The Smidgin

From The Economist’s review of The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why it Endures:

Charles Darwin, whose idea of the sacred also came from an English private school, witnessed religion at its most primordial when he went to Australia in 1836. He found it horrifying: “nearly naked figures, viewed by the light of blazing fires, all moving in hideous harmony…”

Whatever Darwin’s personal sensibilities, Mr Wade is convinced that a Darwinian approach offers the key to understanding religion. In other words, he sides with those who think man’s propensity for religion has some adaptive function. According to this view, faith would not have persisted over thousands of generations if it had not helped the human race to survive. Among evolutionary biologists, this idea is contested. Critics of religion, like Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker, suggest that faith is a useless (or worse) by-product of other human characteristics.

It has come to my attention through self-reflection that it is about time to start reading again. This is not the first time this has happened. (Incidentally, I did not plan to start this post in an identical manner, but the coincidence seemed too good to abandon.) Not just reading anything will do, however. Specifically reading the Greats.

When one lives in Washington, DC, it is an unfortunately common occurrence to find oneself in a political, philosophical, or otherwise worldview-oriented conversations. While I generally find these interesting and (if I may flatter myself) am able to in some small way hold my own, I have realized that I need a firmer grounding in the means of understanding.

I could, like Descartes, choose to lock myself in a room until I suddenly comprehend the world around me. Or I could not reinvent the wheel. I would also like a solution that involves you, dear reader. Read the rest of this entry »

It has come to my attention that I have piles of books appearing around my apartment.  Books that I have bought, books that I have checked out from the library, books lent me by friends.  The one thing they all have in common is that they are all books I have been intending to read for some time now. Read the rest of this entry »