Discussion on Alternatives to Religion including a Sociological Point of View w/ guest host Michael O’Neil, and Troy Duster
Audio here!
Show 213: Call In Show – “The New Atheists: What do you Think?”
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“The New Atheists: What do you Think?” w/ Arnell Dowret
Do the “new atheists” speak for you? Do you find them persuasive? Will their efforts make things better for non-belief or worse?
You would have to have been on the moon to not have in some way encountered the work of Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens. If you are a believer, what do you make of it? If you are a nonbeliever, how does their strong message make you feel? Do you think their message is accurate? Is this the start of a new movement, or just more (ahh, you’ll excuse the expression, please) preaching to the choir?
Show 212: Michael Perelman – “Markets, Competition and Economics”
Audio here!
About Michael Perelman:
Although I earned a degree in agricultural economics from the University
of California, Berkeley, I never could bring myself to accept the
ideological framework of conventional economics. When I looked more deeply into the environmental, social, and economic costs of the current agricultural system, I discovered how the profit-oriented agricultural system created hunger, pollution, serious public health consequences, and environmental disruption, while throwing millions of people off the land.
“Why do those whose work is most essential, such as farm workers, earn the least? Why are natural resources exploited in ways that do not take account of their scarcity? These are the disarmingly straightforward questions that dissident economist Michael Perelman directs at the discipline of economics–exploring the whole history of its development in his search for answers. In the process he has created one of the most revealing and accessible critiques of the narrow mind-set that constitutes conventional economics.
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Show 211: Fund Drive Show – “Evolution, Religion & the New Atheism” w/ David Sloan Wilson
Fund Drive Show – “Evolution, Religion & the New Atheism” w/ David Sloan Wilson
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What does the Judeo-Christian, Islamic religious world view tell us about human nature and our place in the universe?
What does Evolutionary Biology and Scientific Naturalism itself tell us about human nature and our place in the Universe?
Where do these two worldviews merge – if they merge – and where do they differ… and how important is that difference?
And that all said, what does religion have to do with humanity’s evolution and how ought we view religion as our troubled societies move into post 9/11 times?
PODCAST/AUDIO for Interview Only
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Show 210: Stephen Prothero – Religious Literacy
From Publishers Weekly:
Audio here!
(Stephen) Prothero (American Jesus), begins this valuable primer by noting that religious illiteracy is rampant in the United States, where most Americans, even Christians, cannot name even one of the four Gospels. Such ignorance is perilous because religion “is the most volatile constituent of culture” and, unfortunately, often “one of the greatest forces for evil” in the world, he writes.
Prothero does more than diagnose the problem; he traces its surprising historic roots (“in one of the great ironies of…history, it was the nation’s most fervent people of faith who steered Americans down the road to religious illiteracy”) and prescribes concrete solutions that address religious education while preserving First Amendment boundaries about religion in the public square. Prothero also offers a dictionary of religious literacy and a quiz for readers to test their knowledge.
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Show 209: Call-In Special w/Chip Walter – Humanity through a Naturalistic Lens
One Hour Call-In Special w/Chip Walter – “Humanity through a Naturalistic Lens”
Audio here!
To be skeptical merely about the value of religion, faith, and belief in the supernatural, and not call into question the overwhelming influence which such ways of seeing the world have had upon our understanding of what it means to be human, is to ignore their most damaging aspects. What happens if we discard traditional assumptions of human sinfulness, and cynical beliefs about human’s inherent tendency to be corrupt and greedy, and try to find a more accurate description of the human experience?
Helping us explore our topic will be Chip Walter author of Thumbs, Toes and Tears and Other Traits That Make Us Human; we will be opening the phone lines to hear your ideas on this crucially important topic.
Show 208: Charles Kimball: When Religion Becomes Evil
Audio here!
From Publishers Weekly:
By now it’s commonplace to remark that more violence than good has been committed in the name of religion. The terrorist attacks of September 11 and the continuing Israeli-Palestinian strife confirm this age-old aphorism. Wake Forest religion professor (Charles) Kimball has made something of a career out of speaking about the ways in which religion becomes evil.
Every religion has the capacity to work either for good or evil, and he contends that there are five warning signs that we can recognize when religion moves toward the latter. Whenever a religion emphasizes that it holds the absolute truth-the one path to God or the only correct way of reading a sacred text-to the exclusion of the truth claims of all other religions and cultures, that religion is becoming evil.
Other warning signs include blind obedience to religious leaders, apocalyptic belief that the end time will occur through a particular religion, the use of malevolent ends to achieve religious goals (e.g., the Crusades) and the declaration of holy war.
Kimball focuses primarily on the three major Western monotheistic religions, although his examples also include new religious movements such as the People’s Temple, Aum Shinrikyo and the Branch Davidians.
Religion can resist becoming evil by practicing an inclusiveness that allows each tradition to retain its distinctiveness while it works for the common good. Kimball’s clear and steady voice provides a helpful guide for those trying to understand why evil is perpetrated in the name of religion.
Show 207: Neil deGrasse Tyson
This interview was originally aired on May 20, 2007
Audio here!
Neil deGrasse Tyson is an African American astrophysicist and, since 1996, the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History worldview. Tyson has written a number of popular books on astronomy. In 1995, he began to write the “Universe” column for Natural History magazine. In a column for the magazine he authored in 2002, Tyson coined the term “Manhattanhenge” to describe the two days annually on which the evening sun aligns with the cross streets of the street grid in Manhattan, making sunset visible along unobstructed side streets. In 2004, he hosted the four-part “Origins” miniseries of PBS’s Nova, and co-authored, with Donald Goldsmith (renowned California astronomer and science writer/professor) the companion volume for this series, Origins: Fourteen Billion Years Of Cosmic Evolution.
As director of the Hayden Planetarium, Tyson bucked traditional thinking to keep Pluto from being referred to as the ninth planet in exhibits at the center. He has stated on “The Colbert Report” that this decision has resulted in large amounts of hate mail, much of it from children. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union confirmed this assessment by downgrading Pluto to “dwarf planet” classification. Tyson is also Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Planetary Society, where he was formerly the vice president. He is the new host of the PBS program NOVA scienceNOW.
Show 206b: Noam Chomsky – “Chomsky on Humanism II”
Show 206a: Noam Chomsky – “Chomsky on Humanism”
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Listen to more Chomsky here!
Noam Chomsky has been a leading intellectual of the Left for more than 35 years, and has written about, and spoke to, a variety of issues including capitalist economics, the nation-state – focusing on an extensive critique of the powers that be and the policies of the United States – education, socialism, war and peace and anarchism. He began his career in the study of language and is credited with the creation of the theory of generative grammar, considered to be one of the most significant contributions to the field of linguistics made in the 20th Century. He is currently the Institute Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Recently, Professor Chomsky, author of over 30 books of science and of politics, has been the subject of an interview (along with Gilbert Achcar) by New Jersey based political scientist Stephen Shalom in the book titled, “Perilous Power: The Middle East and US Foreign Policy.” In this book, he discuses, among other things, the resurgence of religious fundamentalism in both the Middle East and within this country, and offers some perspective on what might be the cause(s) of the trend.
Also, in a recent interview in the Humanist, the flagship magazine of the American Humanist Association, Professor Chomsky continues his analysis of religious fundamentalism as well as talks about other issues at the core of the humanist worldview.
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