The Eric Metaxas story continues to whistle past the news desk. Briefly, in a paywalled article (which limited its distribution to the elite), religion scholar Eric Metaxas was allowed, on Christmas Day, to make the case for the fine-tuning of the universe in the Wall Street Journal. So far as we know, no one was attacked, beheaded, fined, or jailed over that and the Journal was not shut down.
But the article did not sit too well with the Christian philosophy elite, who specialize in presenting Christians as dhimmis for Darwin (and naturalism, generally), in exchange for themselves being eaten last. Seemingly, they cannot find enough enemy command posts to surrender to.
So they struck back, defending their turf (essentially, people whose born-again experience does not seem to have included their brains).
Metaxas responded, of course. Meanwhile, over at Evolution News & Views, Casey Luskin noted,
The outburst is surprising, given that a source like Religion News Service is presumably at least neutral on religion, rather than scornfully hostile. But leave that aside. This is the typical rhetorical strategy from the media: claim that there is no credible scientific support for intelligent design, and bitterly attack those who deviate from the party line. The aim is to intimidate those who might speak out in support of ID in the future.
Grant wants you to believe that physicists who acknowledge the evidence for ID are few and far between, and are to be found only at “the fringe of science.” Yet that’s far from true. Consider what physicist Charles Townes said in 2005: More.
Of course it is not true. Consider, for example, what great physicists have said about immateriality and consciousness?
The money shot for them is keeping your community and mine from understanding the significance of design in nature. Ladling dollops of brain-absent “faith,” to the strum of guitars.
Same venue, Daniel Bakken discusses one of these dhimmis for Darwin recruiters:
Dr. Grant can be forgiven if he is not up to date on the fields of cosmology, astrobiology, and the anthropic principle, as he is a professor of political science and an editor, not a scientist in astronomy or cosmology. But his seemingly religious conviction that none of these could possibly ever point to God is disturbing, and should raise flags as to his biases. We all have biases, but that doesn’t mean we can’t identify them and objectively evaluate the data, something I submit that Grant doesn’t want you to do.
But why is this a big surprise? Nothing ever points to God unless the “religion expert” holds out a treat and demands that we bark. Having had a bellyful of these people, I would recommend: Bite. Shred trousers.
“And Bowser the Schnauzer bit down on his trouser … ”
See also: Copernicus, you are not going to believe who is using your name. Or how.
Hat tip: Philip Cunningham