Jonathan's Web Journal: Response to Sam Harris's 'Science on the Brink of Death'

In Sam Harris's recent blog post "Science on the Brink of Death" it's worth noting that Steve Paulson is interviewing the guy in question. Paulson is a "Templeton wonder boy," and host of the Wisconsin Public Radio program "To the best of our knowledge."

Paulson's connection to Templeton:
http://www.templeton-cambridge.org/fellows/showfellow.php?fellow=6

Paulson's got a lot of smoke to help blow, everywhere he can. But mention of Paulson & public radio reminds me of another public radio host with a Templeton connection, Templeton wondergirl Krista Tippett.
http://www.templeton.org/what-we-fund/grants/krista-tippett-on-being-pursues-the-big-questions

My current responses:
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2012/11/nobel-prize-winner-harry-kroto-michael.html

And a response video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nj4KIix2vI

Steve Paulson is very interested indeed in blowing smoke about "spiritual realities" and Templeton loves him for it.

Here is a great website I just found on the whole issue:

http://www.skepdic.com/essays/templeton.html

"...The subtext is clear: secular science alone can’t solve our problems. We must seek our answers in a realm that includes the non-secular..."

"...The TF’s anti-secularism is also evident from the fact that Taylor was nominated for the Templeton prize by the Rev. David A. Martin, Ph.D., emeritus professor of sociology at the London School of Economics and author of A General Theory of Secularization, which, among other things, laments the way religion has been marginalized by sociology and pushed to the periphery of significance in some quarters. (Taylor wrote a blurb for the back cover of Martin’s follow-up: On Secularization: Towards A Revised General Theory, published in 2005.) Taylor’s latest work, A Secular Age, was published last September by Belknap Press. It is being promoted as “the definitive examination of secularization and the modern world.” At 896 pages, it is certainly the heftiest examination of religion in a secular world..."

"...Those who argue that our only hope for peace on earth is to become purely secular will never win the Templeton prize. To win the Templeton Prize, one must be selective and focus on those aspects of 'spirituality' that don’t involve bigotry, hatred, ignorance, or superstition. If you ignore many religions, many religious beliefs, and many religious practices, you can come up with a fine set of ideas showing how spirituality must move back to the center from the periphery if we wish to live free in a new golden age. I look at it a little differently than Charles Taylor does. In my opinion, secularism is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for peace on earth and for understanding the things of this universe. Religion, on the other hand, is a sufficient but not a necessary condition for continued misery and obfuscation of even the simplest truths..."

"...For a million dollars, I'll tell them why that’s so. For another million, I’ll do it in 900 pages..."