Links to two new posts

First a discussion of the Map vs Terrain metaphor for science and religion and reality. This came from the blogging heads diavlog which you can find here.

Next a short intro to Bernard d'Espagnat, this years winner of the Templeton Prize. The Templeton Foundation is very controversial and I have mixed feelings about what they do. I wonder what the general feeling is among people out there in the world about their efforts?

What Science is For

Here is a link to the latest post on Reality Base. I wonder why it is that people are intent on having their religion be a system of ideas about the world so that it must, by nature, crash headlong into the methodologies science?

Much of the last four hundred years has been a story of religions having to adjust to the claims of science. All the while the all important response to the world that was always at the root of both science and religion gets lost in theorizing.

ID Creationism and Science

So I did a post this week at Reality Base on the Texas School Board maelstrom which has engendered some debate. I heard back from some people on comments and via email (!). I will do more on it at Reality Base but here I just wanted to state something clearly. What is going on in Texas is not about some sincere attempt to understand the world through open ended inquiry personal or otherwise. It is one very particular form of religion (note that many institutional forms of Christianity do not have this trouble with evolution) and their attempt to dictate what is taught as Science. This is a very bad and very dangerous thing for us scientifically and politically. I am willing to take the heat and speak out as an a-theist scientist who is interested in, and respects the domains of human spiritual endeavor but what is happening in Texas speaks to the worst impulses that manifest in the name of religion. It is a bad, bad thing. People who have read my book and my writings know I do not say this lightly.

The Emerald City

Some links to recent activity here in Seattle - the queen of metrotopia.

2 new posts on Reality Base

Link to interview with Steve Sher.

I am off to give a talk at Seattle U. home of the Jesuits. Jesuits are known to be deep and accurate thinkers. Should be interesting and fun.

Here and There

A link to my recent posts on Discover's Reality Base.

As you may have noticed I am having a hard time posting here and there and elsewhere at the same time. I am grateful to Discover for giving me their space and will keep updating here when the posts go up. I will also continue doing some posts for Tricycle when I am feeling the Buddha urge.

I do have say how encouraged I am by the general response and dialogue I see coming to both the book and the posts. In general, it seems like what I write serves mainly as a stepping off point for others to share their thoughts and ideas. It is fascinating and heartening to see how deeply people have been considering these topics on their own.

I was warned when I started writing the book that I was stepping into a giant pile of dog doo. Instead, I mainly see a bunch of fellow citizens seriously engaged with their own attempts to work out ideas on the deepest and most profound topics. "Science and Religion" is a murky terrain full of sink holes inhabited by angry and unfriendly critters, that is for sure. But it is also a place where our best instincts and creative aspirations can be given form when we make it an inquiry into the nature of being human. There seem to be lots of folks who are willing to talk and listen with that genuine sense of inquiry.

We are, as a people, better than our media makes us out to be.

More on the Sacred

I have been trying to lay down an argument for the use and applicability of the word "sacred". Two posts at Reality Base can be found here and here.

There is an ongoing discussion about how words change and adapt in meaning. One point I think that has to be remembered is that if one wants to go in a new direction eggs get broken to make omelets. Historically words gain new meaning, or expanded meanings through just this process.

Posts at Discover and Tricycle

Two posts I have done at other locations for those interested


Discover/Reality Base This was on Darwins birthday (who could resist?)

Tricycle The role of Buddhism in the science and religion debate

Both generated some interesting and thoughtful commentary.