Overheard

I have to recognize that I am agnostic. I don't believe in any kind of fundamentalism. I prefer to take life in a different way, with a sense of humor. I try to teach my kids to be open.

Actor Antonio Banderas
People Magazine, April 17, 2006

Q. In your new book, "The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God and World Affairs," you admit to having underestimated the role that religion would come to play in foreign affairs.

People were unprepared for it. I was unprepared for it. What I grew up with was the "rational actor" model of foreign policy--the idea that you're dealing with someone who is going through a rational process and not a spiritual process.

One could argue that it's wholly rational to be spiritual.

No. Rational is logical, and not faith-based. A rational actor calculates the cost-benefit ratio of things.

You were trained to try to contain Communism, which was godless.

People my age who were trained in history and policy would always say, "Foreign policy is very complicated, and if you bring God in, it's even more complicated."

Madeleine Albright interview
New York Times, April 23, 2006

The problem with thinking about heaven is that you then have to think about hell. The irony of our culture is people are constantly telling other people to go to hell, but no one tells them to go to heaven.

The big question we still have to ask is not where we're going, but what were we doing here in the first place?

Columnist Art Buchwald
Writing from a hospice
Tribune Media Service, March 19, 2006

Now that the GOP has been transformed by the rise of the South, the trauma of terrorism and George W. Bush's conviction that God wanted him to be president, a deeper conclusion can be drawn: The Republican party has become the first religious party in U.S. history.

Today, a leading power such as the United States approaches theocracy when it meets their conditions currently on display: an elected leader who believes himself to speak for the Almighty, a ruling political party that represents religious true believers, the certainty of many Republican voters that government should be guided by religion and, on top of it all, a White House that adopts agendas seemingly animated by biblical worldviews.

Kevin Phillips, author
American Theocracy
"How the GOP Became God's Own Party"
Washington Post, April 2, 2006

A belief that the Earth was formed in 4004 BC is not consistent with the evidence from geology, astronomy and physics that the solar system, including Earth, formed about 4,600 million years ago.

Young people are poorly served by deliberate attempts to withhold, distort or misrepresent scientific knowledge and understanding in order to promote particular religious beliefs.

Royal Society Statement Against Creationism in Schools
BBC News, April 11, 2006

It would have been no more difficult for God to preserve the words of Scripture than it would have been for him to inspire them in the first place. . . . The fact that we don't have the words surely must show, I reasoned, that he did not preserve them for us. And if he didn't perform that miracle, there seemed to be no reason to think that he performed the earlier miracle of inspiring those words.

Author Bart D. Ehrman
Misquoting Jesus
New York Times Books, April 2, 2006

The idea of an afterlife where you can be reunited with loved ones can be immensely consoling--though not to me. But to maintain such a belief in the face of all the evidence to the contrary is truly bewildering.

Biologist Richard Dawkins
Guardian interview, Jan. 10, 2006

The Jesus of the Gospels is not a great ethical teacher like Socrates, our leading humanitarian. He is an apocalyptic figure who steps outside the boundaries of normal morality to signal that the Father's judgment is breaking into history. His miracles were not acts of charity but eschatological signs--accepting the unclean, promising heavenly rewards, making last things first.

The Gospels are scary, dark and demanding. It is not surprising that people want to tame them, dilute them, make them into generic encouragements to be loving and peaceful and fair. If that is all they are, then we may as well make Socrates our redeemer.

Garry Wills
"Christ among the Partisans"
Chicago Tribune, April 9, 2006

[T]hough Christian belief remains strong in some European countries, like Poland, and Islam is a potent force among Muslims across the Continent, contemporary Europe is the closest thing to a godless civilization the world has ever known.

Prof. Mark Lilla
University of Chicago
"Godless Europe"
New York Times, April 2, 2006

Doubt is the answer and the path to peace. . . For religious certainty is the bane and blunder of [hu]mankind, the evidence of which is writ in torture and blood on the pages of history.

Perry Mann
[Charleston, WV] Gazette-Mail column
Feb. 5, 2006