PBS’s The Question of God: Moral Law
Where do our concepts of right and wrong come from? Do humans share a moral law that transcends time and culture?
culture, God, moralitythe official site of Michael Shermer
PBS’s The Question of God: Suffering & Death
Is the suffering we experience in the world evidence for or against God? What do you believe happens after death? How does belief or lack of belief in an afterlife affect your understanding of life?
afterlife, belief, God, sufferingSurvival of the Fittest Religion
The following book review of Mark Oppenheimer’s Knocking on Heaven’s Door: American Religion in the Age of Counterculture (Yale University Press, 2003), (originally published in the Los Angeles Times) ran in the Los Angeles Times Book Review (4/1/04). I used the book review to further support the group selection thesis proffered by David Sloan Wilson in his book Darwin’s Cathedral, as well as my own analysis in The Science of Good and Evil, to explain the success of religion. It was published as Countering the Counterculture. My original title better describes my thesis and what the book is about. But it is an unalterable law of nature that all book review and opinion editorial editors must change the author’s original title or else they will go to editorial hades.
In April, 1993, in his address to the Pontifical Biblical Commission, Pope John Paul II acquitted Galileo for his heretical belief that the earth goes around the sun, explaining that “the theologian must keep informed about the results (continue reading…)
evolution, God, natural selection, religion, scienceThe Science of Good & Evil
Michael Shermer’s tour for his book, The Science of Good and Evil, found him here explaining why we are moral, the evolutionary origins of the moral sentiments, and how to be good without God.
faith, God, religion, scienceShermer’s Last Law
As scientist extraordinaire and author of an empire of science-fiction books, Arthur C. Clarke is one of the farthest-seeing visionaries of our time. His pithy quotations tug harder than those of most futurists on our collective psyches for their insights into humanity and our unique place in the cosmos.
And none do so more than his famous Third Law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
This observation stimulated me to think about the impact the discovery of an extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) would have on science and religion. To that end, I would like to immodestly propose Shermer’s Last Law (I don’t believe in naming laws after oneself, so as the good book says, the last shall be first and the first shall be last): “Any sufficiently advanced ETI is indistinguishable from God.” (continue reading…)
aliens, God, religion, science, SETI