What it is about them that inspires me to start blogging is that in both instances I see that the blogger's chosen area of concentration, religion for one and philosophy more generally for the other, contribute little to their capacities to understand the world in the contexts of modern science and contemporary information aggregation and dissemination. Both bloggers make explicit and implicit claims of sound understanding in these contexts and both claim to have studied these areas in some depth. Yet those same lenses they choose to look through leave them with distorted conceptions of the world and unable to recognize or remedy their misunderstandings.
This makes sense to me since neither philosophy nor religion has a standard it can use for correctness the way science uses nature. Neither is accountable for its conclusions and neither is expected to provide reliable answers for any matter they address.
In neither case do I mean the bloggers any ill-will. I want to address some of the ideas of these two because they reflect the flawed thinking embraced and perpetuated by many. Most people living in modern societies are completely dependent on science and technology for every bite of food and every drink of water; every home, school, hospital, and church; every antibiotic, birth control pill, vaccine, and analgesic; every e-mail, text message, video game, cable show and facebook friend; every birth, death, personal relationship, and conception of attractiveness; every desire, goal, and idea about meaning and purpose. Science and technology provides many of these things directly, and what it does not provide, it impacts in many ways from many directions.
In my first few posts I'll discuss some of these two blogger's specific notions and explain how religious and philosophical tools they use leave them ill-equipped to understand the science and technology based world they live in.
