The Bull in Full

Harris vs. Sullivan: a faith conversation worth reading

Having commented on the Newsweek/Washington Post "On Faith" trainwreck, it's a pleasure to witness an active and lively exchange between a devout Catholic and a published atheist author on the subject of faith, atheism, reason, politics, and the interface between them.  Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation, has engaged Andrew Sullivan, author of The Conservative Soul to debate the meaning and propriety of religion in contemporary life.  Quite thankfully, the discussion has neither turned into a scream-fest like "On Faith," nor has it consisted entirely of bromides and backscratching, so afraid of devolving into histronics that nothing ever gets said.  In the exchanges so far, the disagreement has been profound, but has stayed within the bounds of respect and decorum. 

What keeps this dialog under control, I think, is the epistemological humility that each maintains.  Sullivan's most recent book is a treatise pleading for a politics based around what he calls a "conservatism of doubt," in which one may hold strong convictions, but be constantly mindful of the limitations of ones own knowledge, and proceed with care in the world of public policy.  Harris, while an atheist with more than a small share of annoyance towards religious entries into worlds that he believes should be the province of reason solely, in turn acknowledges that science, logic, and human reason do not constitute nor divulge absolute knowledge, hence any claim of certainty about the lack of an existence of God based on reason alone would be no less a self delusion than he considers faith in God. 

I find this particularly interesting, because they touch upon many of the same lines of thought that I both discovered and struggled with in the long process that lead to me finally returning to the Church.  (I finally officially joined First Presbyterian of Durham late last year.)  Reading the Sullivan/Harris exchange has made me want to write about my own experiences there, but since I seem to be running behind on everything else in my life recently, that's not likely to happen for a while.

Here's to Duke!

Yes, you read that right, and I'm not being sarcastic today.  I always say you know it's gotta be good when I'm actually saying Duke did something right, but today I'm giving the Blue Devil his due.

Yesterday Duke and the city officially inked an agreement on the conditions which would be attached to the zoning of its remake of Central Campus.  (Stories: Herald-Sun, Duke Chronicle, N&O) In so doing, Duke agreed to several long-sought conditions on the construction, including limits on retail space.  Community activists, inexhaustably led by my friend and neighbor John Schelp, and Duke both compromised on the deal, with neither getting everything but both getting enough. 

Mental health still a mess in NC

According to an AP story run in several papers this week (linked to the CharO because they leave their links up for longer, it seems), North Carolina's mental health system is stiill a mess.  The good news is that the General Assembly stopped trying to simultaneously radically restructure the system while simultaenously cutting funding, and finally realized that the restructuring was probably going to cost more money in the short term. 

Overheard at the cafe

I have to relay this conversation.  Background: Broad St. Cafe sits within a long outfielder's throw from my alma mater, the North Carolina School of Science and Math, a.k.a. NCSSM, a.k.a., by its grads, S&M.  The source of lots of jokes, of course, and some confusion, as in this exchange below the fold:

Adventures in junk food

I resolved a few years ago to try to get the trans fats out of my diet.  I had seen enough evidence to suggest that the artificial fats basically just clogged up your arteries and made you fat without even any benefit of storing energy, since our bodies can't metabolize them.  One good thing about this was that this effectively eliminated any snack machine food from my diet, which was overall a good thing for many reasons.

Let it never be said that American capitalism lacks for ingenuity, though.  Mrs. Freshley's has now just rolled out a line of products which taste just as wonderfully awful and artificial as the old ones did, but now have no trans fats in them.  With what did they replace the partially hydrogenated vegetable oil that brought the trans fat?  Why, palm oil, of course, the closest thing that exists to a vegetarian lard. 

Thank goodness I'm playing basketball tonight...  (Come to think of it, what would one of these be like deep fried at the state fair?  ;)

Condescension in the war debate

I know I haven't been writing much here lately.  So here's an e-mail I sent to Anderw Sullivan in response to this post.  The division created by the political climate over the last 10 years has to be overcome somehow.  I'm not yet to forgive and forget yet -- I'll keep trying to get there, but I don't think I'm ready to do it unilaterally.