The essence of Christianity should be obvious. Love as its foundation isn’t some obscure theological discovery requiring centuries of scholarly debate—it’s there in Scripture, clear as day. The early Christians understood this. Yet somehow, between then and now, we’ve managed to obscure something that should be self-evident.
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Opening Our Minds: Why Science Shouldn’t Reject Ideas That Sound Religious
When Christian apologists point to unsolved mysteries in science as potential evidence for their faith, they often overreach. These mysteries don’t specifically validate Christianity—but dismissing them entirely may be equally problematic. The scientific community risks making a critical error: rejecting entire classes of explanations not because they lack merit, but simply because they bear a superficial resemblance to religious concepts.
Continue readingKelvin’s Clouds and Pascal’s Wager
A recent comment on my latest post got me thinking about how Pascal’s Wager compares with the perspective I’ve been developing here.
Pascal’s Wager argues that it is more rational to believe in God than not. The reasoning is that if God exists and you do not believe, the loss is infinitely negative (eternal death). But if you do believe and God exists, the gain is infinitely positive (eternal life). The wager assumes that, since we cannot know the truth with certainty, we must make a choice within that uncertainty.
At first glance, this sounds very similar to the perspective that I’ve been developing here: the recognition that ultimate truth is beyond our reach, and so the real question becomes—where do we place our hope?
Continue readingWondering About Truth and Science
Science is often celebrated as humanity’s most powerful tool for uncovering the nature of reality. From the mechanics of the cosmos to the intricacies of biology, science has radically expanded our understanding and transformed the way we live. Its success, particularly when applied through technology, is undeniable. But should we take this as a sign that science is the only valid way to seek truth?
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The Hard Problem of a Love-Based Society
An earlier post touched on the difficulty of building societies grounded in love, especially when viewed through the lens of evolutionary theory. In particular, the idea made famous by Richard Dawkins—that we are, in a sense, vehicles for “selfish genes”—poses a profound challenge. According to this view, the behaviors and traits that have been favored by evolution are those that enhance the survival and replication of genes, often at the expense of others. Even altruism, when it does appear, is typically explained as a strategy that ultimately serves genetic self-interest.
This perspective doesn’t necessarily mean we are doomed to be selfish in every interaction. Social cooperation, empathy, even self-sacrifice, can all arise under the right conditions. But if these behaviors are essentially byproducts of a deeper drive for genetic success, then what does it mean to hope for a society built on selfless love? Can such a vision be anything more than a noble exception to nature’s dominant rule?
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Dawkins’ Hope
In The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins presents the provocative idea that, although humans are shaped by evolutionary forces that favor selfish behavior, we are also capable of choosing to rise above this inherent selfishness. He argues that we are not prisoners of our genetic programming—we can choose altruism, compassion, and cooperation. However, Dawkins offers no clear explanation for how or why humans possess this capacity to override our evolutionary instincts. Presumably, he would regard it as an unintended byproduct of other advanced cognitive traits that evolved for different reasons—an emergent property rather than a designed feature.
But this remains speculative. From a strictly naturalistic perspective, there’s little reason to assume that humans are fundamentally different from other animals when it comes to the ability to transcend self-interest. Evolution does not inherently favor such choices unless they serve a reproductive or survival advantage. Therefore, while Dawkins’ call to “rise above” our selfish genes is inspiring, it risks being dismissed as mere wishful thinking unless grounded in something more substantial—something that can account for both the origin and the power of such a choice.
One way to make sense of this idea is to think of it as a shift in focus—from self to others. This is a useful lens through which to understand a particular kind of love: not the romantic or emotional kind often labeled as “love,” but rather a self-giving, other-centered orientation. In this view, love becomes synonymous with freedom from selfishness. It is the active decision to prioritize another’s well-being above one’s own—a deliberate act of self-transcendence.
Perhaps the clearest and most developed articulation of this concept is found in Christianity. The tradition repeatedly affirms love as the highest virtue: “God is love,” “For God so loved the world,” “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love, in the Christian vision, is not merely a private feeling but a foundational force meant to permeate all human relationships. While not all expressions of Christianity have lived up to this ideal, many of the earliest Christian communities, as recorded in both scripture and history, exhibited striking examples of sacrificial love and radical generosity. Despite the faith’s many failings over time, Christianity has nevertheless served as a foundational influence on Western ethical and moral values, precisely because it cast love—understood as the defeat of selfishness—as central to human flourishing.
At the heart of this transformative vision is the idea that humans are created “in the image of God.” Though interpretations of this phrase vary widely, its core implication is that human beings are distinct from the rest of the animal kingdom in some essential way. This uniqueness may be precisely what allows for the possibility of breaking free from purely instinctual, self-centered behavior. If we bear some reflection of the divine—if we are more than just sophisticated animals—then perhaps the call to rise above our selfish genes is not merely a hopeful aspiration but a real and attainable path.
(Note, this essay used AI to polish the writing, but the ideas, content, and overall organization are mine.)
The Conscious Universe: A Counterpoint to Cosmic Indifference
There is a statement made by Richard Dawkins that is often quoted as a succinct, simple description of the mechanistic nature of the universe. It is from his 1995 book called “River Out of Eden”:
“The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”
—Richard Dawkins in River Out of Eden, 1995.
This oft-quoted statement presents a stark view of our universe—one devoid of design, purpose, good and evil, and possessed only of “blind, pitiless indifference.” While this mechanistic perspective may appear compelling when contemplating the vastness of cosmic scales, it falters significantly when we consider the extraordinary phenomenon of consciousness that exists within this same universe.
Continue readingExtrapolating Scientific Confidence
Throughout human history, our understanding of the natural world has grown exponentially through scientific inquiry. This remarkable progress has led many to conclude that science will eventually explain everything, reducing all mysteries to well-understood physical processes. However, this conclusion relies on a dangerous form of extrapolation that fails to account for recent developments in our understanding of knowledge itself.
When analyzing any system, mathematics allows us to estimate unknown values through interpolation – predicting behavior between known data points. While this approach is generally reliable, extending predictions beyond known observations through extrapolation is far more precarious. This distinction becomes crucial when we examine our assumptions about the future of scientific knowledge.
Continue readingThe Pendulum Swing of Evidence
It is often stated that there is no evidence for God. That’s an easy conclusion to draw if we limit our understanding of the world to the way it seems to operate in day-to-day life. This includes the level of science and technology that we encounter on a regular basis today – things like smart phones with GPS and instant worldwide communication, modern medicine with vaccines and transplants, and AI that has made computers conversational and seemingly creative. In all these things, most people see no clear evidence for God’s existence and in fact, see evidence for the success of modern science and technology.
Given such observations, our minds usually generalize and conclude that they represent the fundamental nature of reality. In other words, what we see is all there is.1 We construct a story that explains what we see and then believe that the story represents all reality. It is then easy to reinforce this with selective learning, confirmation bias, and so on.
Continue readingCritical Thinking and Religion
I’ve heard it said by atheists that religion lacks critical thinking. The general idea seems to be that there’s no rational basis for being religious, so anyone who is, must not be thinking carefully about it. If they did think carefully, they would presumably realize that they were in error.
Although the term “critical thinking” is not always used, I think it does capture the essence of the critique.
Obviously, I don’t agree with this viewpoint; I think that there are many religious people who think carefully about their beliefs. While it might be interesting to address this idea directly, when hearing such a statement being made recently, I started thinking about what we mean by “critical thinking” and what some of the challenges are in general with thinking carefully.
A simple place to start is with the Wikipedia entry for Critical Thinking, which lists a number of abilities that critical thinking calls for. These include things like recognizing problems, thinking clearly and logically, understanding and communicating well, and so on.
One particular group of items in the list has to do with the necessity of seeking information on a topic and testing our existing ideas. This group from Wikipedia is:
- Gather and marshal pertinent (relevant) information
- Put to test the conclusions and generalizations at which one arrives
- Reconstruct one’s patterns of beliefs on the basis of wider experience
These seem to describe the need to look around and get relevant information, use it to test our beliefs, and do this on an ongoing basis as new information becomes available and perhaps as our life experiences grow. Implied in the first bullet, I think, is to make sure the information gathered covers the topic completely and is not cherry-picked such as when we fall prey to confirmation bias and echo chambers.
In a nutshell, to test our beliefs on an ongoing basis.
Whether this is a perfect list or not, I think it presents the idea that we need to be open and that doing so is a deliberate and ongoing choice.
All too often, and perhaps this is one place where religion falls short, we limit our search for information to places that are likely to have the same biases that we do, thereby reinforcing our opinions rather than testing them.
This is well-known behavior for religious people, reinforced by communities of faith, regular church activities, and so on. As a result, it can take real effort for religious people to learn about other metaphysical views and to test their own. Considering the list above, this may, indeed, be one way that religious people lack critical thinking, if they are not engaging with alternate viewpoints.
It’s less clear that secular people encounter such regular reinforcing activities other than the fact that our culture is increasingly secular. However, this is not a trivial influence, especially in today’s science and technology-dominated world. If I was a secular person interested in learning more about carefully considered religious views, I probably wouldn’t know where to start, unless I was lucky enough to know someone.
Certainly the popular presentations of religious beliefs wouldn’t work.
As a result, whether intentional or not, it seems that secular people can fall into the same trap as religious people of not really learning about different views in the variety and depth needed to test one’s own perspectives. Both groups being composed of people, the common tendency to stay in our own intellectual comfort zones likely operates both ways.
Personally, I’ve had a hard time finding places for deep, considered discussions of such metaphysical topics. If we were talking about something that had little or no practical impact on society and life, perhaps like sports, this might not be a big deal. But these issues are society-shaping questions that influence how we treat each other, and they form the basis of our systems of morals and ethics.
It seems to me that if one is going to feel strongly enough about these matters to comment on other’s beliefs and perhaps even work to silence them, then it’s incumbent upon us to think critically about these things from both sides, and this includes listening and learning carefully.
Kelvin's Clouds 