Hellfire and Lightning Rods: Liberating Science, Technology, and Religion

by Frederick Ferré

Religion, philosophy, science, or technology - Do they represent methods by which humanity can overcome its problems? Or are they our chief problem? Seeking answers, New-Agers move in one direction, mainline religionists in another. Technologists and scientists move in yet another, many despairing of making vital connections between their disciplines and the wisdom to be found in deeper traditions of religion and philosophy. And fundamentalisms of many sorts beckon those wearied by modernity and its cognitive dissonance. Renowned philosopher Frederick Ferre invites us to contemplate a new world to be constructed out of the debris of modernity. Hellfire and Lightning Rods displays a vision in which the dichotomies between religion, philosophy, science, and technology can be seen as too-narrow construals of a single, but polyvalent, organic world. The world, Ferre argues, must be envisioned organically or be destroyed by stunted and sterile approaches.

223 pages, Paperback

First published June 2, 1993

About the author

Frederick Pond Ferré was Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at The University of Georgia. He was a past president of the Metaphysical Society of America. Much of his work concerned how metaphysics is entwined with practical questions about how we live our life, including the ethical dimensions of life.