Bruce Feiler on Word for Word

Bruce Feiler gives a fantastic historically and scripturally-based (from all three traditions) presentation on the Abrahamic tradition. It give motivation for action and hope.
Bruce talks fast. That allows him to say more really good stuff in the allotted time. You can download or listen to the presentation here. (Click on the little blue arrow icon to listen without downloading.)

SWHPL has two of his books - Abraham : a journey to the heart of three faiths and Walking the Bible : a journey by land through the five books of Moses - and a cassette audio book of the Walking the Bible. If those are out, Minerva has many more.

This fits in well with the topic of the Camden Conference which takes place February 22-24, 2008. These books aren't on the reading list, but they might as well be.

Dawkins' divorce and daughter

I've just come across a bit of evidence which may help explain why Richard Dawkins so often leaves scientific method behind when he attacks religion:

Now Dawkins does a wonderful analysis in his book The Selfish Gene, and again in later papers in more detail, of Roman Catholicism. As I'm sure you know he's pretty vehement about Roman Catholicism, largely because his daughter, when he split up from his wife was educated against his will in a Catholic nunnery and it must have been pretty painful for him to see this process happening. So he spells out what happens in Roman Catholicism.

This is from a presentation that Susan Blackmore gave at Pop!Tech in Camden in 2005.

A little more evidence:

He married Marian Stamp in 1967, but they divorced in 1984. Later that year, Dawkins married Eve Barham – with whom he had a daughter, Juliet Emma Dawkins in 1984 – but they, too, subsequently divorced. He married actress Lalla Ward in 1992.

This is from Wikipedia (detailed references for both quotes are here) and should be considered, like everything, in context.

I suggest this piece by Scott Atran as an antidote.