My post on fake myths has generated some good discussion, and our future podcast guest Daniel Horne pointed me to a nice concise New York Times review by Ross Douthat of Karen Armstrong's The Case for God, which prompted my line of thought about myth. Douthat's review presents a much better summary to the book than my preliminary attempt, and makes the overall point, which I Continue Reading …
Armstrong on Approaching Religious Texts
This clip actually addresses my concern about the political vs. the philosophical. It describes Armstrong's intellectual evolution from skeptic to sympathetic historian. -Mark Continue Reading …
Armstrong on Dawkins and Harris
This is a follow up to my last post, which you should look at the comments on for some good comments by Wes. I've now read the part in Armstrong where she addresses Dawkins directly (from p. 304 of "The Case for God"): For Dawkins, religious faith rests on the idea that "there exists a superhuman, supernatural intelligence, who deliberately designed and created the universe Continue Reading …
Armstrong and Dawkins
Continuing my independent (i.e. not directly for the podcast) reading into the atheism debate: Nearly done with the Karen Armstrong book. This is a good bit of secondary literature, with short summaries of the views re. God of a really impressively wide range of historical figures. Her overall view is that of apophatic, or negative theology, which is to say that an Continue Reading …