Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
And it gets better. This is the link to the second part of Tamas Pataki’s address: http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2010/08/13/2981969.htm
I was moved by humanity expressed in Pataki’s 2007 book, and it is refreshing to find this expounded once again from a secular humanist viewpoint. Continue reading “Would the world really be better without religion?”
There is a wonderful article by Tamas Pataki at http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2010/08/10/2979163.htm
Tamas Pataki is honorary senior fellow at the University of Melbourne and honorary fellow of Deakin University. His most recent book is Against Religion (Scribe, 2007). This is the first part of an edited version of the address he delivered at the 2010 Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne, on 12 April 2010.
I have discussed his book Against Religion a few times on this blog — collated in the Pataki archive.
The whole article should be read for his nuanced views on atheism, religion and humanism.
I’ve tried to bottle a few of the passages that struck a chord with me below, but more for my own record. Read the full article at the above link. Continue reading “Giving atheism a bad name (On Atheism, Religion, Humanism)”
Fundamentalism is a term applied to various Islamic, Christian, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Judaic groups, and even to some secular (economic and environmental) groups. All different.
Yet Tamas Pataki in his newly published Against Religion lists what he sees as “criss-crossing similarities — family resemblances — in certain basic beliefs, values, and attitudes” (p.27) that characterize the various religious groups labelled “fundamentalist”. Continue reading “10 characteristics of religious fundamentalism”