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Religion

Separation of Church and State

This is for ForTheKids (FTK) to discuss separation of church and state. An important topic IMO. I deleted her opening separation comment on the DCA Update II thread as well as responses because I wanted that thread to remain topical. Our blog software has no option for relocating comments. FTK has been so gracious to me on her blog when I go off topic I felt bad about it so here’s the venue. I’ll open it with links to a couple relevant articles I wrote last year, some verbatim quotes of relevant constitutional amendments, and some historical facts regarding use of the phrase by founders and the US Supreme Court: Read More ›

Behe on Dawkins

In listing the “100 Most Influential People of the Year,” Time Magazine included Richard Dawkins and asked Michael Behe to comment on his significance. Once the editors at Time got their hands on Mike’s piece, however, they took some of the bite out of it (click here for what Time posted). What Behe originally wrote is the following (posted with his permission): Of his nine books, none caused as much controversy — or sold as well — as last year’s The God Delusion. Yet the leading light of the recent atheist publishing surge, Oxford University’s Richard Dawkins, has always been a man driven by the big questions. Born in Kenya in 1941 of British parents, he received a mild Anglican Read More ›

American Scientific Affiliation — Whatever happened to its mission?

The ASA (American Scientific Affiliation) is an organization of scientists who are Christians. It has traditionally been strongly pro theistic evolution. Its most prominent member is Francis Collins. I’m also a member.

About three years ago I received the following mass mailing from the ASA’s Jack Haas (I’ve known Jack since 1990 and our exchanges have always been cordial). In this letter he describes how the ASA had, in times past, been concerned to address “the sweeping tide of scientific materialism,” but had recently decided to change its emphasis to combat young-earth creationism.

If the problem with young-earth creationism is that it is off by a few orders of magnitude about the age of the earth and universe, the problem with scientific materialism is that is off by infinite orders of magnitude about what is ultimately the nature of nature. When I received this letter, I was so upset that I decided to let my membership (which I had maintained since the 1980s) lapse. Only at the instance of some fellow ID proponents in the organization did I decide to stay.

I write this post to put into perspective Denyse O’Leary’s recent remarks about the “gutting of a spiritual tradition from within” (see here — the relevance of her remarks to the ASA cannot be missed) and to highlight that with the efforts by Dawkins, Dennett, and Harris to ramp up their propaganda for atheism since this letter by Jack Haas was written suggests that the ASA was mistaken in shifting its emphasis away from “the sweeping tide of scientific materialism.”

Lay Education Committee of the
American Scientific Affiliation
PO Box 668 ~ 55 Market Street
Ipswich, MA 01938

November 2003

Greetings,

I am writing to report the progress of the Lay Education Committee (LEC) on the “educational package for the person in the pew designed to promote a better understanding of the place of science within a Christian worldview.”

ASA’s original concern “for the waning faith of modern youth subjected to the sweeping tide of scientific materialism” was set aside for other interests as the times changed and the organization grew larger. As a result, our direct impact on the local church has been minimal.

At the 2000 Annual Meeting at Gordon College, some members discussed the difficulties that evangelicals have with questions deemed to have both scientific and biblical input. Later, the ASA office received a letter and a substantial gift from one participant challenging us to reach out to the church laity. He noted:

[BEGIN BLOCKQUOTE]The young-earth message has bitten deeply into the evangelical culture, and people trust this message. What will it take to show people believably that the young-earth view is not the only possible one, without undermining the Christianity or sincerity of those that hold that position?[END BLOCKQUOTE]

The ASA Council directed the formation of a committee to respond to the challenge. The LEC first met at the 2001 Annual Meeting. It was decided to develop an educational package that could be adapted for church adults and high school students, Christian schools and home schools. Read More ›

Frank Tipler’s New Book

My good friend Frank Tipler‘s new book THE PHYSICS OF CHRISTIANITY is coming out shortly (see the listing here at Amazon.com). I’ve invited Frank to contribute to this blog about this book and any other topics of interest to him.

Pope defends Theistic Evolution

“Paris – Pope Benedict, elaborating his views on evolution for the first time as Pontiff, says science has narrowed the way life’s origins are understood and Christians should take a broader approach to the question. The Pope also says the Darwinist theory of evolution is not completely provable because mutations over hundreds of thousands of years cannot be reproduced in a laboratory… ” (go to article) You may recall that shortly after Pope Benedict’s inauguration, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna touched off a fire storm (July 2005) with an op-ed piece in the New York Times questioning Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, and appearing to endorse the concept of intelligent design. This brought a quick response from Prof. Kenneth Miller, Read More ›

Newsweek poll: Belief in special creation by college graduates at 34%…

From God’s Numbers:

Nine in 10 (91 percent) of American adults say they believe in God and almost as many (87 percent) say they identify with a specific religion. …Nearly half (48 percent) of the public rejects the scientific [sic] theory of evolution; one-third (34 percent) of college graduates say they accept the Biblical account of creation as fact. Seventy-three percent of Evangelical Protestants say they believe that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years; 39 percent of non-Evangelical Protestants and 41 percent of Catholics agree with that view.
….
Just 3 percent of the public self-identifies as atheist.

Read More ›

The Atheism Tapes — in case you missed it

THE ATHEISM TAPES: JONATHAN MILLER IN CONVERSATION Mondays beginning 18 October 2004 Jonathan Miller meets up with some of the key contributors from his three-part Brief History of Disbelief in these half-hour extended conversations. Arthur Miller ARTHUR MILLER Tuesday 29 February 2005 12.30am-1am (Monday night) As a tribute to the recently deceased playwright Arthur Miller, another chance to see the discussion between Jonathan Miller and Arthur Miller about disbelief and their experiences of anti-Semitism, recorded in 2004. —– FULL LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Colin McGinn COLIN MCGINN Monday 18 October midnight-12.30am; 2.30am-3am; Saturday 23 October 7pm-7.30pm Jonathan Miller talks to the philosopher Colin McGinn about atheism and anti-Theism. Steven Weinberg STEVEN WEINBERG Tuesday 26 October 12.05am-12.35am; 2.35am-3.05am (Monday night); Friday 29 Read More ›

Ted Davis — “The Theistic Evolutionists’ Theistic Evolutionist” — Rising above the fray

Ted Davis, a historian of science at Messiah College, used to be part of a list I moderate. He has some good insights into the history of science (especially into the work of Robert Boyle), but he consistently misses the mark concerning ID. Here is a nice synopsis of his view of ID (also with a jab at UD). It is written to Pim van Meurs, as a mentor would write to his disciple. The short of his view is that ID is a reaction to the scientific materialism of Richard Dawkins, which it tries to displace by setting up a new science, which is really just a disguised form of religion. His counsel is to rise above the fray Read More ›

Where are the Skeptic Society’s Mother Teresas?

Commenting on Sam Harris and his facile denunciations of religion, Mike Gene hits the mark: Harris ends with this basic argument: “There is no question that many people do good things in the name of their faith — but there are better reasons to help the poor, feed the hungry and defend the weak than the belief that an Imaginary Friend wants you to do it. Compassion is deeper than religion. As is ecstasy. It is time that we acknowledge that human beings can be profoundly ethical — and even spiritual — without pretending to know things they do not know.” But these are empty words. For example, is Harris (or Dawkins) recognized as someone who displays compassion? He can Read More ›

Quote of the day: Arthur Koestler on “Corporate Orthodoxy”

“Galileo’s conflict with the church could have probably been avoided if he had been endowed with less passion and more diplomacy; but long before that conflict, he had incurred the implacable hostility of the orthodox Aristotelians who held key positions at the Italian universities. Religion and political oppression play only an incidental part in the history of science; its erratic course and recurrent crises are caused by internal factors. One of the conspicuous handicaps is the conservatism of the scientific mind in its corporate aspect. The collective matrix of a science at a given time is determined by a kind of establishment, which includes universities, learned societies, and, more recently, the editorial offices of technical journals. Like other establishments, they Read More ›

“No thanks, I’ll take two fivers” — Dumping Darwin from British currency

British paper currency — the 10-pound note — features Charles Darwin. (The custom is that the notes all have the Queen on one side and a famous Briton on the other. The notes are in denominations 5, 10, 20, and 50; there are no 1-pound or 2-pound paper notes, these are coins). A couple of days ago the Bank of England issued a new 20-pound note, using new security features, and took the occasion to change the “famous person.” This is a news-worthy cause for British Darwin-doubters, who should urge that Darwin be dumped from the 10-pound note whenever there is a new security-upgrade version, on grounds that he is the chief prophet of the materialist religion, and his presence Read More ›

The cutting room floor — The place Dawkins leaves his more incisive critics

You tell me who is playing fair: Richard Dawkins: 4 December 2006 http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/article2037496.ece Why have you not engaged in public debate with Alister McGrath, Mary Midgley, Michael Ruse, Keith Ward, or indeed anyone else who would present you with a serious challenge? JAMES RADFORD, By e-mail RD: The producers of my Channel 4 documentary [Root of All Evil?] invited the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster and the Chief Rabbi to be interviewed by me. All declined, doubtless for good reasons. I don’t enjoy the debate format, but I once had a public debate with the then Archbishop of York, and The Observer quoted the verdict of one disconsolate clergyman as he left the hall: “That was easy Read More ›