Free Republic

Two years ago, William Saletan—Slate.com’s science reporter—compared the typical approaches of Jewish and Catholic thinkers to bioethical questions. “The Catholics were clear about what was moral and what wasn’t. The Jews were fuzzy.” He quoted Eric Cohen, a Jewish bioethicist, saying Jews ask lots of questions; and while Catholics may pose questions too, Catholics give answers. These answers weren’t coming from sources of revelation, but from science and reason. Catholics had a profound faith in reason, and in reason’s ability to answer profound questions of the day. Throughout the three-day conference I just attended, I witnessed a similar phenomenon.   Under...