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Friday, November 04, 2005

Tolerance, faith and reason

As Bret has pointed out in this post, there are many people of faith who have some understanding of people with a different world view. Meanwhile many people who are areligious or even anti-religious seem clueless about people on the other side of the divide. They pride themselves on being people of reason, as if to be otherwise is ridiculous. They usually assume that faith and reason are inherently in conflict. Thought is rarely given to the misuse or abuse of reason that has often occurred. Significant aspects and episodes of this are chronicled in The Counter-Revolution of Science: Studies on the Abuse of Reason by F.A. Hayek.

In relation to many aspects of this subject, please see this terrific book review which the author has titled
Imagine There's No Heaven

I'll say no more - you should already be enticed!

This is really a review of two books with juxtaposed views.

The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World by Alister McGrath

The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Bingo! Howard, by your refernce to Hayek you have hit the golden nail on the head. Hayek's book is in my home library,roughly 700 books,or 1/10th the size of Lord Acton's. The faith in scientism/rationalism has in many or most quarters exceeded any faith shown by a 16th century peasant kneeling and praying by a roadside shrine. Sadly or dangerously it has degenerated to the point where it's hardly rational at all. There are many kinds of faith, it's just that many of the faithful don't recognize that what they hold is in truth faith.