When a committed Christian says he believes in the Second Coming of Christ, he believes it the way he believes that Michael Jordan was a basketball player. When an avowed atheist says there is no such thing as God, she knows it the way that she knows that Elvis was a rock star. According to […]
Fact Or Belief? Your Brain Can’t Tell Read More »
In his controversial bestseller The God Delusion, evolutionary biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins attacked religious belief. He spoke with me about his new work, The Greatest Show on Earth, and his inimitable style. Excerpts: Why were you motivated to write this book? Well, it’s about the evidence for evolution. Evolution is one of the most
Atheist Richard Dawkins and the Creationists Read More »
Anne Graham Lotz, the second of Billy and Ruth Graham’s five children, says it’s all right: as long as you have a personal relationship with Jesus, church doesn’t really matter. Neither does denomination. “Religion is an impediment to knowing God,” says Lotz, who is promoting a new book, The Magnificent Obsession. “Procedures, rituals, creeds: how
Billy Graham’s Daughter Says Religious Can Be An Impediment Read More »
The latest salvo in the war between the atheists and the believers comes from the doyenne of religious intellectual history, Karen Armstrong. Her tone is one of high-minded irritation. Her argument is compelling. To oversimplify: “faith” and “reason” are not like political parties. You don’t join one after having been convinced via argument of its
Karen Armstrong Weighs In On God Read More »
There is a secret organization of powerful Christians in Washington. Only don’t call it “secret,” its defenders say. Call it “private.” Or “below the radar.” And it’s not an organization, more like a global informal network of friends, or, as one of its leaders described it, “a group of people brought together by a common
Secret Religious Group Gathering Political Power Read More »
As little children, they went to mass each week, and every day in the summertime. “We always had a rosary on our beds; and then, of course, [Mother would] hear our bedtime prayers and do our catechism with us,” said Patricia, the sixth of Joseph and Rose Kennedy’s nine children, in her mother’s memoir, Times
Ted Kennedy: His Faith, His Life Read More »
The general convention of the Episcopal Church ended last month in Anaheim, Calif., with a whimper, despite these rather staggering announcements: it would, after years of internal battling, continue to elevate gay priests to bishops, and it would consider blessing same-sex unions in the states that allow gays and lesbians to marry. The convention—and these
Who cares about the Episcopal Church? Read More »
America is not a Christian nation. We are, it is true, a nation founded by Christians, and according to a 2008 survey, 76 percent of us continue to identify as Christian (still, that’s the lowest percentage in American history). Of course, we are not a Hindu—or Muslim, or Jewish, or Wiccan—nation, either. A million-plus Hindus
We Are All Hindus Now Read More »
I do not believe that the Christian faith of Dr. Francis Collins, recently nominated to run the National Institutes of Health, disqualifies him from that job. The only questions that need be asked of Collins are these: Is he a good enough scientist? And will he be a passionate and relentless advocate for science and
Is NIH Director Francis Collins Disqualified By His Faith Read More »
Last week, as President Obama was announcing his pick for surgeon general—a Roman Catholic African-American and MacArthur “genius” award winner who has spent her career caring for the poor on Alabama’s Gulf Coast—I was on the phone with the Princeton professor and public intellectual Cornel West. He was reiterating his complaint, which he had aired
The Radical Left versus Obama Read More »