Heather Mac Donald strikes again
Posted by Joseph Knippenberg
She’s an atheist, indeed a loud and arrogant one, but, nevertheless she is "in awe of" the "power" of neuroscience and says that "we should all be on our knees" before "the most astounding creations of Western civilization." Sounds to me like she’s worshipping something.
Hat tip: Ramesh Ponnuru.
4:19 PM / January 13, 2007
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I’ll take Joe’s word on her "arrogance," and his hint about her Reason-magazine-like worship of technological progress is merited. However, (and I haven’t read the American Conservative piece) Mac Donald seems rather sincere in this interview. The theological questions she poses about petionary ones are genuinely tough ones, ones that I still wrestle with. Evangelical theologian Donald Bloesch’s book on prayer seems to my mind one of the better ones that deals with such questions.
I’d also say she’s had a number of unfortunately misrepresentative encounters with religious conservatives, or at least, those are the ones that stick in her mind.
Carl,
Those are fair comments. I agree that the issue of prayer is very complicated, much more compicated than Mac Donald in her anti-clerical mode seems to see. And I agree that she seems to have run into people who aren’t exactly Christ-like in their humility. But this isn’t the way to erect a big tent...on either side.