Friday, May 01, 2009

interesting book review

here's an interesting look at british author terry eagleton's new book, "Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate". The reviewer gives an interesting overview of the book which covers some ground that strikes me as particularly poignant. mainly, that the "new athiests" - richard dawkins, sam harris, chirstopher hitchens - have put on blinders in terms of what roles are played out by religion, belief, science and myth, and how they address different issues.

religion and myth are really about the search for meaning and purpose, which of course can be distorted in any number of ways by interpretation, whereas science is more concerned with absolute answers and definitions to replicable, observable things. neither treads the same ground, and while they can inform one another, their base purposes are different.