Why the west invaded Iraq 12 Oct 2009 It’s awkward to say openly, but now-departed President Bush is a religious crackpot, an ex-drunk of small intellect who “got saved.” He never should have been entrusted with the power to start wars. From here. Politics Religion
Accommodationism Accommodating Science: the backfire effect, and conclusion 10 Mar 201411 Mar 2014 [This is the final section of the book. I will return to the section on neurobiology and religion later.] The backfire effect If science is to be communicated to the wider community in a way that will change how people think, then it would seem an obvious idea to look… Read More
Politics Apropos today 6 Jul 2007 we do what we’re told we do what we’re told we do what we’re told told to do one doubt one voice one war one truth one dream Peter Gabriel, So, “Milgram’s 37 (we do what we’re told)” Read More
Evolution Could God Have Set Up Darwinian Accidents? 9 Jul 20119 Jul 2011 I have a paper forthcoming in the Theology and Philosophy journal Zygon, that I thought some of the readers of this blog might find interesting. Here’s the PhilPapers entry: John S. Wilkins (forthcoming). Could God Have Set Up Darwinian Accidents? Zygon. Charles Darwin, in his discussions with Asa Gray and in… Read More
After the 2003 call, the puzzled French leader didn’t comply with Bush’s request. Instead, his staff asked Thomas Romer, a theologian at the University of Lausanne, to analyze the weird appeal. Dr. Romer explained that the Old Testament book of Ezekiel contains two chapters (38 and 39) in which God rages against Gog and Magog, sinister and mysterious forces menacing Israel. Jehovah vows to smite them savagely, to “turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,” and slaughter them ruthlessly. In the New Testament, the mystical book of Revelation envisions Gog and Magog gathering nations for battle, “and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.” The question is would it have mattered if the other head of states expert theoligian would have said, yea sounds right to me… Why was there any puzzlement to start with? There is no new data since the time of the various Gog and Magog stories… “crackpot” is a term that presupposes there is evidence to bring to bear on the veracity of this claim, in a world of accomodation to faith it seems out of place.
Theologians are not scientists, any more than poets are, so it is not, I think, useful to say they have no new data. They are in my view more like those experts in role playing games who adjudicate on matters of arcane game lore. But I bet that the French president asked someone who happened to have the knowledge that made the comment and request comprehensible, to some degree, so that he would know how to respond. That it was a theologian is beside the point. He may as well have asked someone who had once been an evangelical but left the faith. It was simply a tradition with which he, as a cosmopolitan and refined man, knew nothing of.