“Fine-tuning”: is the multiverse a Hail Mary pass by godless physicists?

I’ve finished the book Atoms and Eden, a series of interviews by Steve Paulson of luminaries in the science-and-religion debates. The book includes interviews with people on all sides, including Karen Armstrong, John Haught, Sam Harris, Dan Dennett, Jane Goodall, and so on. Judging by Amazon, the book hasn’t garnered much interest, but I’d recommend […]

God of the gaps—still with us

In an article on intelligent design I once wrote for The New Republic, I quoted a statement by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a brave preacher and theologian who was executed by the Nazis for plotting against Hitler. He was decrying the tendency of religious people to impute mysterious natural phenomena to God, and made one of the […]

HuffPo + Ted = nonsense

Combining HuffPo with the new, wooish reincarnation of TED is likely to prove a toxic combination. Sure enough, HuffPo has begun featuring essays based on TED talks. The latest one, “Why do evil and suffering exist?” by Jeffrey Small (based on a nonreligious talk by Phil Zimbardo), is dire.  It’s garden-variety theodicy dressed up for HuffPo […]

A Sophisticated Theologian explains why theology doesn’t progress

Thanks (I think) to John Loftus, I’ve become acquainted with a half-dozen books on science and religion that I didn’t know. All of them are written by Christians and either attack science or defend the proposition that science and Jesus are compatible. I’ve just finished the first one, and it’s dire: J. P. Moreland’s Christianity […]

Rupert Sheldrake peddles his woo to Americans

Where else but at PuffHo, the bailiwick of Chopra and Jenny McCarthy? You do remember Rupert Sheldrake, right? He’s a woo-meister, like Chopra, but even worse since he pretends to be a good scientist. Indeed, he was trained as one, though he seems to have gone off the rails. Author of The Science Delusion (endorsed […]

A belated reply from Francis Spufford, who defends his faith

Christian writer Francis Spufford sent me an email calling my attention to a post on his blog, Unapologetic, in which he belatedly answers two critiques I’d written of his pieces—one essay in the Guardian and the other his infamous “Dear Atheist” letter in New Humanist. You know what you’re in for when you see the title: “Dear […]

BioLogos goes all Natural Theology

I’ve lost most of my interest in the BioLogos site since they got rid of the few real pro-evolution people they employed, and also decided to change their mission from helping evangelical Christians accept evolution to engaging in apologetics, twisting biology however necessary to soothe the feelings of Darwin-affronted Christians. And, in truth, I don’t […]