Embedded Files
( - previous issue - )
Apologia Report 16:38 (1,088)
November 17, 2011
Subject - Philosophers in search of an "atheistic Christianity"
In this issue:
BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION - Philip Jenkins takes on biblical violence
MORMONISM - recent books on the historical development of LDS doctrine
ORIGINS - monkeys making something out of nothing?
+ "the most important scientific study with implications for atheism since Darwin's work"?
PHILOSOPHY - ready for a "scintillating pop-philosophy search for an atheistic Christianity"?
------
BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION
Laying Down the Sword: Why We Can't Ignore the Bible's Violent Verses, by Philip Jenkins [1] -- "That the Bible contains texts commanding the wholesale slaughter of people is at the heart of this most recent book by the high-profile author.... Jenkins, who holds a joint appointment at Penn State University and Baylor University, is a Christian who tackles the challenge of how believers might take seriously the Bible's most explicitly violent texts without committing the atrocious acts they seem to promote. To get there, he discusses the history of the most problematic, genocidal texts, especially those in Deuteronomy and Joshua, as well as their history of use. This is the book's main strength. His comparison of the Bible with the Qur'an on the issue of violence seems more apologetic (everybody's got ugly texts) than instructive, though it may serve to correct modern assumptions that Islam is uniquely violent. Suggestions for how believers should acknowledge and discuss such texts include a review of methods of interpretation as well as parameters limiting the options. He finds no silver bullet, but Jenkins's frank admission is itself disarming." Publishers Weekly, Sep '11 #2, n.p.
---
MORMONISM
In Heaven as It Is on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death, by Samuel Morris Brown [2] -- "As a discipline, Mormon studies has advanced to the point where development of Mormon doctrine has become a significant topic of research, exemplified by Douglas J. Davies's The Mormon Culture of Salvation [3] and Devery S. Anderson's mesmerizing The Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846–2000 [4]. Brown ... ably tackles Mormon beliefs about death in a highly readable series of connected essays. Most important to Brown's work is the relationship between Joseph Smith's confrontation with death and illness in his own family and the larger culture of death in the early 19th-century United States, the context that was the basis of Smith's evolving thought on death and the interconnecting Mormon doctrines of the preexistence of souls, Mother in Heaven, angels, and the embodiment of God. VERDICT Readers should not be put off because Brown is not a professional historian. He has covered the primary sources in depth and unearthed little-used materials to support his argument. Students of American religious history will be interested in this readable book as will a more general readership." Library Journal, Oct 15 '11, p86.
---
ORIGINS
Much discussion related to intelligent design has questioned the likelihood of evolution in relation to probability. Frequent comparisons include the prospect of monkeys beating on keyboards long enough to generate something as significant as the works of Shakespeare.
On September 26 the BBC featured the technology story "Virtual monkeys write Shakespeare." It begins: "A few million virtual monkeys are close to re-creating the complete works of Shakespeare by randomly mashing keys on virtual typewriters. ...
"Set up by US programmer Jesse Anderson the project co-ordinates the virtual monkeys sitting on Amazon's EC2 cloud computing system via a home PC."
The project is seen as "a practical test of the thought experiment that wonders whether an infinite number of monkeys pounding on an infinite number of typewriters would be able to produce Shakespeare's works by accident.
"Mr Anderson's virtual monkeys are small computer programs uploaded to Amazon servers. These coded apes regularly pump out random sequences of text.
"Each sequence is nine characters long and each is checked to see if that string of characters appears anywhere in the works of Shakespeare. If not, it is discarded. If it does match then progress has been made towards re-creating the works of the Bard. ...
"'If he's running an evolutionary approach, holding on to successful guesses, then he'll get there,' said Tim Harford, popular science writer and presenter of the BBC's radio show about numbers More or Less.
"And without those constraints?
"'Not a chance,' said Dr Ian Stewart, emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of Warwick.
"His calculations suggest it would take far, far longer than the age of the Universe for monkeys to completely randomly produce a flawless copy of the 3,695,990 or so characters in the works."
A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing, by Lawrence Krauss [5] -- "Famed cosmologist Krauss [Physics, Arizona State University] takes us back to the creation to show that the question, 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' is not religious but scientific. In the process, he explains that new scientific discoveries reveal that something not only can but must come from nothing, so it's no surprise that Richard Dawkins calls this perhaps the most important scientific study with implications for atheism since Darwin's work. Bound to touch off a few fireworks." Library Journal, Sep 1 '11, p88.
---
PHILOSOPHY
A Brief History of Thought: A Philosophical Guide to Living, by Luc Ferry [6] -- "This scintillating pop-philosophy survey, a bestseller in France, brushes off the cobwebs and gives the subject compelling immediacy. Sorbonne professor Ferry ... offers a thematic introduction to continental philosophy constructed around the biggest questions: how can we lead a meaningful life knowing that we will die but without the consolation of religion? (Ferry denies Christianity the status of a real philosophy, but considers its intellectual legacy so fundamental that the book is in many ways a search for an atheistic Christianity.) The author's episodic treatment starts with the Stoic concept of man as a fragment of a harmonious cosmos, moves on to Descartes, Rousseau, and Kant and their establishment of philosophy based on reason and individual freedom, climaxes with Nietzsche's demolition of modernist certitudes - a stance he finds both thrilling and unsatisfying - and ponders the abiding need to embrace a world we must ultimately lose. Ferry has a knack for translating difficult concepts into laymen's terms; he even makes Heidegger's opaque mysticism not just coherent but actually relevant to the global economy. Neophytes and scholars alike will find in this superb primer proof that philosophy belongs at the center of life." Publishers Weekly, Oct '11 #2, n.p.
-------
SOURCES: Monographs
1 - Laying Down the Sword: Why We Can't Ignore the Bible's Violent Verses, by Philip Jenkins (HarperOne, 2011, hardcover, 320 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/7yn3evh>
2 - In Heaven As It Is on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death, by Samuel Morris Brown (Oxford Univ Prs, January 2012, hardcover, 408 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/79mfwzp>
3 - The Mormon Culture of Salvation: Force, Grace and Glory, by Douglas James Davies (Ashgate, 2000, paperback, 293 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/6oeodon>
4 - The Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846–2000: A Documentary History, by Devery S. Anderson (Signature, 2011, hardcover, 500 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/7jjxs2l>
5 - A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing, by Lawrence Krauss (Free Prs, January 2012, hardcover, 224 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/7ot48ss>
6 - A Brief History of Thought: A Philosophical Guide to Living, by Luc Ferry (Harper, 2011, paperback, 304 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/d28szut>
--------
( - next issue - )
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse