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TagRoss Douthat

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Colorful space galaxy cloud nebula. Stary night cosmos. Universe science astronomy. Supernova background wallpaper

Ross Douthat Makes the Case that Religious Belief Is Rational

His new book is written largely with the agnostic or full-on atheist in mind but believers would certainly also benefit, as I did
He notes, if our brains evolved merely to help us stay alive, then it’s strange that those same mental states could invent the telescope to explore the cosmos. Read More ›
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James Webb Space Telescope reveals emerging stellar nurseries and individual stars in the Carina Nebula

Douthat: Our Minds Are Tied to Reality

The New York Times columnist thinks everyone should be more religious

“The world is intelligible,” Ross Douthat said to Jonah Goldberg on “The Remnant” podcast. Douthat, an opinion columnist at The New York Times, has a new book coming out on religion and why “everyone should be more religious,” and he joined Goldberg to discuss the book along with our current political landscape. Douthat, a Catholic, referenced fine tuning and the profound evidence of intentional design in nature as one of the motivations for his own faith. He told Goldberg that it’s remarkable that we have minds that are able to accurately comprehend the world around us, let alone the chemical makeup of the universe. Our questioning natures, bent on discovering the truth of things, demonstrate that we live in something Read More ›

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Secret bunker meeting

C.S. Lewis’s “That Hideous Strength” is Making the Rounds Again

NYT columnist Ross Douthat offers his two cents on the dystopian classic

Just last week, Mind Matters editor Peter Biles wrote about That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis, a dystopian novel about a fearsome technocracy trying to conquer humanity. New York Times also wanted in on the fun, too, apparently. Ross Douthat, the conservative voice of the Times’ opinion column, published his latest essay on Lewis’s harrowing tale, and examined its modern pertinence. Douthat acknowledges the possibility of a mega-powerful technocracy, but notes how Lewis believed that on the outside, such an organization may look like the face of progress and humanitarianism. Douthat writes, Crucially, almost nobody in Lewis’s invented organization has any idea that in the inner ring they’re contacting the dark powers. Most people think they’re working for humanitarianism and Read More ›