David Brooks almost sorta gets it right.

[Warpy]

In their arguments with Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, the faithful have been defending the existence of God. That was the easy debate. The real challenge is going to come from people who feel the existence of the sacred, but who think that particular religions are just cultural artifacts built on top of universal human traits. It’s going to come from scientists whose beliefs overlap a bit with Buddhism.

In unexpected ways, science and mysticism are joining hands and reinforcing each other. That’s bound to lead to new movements that emphasize self-transcendence but put little stock in divine law or revelation. Orthodox believers are going to have to defend particular doctrines and particular biblical teachings. They’re going to have to defend the idea of a personal God, and explain why specific theologies are true guides for behavior day to day. I’m not qualified to take sides, believe me. I’m just trying to anticipate which way the debate is headed. We’re in the middle of a scientific revolution. It’s going to have big cultural effects.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/opinion/13brooks.html?_r=1&8ty&emc=ty&oref=slogin

It's an interesting take on things from a believer's point of view.

[msongs]

1. the big 3 religions are based on total fear - of hell and of non-believers nt

[bunkerbuster1]

2. This is the least-stupid thing I've seen from Bobo Brooks in awhile

Ok, maybe I should be fair and say that he's actually written a pretty thoughtful piece.

for him.

[Warpy]

4. Exactly. It's why I posted it.

I admit to being gobsmacked.

[Warren DeMontague]

3. As an atheist, Christopher Hitchens no more speaks for me than Pat Robertson speaks for all

Christians.

That fat, bloated drunk's 15 minutes ran out shilling for Bush and Bush's war, so now he's got another reason to liquor it up in the green room of various talk shows.

But he's hardly some kind of "Atheist spokesperson".

I'm glad Dawkins is out there making the case for evolution (sorry, David, that is the "Easy Debate"- because the facts and evidence are solidly on the side of evolutionary science and not creationism) but while Dawkins's tone is, I think, a rational response (if you'll excuse the pun) to the many excesses we see committed by theism globally today, again I don't know if he represents anything like a "majority" of Atheists, who are, after all, only people who don't believe in "God" (whatever that word is supposed to mean).

[varkam]

5. David Brooks writes something worth reading? Say whaaat?!?

I'm not exactly sure what Brooks means, though, when he says that neuroscience has shifted away from a die-hard materialism.

It hasn't.

The question of whether or not consciousness arises from purely physical properties of the brain is, for all scientific purposes, a dead one. It's pretty clear that it does. The only question that really remains (and might remain for quite some time) is how exactly that occurs.

Thanks for posting, Warpy! :hi:

[Jim__]

6. science and mysticism are joining hands and reinforcing each other?

I haven't seen any evidence of that; and I didn't see any such evidence cited in the article.

[Warpy]

7. No, you didn't, but his article did reflect

what was contained in Einstein's letter being auctioned this week.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. There's a bit of that in Sam Harris's stuff

See eg:

My views on “mystical” or “spiritual” experience are extensively described in The End of Faith (and in several articles available on this website) and do not entail the acceptance of anything on faith. There is simply no question that people have transformative experiences as a result of engaging contemplative disciplines like meditation, and there is no question that these experiences shed some light on the nature of the human mind (any experience does, for that matter). What is highly questionable are the metaphysical claims that people tend to make on the basis of such experiences. I do not make any such claims. Nor do I support the metaphysical claims of others.

There are several neuroscience labs now studying the effects of meditation on the brain. While I am not personally engaged in this research, I know many of the scientists who are. This is now a fertile area of sober inquiry, purposed toward understanding the possibilities of human well-being better than we do at present.

While I consider Buddhism almost unique among the world’s religions as a repository of contemplative wisdom, I do not consider myself a Buddhist. My criticism of Buddhism as a faith has been published, to the consternation of many Buddhists. It is available here:

Killing the Buddha

http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/response-to-controversy2/

Brooks seems to be mentioning the same things that Harris does, but is possibly reading more into it, in metaphysical terms.