Categories: uncategorized
Date: 06 September 2007 07:29:55
Science is the thing I don't normally do, having spent more time in science lessons at school learning about 80's pop stars than properties of chemicals. However I'm trying to overcome my fear an ickle, I've registered for an introductory level OU course and today I actually purchased a copy of the New Scientist magazine.
To be fair I got the magazine because the cover advertised an article inside by saying "If morality is hard-wired in the brain what's the point of religion?" and I thought it may be some good extension reading for my A2 students. Anyway I've read the article and unsurprisingly, because it weighs up all the current research, it comes to a sitting on the fence type of conclusion.
What struck me reading this and the Humphry's extract in the Sunday Times was the way that the "rational establishment" appears to be distancing itself from Dawkins and the secular fundamentalism of recent years. There seems to be a change of tide occuring which recognises, as the final sentence of the article says "Like it or not, religion remains an important part of what we are."
That doesn't mean I think we are about to see revival break out, but I think it does mean the climate in which we practice our beliefs and share them with others may be an ickle easier than it has been recently.