It started when diehard Darwinian Jerry Coyne made fun of U.S. Veep Mike Pence and colleagues praying about the coronavirus epidemic:
There’s even a picture of the virus task force praying together! We don’t need prayer; we need science! Here’s the photo, which distresses me but doesn’t surprise me… [a]fter all, one godly intervention is just as delusional as another!
Jerry Coyne, “Jesus ‘n’ Mo ‘n’ Pence” at Why Evolution Is True
Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne thinks that only fools would pray about Coronavirus. He is wrong and here is why…
If God is real, then prayer is probably the first thing you want to do in a crisis. A plea to the Boss is a fine preamble to the grunt work of managing a crisis. I’m a neurosurgeon, and I pray before each operation. It really helps.
Michael Egnor, “Why prayer is wise during a pandemic” at Mind Matters News
He goes on to offer logical proofs of the existence of God, concluding that “The prayer of the coronavirus task force is wise and wholly appropriate, for both theological and scientific reasons.”
Then Coyne replied, offering responses to specific arguments and adding,
And we don’t need a Christian community now during a pandemic: that’s been replaced by epidemiologists and, most of all, medicine and medical care, all based on materialistic science.
Finally, has Dr. Egnor asked himself this: if praying to God stops people from dying, so God has the power to cure, why did God allow coronavirus to spread in the first place? It’s not just killing off evil people, you know: it’s taking babies who haven’t even had the chance to do evil, or learn about the salvific effects of accepting Jesus. In fact, pandemics are one bit of evidence against the existence of any god who is powerful and empathic.
Jerry Coyne, “Egnor: We need to pray during this pandemic” at Why Evolution Is True
And now Michael Egnor has replied, quoting Coyne and responding:
Coyne, in reply: If there are going to be arguments for god that are convincing, they will have to be empirical ones, not theoretical lucubrations of ancient theologians.
Coyne is clueless. All valid proofs of God’s existence—and there are many—are empirical proofs. As St. Thomas observed, any proof of existence must contain empirical evidence in its premise, because a purely logical proof, which is valid for mathematics and logic, cannot demonstrate the existence of anything. That is why the ontological proof of God’s existence is invalid. You can’t, by pure reason alone, conclude that God (or anything) exists. You must have evidence.
Michael Egnor, “Jerry Coyne hasn’t got a prayer” at Mind Matters News
Egnor sums up: We are more scientifically certain of God’s existence than we are of quantum mechanics or Newtonian or relativistic gravitation. The logic is rigorous.
Over to Coyne.
See also: Michael Behe muses on design and COVID-19 Behe: … most viruses do not affect humans and may well have a positive, necessary role to play in nature of which we are currently unaware. (I would bet on it.) From time to time a storm arises in the virosphere and affects humans. But that’s no reason to think either that viruses weren’t designed or that the designer of viruses isn’t good.