"Call it God; call it superstition; call it, as Atran does, 'belief in hope beyond reason' — whatever you call it, there seems an inherent human drive to believe in something transcendent, unfathomable and otherworldly, something beyond the reach or understanding of science. 'Why do we cross our fingers during turbulence, even the most atheistic among us?' asked Atran when we spoke at his Upper West Side pied-à-terre in January. Atran, who is 55, is an anthropologist at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, with joint appointments at the University of Michigan and the John Jay College of...

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Doubt gets a bad rap. We live in a world where we are not supposed to doubt, it is unhealthy—bad. Doubts, though, are like confrontations, which also have a bad rap. However, it is in confrontations that change can happen. Sometimes my wife needs to confront me, and at that point there is a back and forth until eventually one of us realizes our error (or often we both do) and we change. Today—we are so afraid of confrontations—we don’t have them. In a Facebook generation we just unfriend, ignore or avoid—but then we are depriving ourselves and others of...

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The virtue and idea of love is all around us, and most people would agree that love is a good thing. The challenge, however, is in defining what it is, where it comes from, and how we obtain it.This week we looked at the virtue of love as it is expressed in the book of 1 corinthians 13:3 - 7. In examining this passage, we will see three things; What love is not, how we motivate for it, and how we grow it.1. What love is notThis passage tells us that how you get love is not by simply wanting...

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What is the purpose of morality? Where does virtue come from? Is it a product of the evolutionary process meant to ensure that a current generation’s genes are passed on? Is it a social construct meant to maintain order in society? Or is it conjured up by each individual to suit his or her needs? This semester we examine the Fruit of the Spirit described in Galatians 5:22 - 24. The apostle Paul argues in this passage that morality is not something that can be won or attained, but something that is produced in an individual. The Christian view is...

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British writer Edward Docx, writing for the UK base Prospect Magazine, has announced to the world, “Postmodernism is dead.” How does he know? He points to the upcoming weekend, September 24th, when the Victoria and Albert Museum in London opens up its new exhibit: “Postmodernism—Style and Subversion 1970-1990.” Clearly if we have beginning and ending dates to a period it must be over. Right? The main problem of course is that postmodernism itself is so stinking tricky to define. Docx does a great job weaving through the various artists, pop stars, philosophers and even architectural feats that define postmodernism.  In...

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