4/13/09

John Horgan and Francis Collins - The Scientist as Believer

FYI: this post has been moved here.

1 comment:

  1. I disagree with you a lot of the time (I'm one of those sappy Christian Humanists, neither of one and chastised by both!) but thanks for this thoughtful post. It brings up an issue that always annoy me when it comes to this debate about science and God.

    I think we have to remember that context is important - when the idea of scientific enquiry was first 'thought up', if that's the right way to describe it, the existence of God was irrelevant. It was treated either as a given that It existed, or It didn't. The purpose of science was to find out the how behind the world, to find out the methodolody of (if it existed) God. Whilst I know most people find the intrinsic order in Nature good reason to become atheists, *perhaps* that is more due to certain ideas about God that aren't necessarily 'true' (let's say theologically).

    There is also the fact (though clouded by less well-informed and less honest apologists) that science has nothing to say on the matter of God's existence (though it may well tell us something about what God is like, which is another matter...) in that sense. Order is there because there is a God, or because there isn't. It doesn't really help establish anything in either direction.

    I will now return to lurking and occasionally tutting (and laughing. With you, I promise!), but it's quite fun reading a theist with as much chutzpah (more, dare I say, given the current zeitgeist) as the 'New' atheist.

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