Hellfire and Lightning Rods: Liberating Science Technology and Religion

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. Ferre wisely notes that the conceptual worlds of premodern animism modern “scientism” and biblical orthodoxy have major internal flaws and create immense practical problems. Yet while they are largely unconvincing to persons who see the need for “postmodern” approaches a successor to these views is nowhere near universally accepted. In that context Ferre suggests that an important interim worldview that he calls “multi-mythic organicism” will help humanity recover spiritual dimensions now lacking.