Archimedes’ Hot Tub

New York magazine has a funny, pungent interview with Christopher Hitchens, sparked by his new book “God Is Not Great.”

I read a chapter of it in a bookstore recently, and was disappointed by what I read. Hitchens invoked novels as proofs, for instance, and the book itself is long-winded compared to something like Bertrand Russell’s “Why I Am Not A Christian.”

But in the interview Hitchens shows a more flexible mind than I’d expected. And he is pithy (though one can never really tell in Q&A formats). I suspect the interviewer pared down his real thoughts on Jewish Hellenism and the impact of Hellenism on Christianity and even Islam. Hitchens surely knows that these religions are infused with Hellenism, but that they’ve resisted to varying degrees the Hellenistic subjugation of the mystical to reason. He also must know that even amongst the Greeks, reason won out primarily in the upper crust, spwaning a kind of ennui that was no help to the Greeks as Rome rose. In any case, perhaps I’ll look at his book again (though Lord knows, Hitchens is just the latest in a long line to argue the point in his title).

I wrote about Jane McGonigal, a professional puppet master, a couple of years ago in a piece for San Francisco magazine that should have been much longer (its clever title was Playgirl). She’s now designing games at the Institute for the Future. About a week ago she put out a new alternate reality game World Without Oil. It’s an intriguing concept and I hope to get a chance to plunge into it soon.

L0pht in Transition is a feature I wrote for CSO magazine on the L0pht, a prominent information security research collective in the 1990s. I was interested in them as a symbol for the security industry itself. In addition, I wanted to show something of the hacker as human being, instead of mystery nerd.

National Geographic’s February issue has what is the best interview I’ve seen with Francis Collins, a leading scientist whose professed Christianity makes him much despised by scientists who fear religion. There is, for instance, no discussion of Collins’ conversion experience while hiking, which was obviously powerful for him but doesn’t translate so well for those of us who weren’t there (at least, it doesn’t translate well for me). Instead, the interview presents Collins as a thoughtful, humorous man who struggles with difficult issues like free will, and how we can tell when God is present.
He also, in response to a question on neurotheology, gives an answer that shows why science and faith have felt tension since the ancient Greeks invented reason:

I think it’s fascinating but not particularly surprising. We humans are flesh and blood. So it wouldn’t trouble me—if I were to have some mystical experience myself—to discover that my temporal lobe was lit up. That doesn’t mean that this doesn’t have genuine spiritual significance. Those who come at this issue with the presumption that there is nothing outside the natural world will look at this data and say, “Ya see?” Whereas those who come with the presumption that we are spiritual creatures will go, “Cool! There is a natural correlate to this mystical experience! How about that!”

I wrote this piece about Steve Bigari, who is rethinking the systemic issues that affect America’s working poor.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/business/yourmoney/04bigari.html (It’s New York Times, so subscription required. For more on Bigari, his foundation is here: http://www.amfol.com).