Posted by Hemant Mehta in Steven Pinker (author of The Blank Slate) and Rebecca Goldstein (author of The Mind-Body Problem) were interviewed on Salon.com today.
Here’s what the intellectual powerhouse of a couple had to say on religion:
Do both of you consider yourselves atheists?
[pause] GOLDSTEIN: Yes.
PINKER: Yes.
GOLDSTEIN: Proud atheists.
PINKER: There, we said it. [Laughs.]
So you have to hesitate for a moment before you use that dirty word?
PINKER: Atheists are the most reviled minority in the United States, so it’s no small matter to come out and say it.
…
But can you really equate religion with astrology, or religion with alchemy? No serious scholar still takes astrology or alchemy seriously. But there’s a lot of serious thinking about religion.
PINKER: I would put faith in that same category because faith is believing something without a good reason to believe it. I would put it in the same category as astrology and alchemy.
Those are fighting words!
GOLDSTEIN: [Laughs.] He said it, not me.
The rest of the interview is fascinating, too, if you’re into that “intelligent conversation” thing.
(via A Whore in the Temple of Reason)
[tags]atheist, atheism[/tags]
Interesting article. I like what I’ve read, in other articles, from Pinker in the past, although I have never (yet) read any of his books. I had no idea that Goldstein and Pinker were together. They sound like the perfect, nerdy match.
I just bought “The Language Instinct” by Pinker last week, used, for a buck! I haven’t started reading it, yet. I’d never heard of him, but since buying the book his name keeps popping up wherever I look.I bought the book out of an interest in linguistics, I didn’t know he was an atheist, too.