Quote for the Day IV

"The whole inner world of aware and self-questioning religious persons seems to be territory unexplored by our authors. All around them are millions who spend many moments each day (and hours each week) in communion with God. Yet of the silent and inward parts of these lives - and why these inner silences ring to those who share them so true, and seem more grounded in reality than anything else in life - our writers seem unaware. Surely, if our atheist friends were to reconsider their methods, and deepen their understanding of such terms as 'experience' and 'the empirical,' they might come closer to walking for a tentative while in the moccasins of so many of their more religious companions in life, who find theism more intellectually satisfying - less self-contradictory, less alienating from their own nature - than atheism," - Michael Novak, reviewing the books of Dennett, Dawkins and Harris.

I disagree on Sam, and Novak should have read his first and more substantive book. If any atheist is aware of the mysteries of consciousness, and how people of faith may also be in relation to them it seems to me that Sam fits the bill. He is not dismissive in the way the others are. But Novak's essay is a stirring one, and well worth a read.