Three things of interest to pass on. First, an interesting article from New Scientist: Subliminal advertising may work after all. It reports on a study that found that, contrary to popular opinion, subliminal advertising does not affect people's behavior, unless it offers a choice of something they want. ("Priming only works when the prime is goal-relevant," as one of the scientists who did the study put it.)
Second, the Gilmary Research Center's collection of maps showing the distribution of Religions in the United States. It includes most Christian bodies, Jews, Muslims, Mormons, and Unitarians. I find this kind of thing fascinating.
You will want to note that the color scale marking the percentages of members found in each county in the country differs for the various churches. The darkest color means "more than 50%" for the Catholics and Baptists, but 8.0 to 25.5% for the Episcopalians and 5 to 20% for the Orthodox. And 0.7 to 1.5% for the Unitarians.
Third, the second part of Pope Benedict's Q&A exchange with young people, published by Zenit. In response to a request to "help us to understand better how biblical revelation and scientific theory can converge in the search for truth," he discussed the book of nature written in the language of mathematics and concludes that
mathematics -- in which as such God cannot appear -- shows us the intelligent structure of the universe. . . . Thus, we see that there is a subjective rationality and an objectified rationality in matter which coincide.
Of course, no one can now prove -- as is proven in an experiment, in technical laws -- that they both really originated in a single intelligence, but it seems to me that this unity of intelligence, behind the two intelligences, really appears in our world. And the more we can delve into the world with our intelligence, the more clearly the plan of Creation appears.
Then he concludes:
In the end, to reach the definitive question I would say: God exists or he does not exist. There are only two options. Either one recognizes the priority of reason, of creative reason that is at the beginning of all things and is the principle of all things -- the priority of reason is also the priority of freedom -- or one holds the priority of the irrational, inasmuch as everything that functions on our earth and in our lives would be only accidental, marginal, an irrational result -- reason would be a product of irrationality.
One cannot ultimately "prove" either project, but the great option of Christianity is the option for rationality and for the priority of reason. This seems to me to be an excellent option, which shows us that behind everything is a great Intelligence to which we can entrust ourselves.
However, the true problem challenging faith today seems to me to be the evil in the world: We ask ourselves how it can be compatible with the Creator's rationality. And here we truly need God, who was made flesh and shows us that he is not only a mathematical reason but that this original reason is also love. If we look at the great options, the Christian option today is the one that is the most rational and the most human.
Therefore, we can confidently work out a philosophy, a vision of the world based on this priority of reason, on this trust that the creating reason is love and that this love is God.
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