Greta Christina on Facing Death without God & Michael Lynch on The Importance of Reason in a Democracy
Audio here!
Death. There is perhaps no other event in our lives which emotionally and psychologically affects us as strongly. Trying to keep your head above water when a loved one dies can sometimes feel impossible; facing your own death? Beyond impossible! But these are what we are to expect as emotional creatures. What many cultures and individual people do to soften the existential angst is to invent or follow one or another of the myriad super-natualistic religions.
But what if you are an atheist? Should we concede death to the Christians or Muslims? How can WE face death without a belief in gods?
We will speak to Greta Christina on this first, and then for the second half of the program, we will talk with philosopher Michael Lynch about the important of reason and critical thinking for modern societies.
What IS reason? When we say we should build people’s critical thinking skills, what do we mean? And can a society be healthy and beneficial to all within it if the ideas and beliefs of leaders (and everyone for that matter) are based on falsehood or pure ideology? Finally, how can we tell what is true and what is false?These questions and more will be discussed in our interview with Professor Lynch in the second half of today’s show.