10 takeaways from David Wolpe's "Why Faith Matters"

They serve different purposes.

This is so simple and obvious and yet I never really thought of that. I think it's a good counter-argument to the idea that religion causes violence.

It seems that Wolpe does admit that there have been misuses and misinterpretations of religion which have led to horrible things. However, he thinks this is just one tiny part of it, due to humans not being perfect.

I can't remember the numbers he cited, but I think it was something like a few dozens or maybe a few hundreds per year. I'm not a fan of the Guardian but they have an article on it (I haven't read it).

I don't know anything about the Inquisition, though. And maybe this is the equivalent of Holocaust denial. I have no idea.

It's supposed to make you ponder questions.

This is so obvious and yet it never crossed my mind. We always hear and talk about the bad aspects of religion (some criticisms may be fair, some not), but this doesn't necessarily mean that religion is mostly bad. What if so much good in the world is being done thanks to religious belief?

There was a brief passage about how the story that's commonly told about Galilelo and the Church is inaccurate. I wish he had explained more about this.

I think Wolpe made a bit of a big leap here. It's one thing to criticize the idea that evolutionary biology can explain absolutely everything, but then he says that the fact that we care about people outside of our immediate circle must be due to faith. He uses a very moving story to illustrate this, about a rabbi who used to walk with a kid every morning to synagogue after his dad died (this kid was Wolpe's father).

I think David Wolpe makes some great points, and as someone who is faith-curious, his book definitely decreased my skepticism. If you're a complete atheist, I doubt it will turn you religious, but if you read it with an open mind, you might understand faith a little better and be more accepting of it. While I'm not convinced by the whole "it must be God" thing when referring to the feelings of wonder, love, etc., I like that he acknowledges that it's unprovable and we shouldn't seek to prove it. Essentially, if I got his point, it has nothing to do with rationality and it shouldn't, because God is simply separate from the material world (which is a reason Jews don't buy into the whole "Jesus is the son of God" thing; I don't think he mentions it in this book but he mentioned it on a podcast).