By the way, the link is for the entire 15 or so hours of the Beyond Belief Conference. I watched the entire thing – it was THAT GOOD. But I’ll find the part that was just about the Templeton guy and get it to you. He was actually fairly interesting though I totally disagreed with him as did nearly everyone at the conference, which you will see if you end up watching it. The link is nicely divided up into the various sections, in the order they occurred, so you need not slog through the whole thing but just pick and choose the speakers you’d like to see.
]]>John B
I got your comments back but only by deleting the link.
http://beyondbelief2006.org/watch/
http://beyondbelief2006.org/watch/
The commenting plug in seems to hate some links and just refuses to show the post.
I will delete one of them now I’ve miraculously restored them to life.
Wow.
Heather said: “science can’t tell us anything because it leads to “scientism†a dubious “ism†that may have been invented for the purposes of the column.”
Unfortunately, it wasn’t invented for this column as I’m guessing Black Sun gets into in his rebuttal (I’ll check the link later). I’ve been hearing it more and more the past couple of years from those who support Religionism (we can play that one too). I heard some guy from Templeton dropping the term several times when he spoke at the 2006 Beyond Belief Conference.
Heather is quite right (although I’m no expert either) that Darwin never said anything about ultimate origins, just origins of species (once there WAS life, how it evolved into the various species that have lived and do live). Are Dawkins never has claimed otherwise. Origins of life is a different, albeit related, subject that is continually be worked on and there are some really interesting theories though none of them is yet as rock-solid as the Darwinian theory of species.
That’s all side issue though. The point I get from your post is that there is a whole lot of Orwellian double speak going on here when we start claiming that religion = reason and science = dogma.
Again – WOW.
Chesterton wasn’t a right-winger; he just belonged to groups which have moved rightward consistently since his death, such as the Catholic church. A few salient points:
Chesterton was an agrarian populist — if he lived today, chances are very good that he would be an environmentalist strictly on the grounds that the land must be preserved from harm.
Chesterton was both anti-big business and anti-imperialist — read “Four Faultless Felons” (still in print) for some pretty strong stuff. (He was admittedly also racist, but find me a british mainstream author before 1960 who wasn’t)
Chesterton protested the Boer War at the height of its popularity, which would be roughly the equivalent of picketing the Bush white house in 2002.
Chesterton died in 1936 while on a tour to speak against the Nazis — the more he learned about them, the more dangerous he considered them, and so he continued his tour despite becoming increasingly ill.
(It should also be remembered that Chesterton died before Pius XII became Pope and the Catholic church decided to cuddle up to the Nazis.)
I’m not excusing his racism, or indeed his devotion to the Catholic church. I’m just saying: if Chesterton lived today, and had the same opinions, then (after his head finished exploding over the direction of the Catholic church) he would probably be left of center.
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