Freeman Dyson has a long and thoughtful essay on religion* in the latest New York Review of Books. He takes a kindly, even-handed view–here’s just one sample:
… physicist Stephen Weinberg [said]: “Good people* * will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad thingsthat takes religion.”
Weinberg’s statement is true as far as it goes, but it is not the whole truth. To make it the whole truth, we must add an additional clause: “And for bad people to do good thingsthat takes religion.”
Dyson also challenges Daniel Dennett’s claim that suicide bombers should be thrown into the balance sheet against “religion.”
Someone needs to update Godwin’s Law for the Aughties, when all the opponents of hotheads are somehow like terrrorists.
* Disclosure: IANARP (I am not a religious person), but some of my best friends are, and so are/were some of the people I most admire.
* * Bonus “people” quote. No, make that a totally gratuitous “people” quote, from Singin’ in the Rain:
Miss Lina Lamont: “People”? I ain’t “people.” I am a – “a shimmering, glowing star in the cinema firmament.”