Over at ABC News, Ki Mae Heussner reports on a Diane Sawyer interview of the renowned physicist Stephen Hawking with this contentious headline: “Stephen Hawking on Religion: Science Will Win.” This is an unfortunate banner. During the interview, Sawyer asked if religion and science could be reconciled. Hawking’s response was profoundly unhelpful:
“There is a fundamental [...]
Tags:animism·anthropomorphic·anthropomorphism·Babylon·Babylonian high god·city-states·Diane Sawyer·earthly kings·gods·Hebrews·hunter-gatherers·Judaism·Ki Mae Heussner·Levant·Mesopotamia·Neolithic·Neolithic Revolution·religion·Roy Rosenberg·science·spirits·spiritual kings·Stephen Hawking·supernatural thinking·Yahweh·Yahweh Becomes King
In a splendidly illustrated and nicely argued open access article appearing in the journal Neurosurgery, Ian Suk and Rafael Tamargo contend that Michelangelo included a portion of the human brain on God’s neck in his Sistine Chapel fresco, “Separation of Light from Darkness,” which was painted in 1511. I have used another of those frescos [...]
Tags:anatomy·brain·Creation of Adam·excommunication·fresco·God·god concept·heresy·Ian Suk·imagination·Ludwig Feuerbach·Michelangelo·neurobiology·Neurosurgery·projection·Rafael Tamargo·Separation of Light from Darkness·Sistine Chapel·supernatural thinking·The Essence of Christianity
A few months ago, the cognitive archaeologist David Lewis-Williams published Conceiving God: The Cognitive Origin and Evolution of Religion. When I saw the title, I worried that perhaps I had been scooped. Now that I have nearly finished the book, my worry has passed. Lewis-Williams’ title is a bit deceiving, given that the book combines [...]
Tags:A Mind So Rare: The Evolution of Human Consciousness·altered states of consciousness·cognition·consciousness·David Lewis-Williams·Francis Crick·Gerald Edelman·Merlin Donald·Richard Dawkins·Sam Harris·supernatural thinking·The Conscious Brain·Thomas Nagel·What Is It Like To Be a Bat?
There are many stories in the news today about the remarkable behavior of our closest living relatives, chimpanzees. Based on genetic and fossil evidence, it seems likely that we last shared a common ancestor with chimpanzees approximately 6-7 million years ago.
As reported by Michael Balter in Science, chimps living in a zoo consoled a dying [...]
Tags:Barbara King·chimpanzees·commonsense dualism·supernatural thinking·theory of mind
