Interdisciplinary Book and Film Reviews

Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy  A Journey into a New Christianity  Through  the Doorway of Matthew's Gospel By John Shelby Spong Reviewed by Geoffrey W. Sutton John Shelby Spong retired as Episcopal Bishop of Newark NJ in 2000. He is a strong voice for Progressive Christians. In Biblical Literalism , Spong offers an easy to read commentary on Matthew's Gospel that reveals the Jewish roots of the stories, which are presented in the context of the Jewish calendar. Spong opines that Christians who read the bible in a literal or near literal fashion and ignore Jewish culture cannot understand the gospel, which was written by a Jewish man for a Jewish audience decades after Jesus' ministry. Spong reminds (or informs) readers that the story of Jesus in the New Testament begin with the early letters of Paul. Years later, we get Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. Paul's story of Jesus is limited and what he leaves out is significant. Mark'

THE END OF FAITH:  RELIGION, TERROR, AND THE FUTURE OF REASON      By      Sam Harris Reviewed by      Geoffrey W. Sutton The 9/11 Islamic terrorists emblazoned the psychological truism of the path from belief to behavior on the minds of millions. The world saw the lethiferous power of religious belief. We witnessed the purpose driven death. Sam Harris pummels readers with invidious images of destruction associated with religious belief. We may well dispute many of his conclusions but the ineluctable truth is that beliefs matter. At times acerbic, Harris has prepared a puissant polemic focused primarily upon the terror of Islam with ample scathing visited upon Christianity and Judaism.  His thesis is that the beliefs of religious people have become unhinged from reason to the point that meaningful conversations cannot take place.  He asserts that reason is in exile (chapter 1) and that survival requires a return from unproven beliefs to evidenced-based reason when makin

Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon     By    Daniel C. Dennett Reviewed by   Geoffrey S. Sutton One Sunday I had the occasion to view both spells in action. A Christian scholar was presenting various theological perspectives on the apocalypse when an attorney interrupted with challenges to the speaker’s shifting from literal to metaphorical interpretations and to textual problems with the doctrine of the trinity. At one point, the theologian, notably frustrated with the challenger, raised his hands, and decried that he did not know the answers to all the questions, noting that humans are ‘‘peanut-brained’’ (repeated twice for emphasis), and that anyone who pretended to understand such mysteries was arrogant.  And that is the problem in discussing religion. It is notably hard to analyze using logic and any questioner is cursed (though I suspect the lawyer had been called worse than "peanut-brained").In this blog, I will summarize and

Church afire 2023 Geoffrey W Sutton & Bing AI When Religion Becomes Evil:      Five Warning Signs:  Revised and Updated By  Charles Kimball Reviewed by   Geoffrey W. Sutton   In the aftermath of 9/11 and during the onslaught of religion-damning missives from the ‘‘evangelical atheists’’ Dawkins (2006), Hitchens (2007), and Harris (2004), Kimball provides a ‘‘gentle introduction to the critical study of comparative religion’’ (p. vi). In seven chapters, he outlines five  critical ways that religion can lead to tragic, even violent outcomes, and offers suggestions that may promote better relationships between people of different religious traditions. In the end, he argues for respect for diverse faiths and traditions. Kimball is uniquely qualified to write this informative  work. He is an ordained Baptist minister and a professor of comparative religion at Wake Forest University. He obtained his doctorate from Harvard University in comparative religion where he specialized in

GOD IS NOT GREAT:  HOW RELIGION POISONS      EVERYTHING By    Christopher Hitchens Reviewed by    Geoffrey W. Sutton Hitchens begins his pungent polemic against religion by explaining how he came to question religious teaching as a child (chapter 1). Following a  deconversion experience  associated with a teacher's simplistic description  of reality covered with a simple religious gloss,  Hitchens reflects upon perceived oddities in scripture and child-abusing clergy. Next,  Hitchens adumbrates his thesis as:  four irreducible objections to religious faith: 1. that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original 2. error it manages to combine the maximum of servility with the maximum of solipsism, 3. that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and 4. that is ultimately grounded on with-thinking. (p. 4) Hitchens covers familiar grounds in his attack of religious faith with each chapter a blow

THE CASE FOR GOD            By Karen Armstrong. Reviewed by Geoffrey W. Sutton Karen Armstrong is a leader in religious affairs. A former Roman Catholic nun, she is a best-selling British author with demonstrated expertise in the monotheistic faiths. In addition to her many speaking engagements, she is a United Nations Ambassador for the Alliance of Civilizations. The Case for God is a misnomer. In the introduction, Armstrong explains her plan to review the history of religious thinking, which illustrates her theme that worldviews have changed in recent decades. Before the age of reason, people sought meaningful ways to view life events; hence, mythos provided guidance and functioned as a primitive psychology. As people learned ways to control their lives and the environment, a greater emphasis on logos (reason) developed. Eventually, these two perspectives appeared disparate. An important part of her thesis is the notion that belief has changed. Religion has bee