth”

The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins Free Press, 480 pages, $30   The first lesson to be learned from Richard Dawkins’ new book is a purely practical maxim: One should always do what one does best, while scrupulously avoiding those tasks for which neither nature nor tuition has equipped one. This is not, obviously, what one could call a moral counsel; it is merely a counsel of prudence. Another way of saying it would be, try not to make a fool... Read More

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