Responding to a recent Salon piece by philosopher John G. Messerly, “Religion’s smart-people problem: The shaky intellectual foundations of absolute faith,” a writer responds to the familiar lament that most people don’t buy into naturalist atheism:
Messerly then turns to affirming the “overwhelming body of evidence of biological evolution.” It’s pretty obvious that he is in over his head in affirming really anything associated with scientific evidence. He just asserts with no premises in support, which probably satisfies your typical Salon reader. And what he affirms, the standard unguided natural selection acting on random mutation assertion of the materialists, is just so twentieth century.
The evolutionary theory that the
Messerlys of the world justaccept is being steadily dismantled. Darwin’s theory has been totally refuted by the fossil record. Search the web for the Cambrian Explosion and judge the evidence for yourself. The transitional forms that Darwin insisted must exist for his theory to become law are nowhere to be found. Science has been looking for 150 years now and the record is a sparse as it was when Darwin expressed doubt in his own theory.
Of course, Darwin had no idea of the existence of DNA and its role in protein synthesis. Today we know an enormous amount about the genetic code and its role in biological life. We understand what it does, but we have absolutely no idea how such a sophisticated set of instructions and their sequencing could have self-assembled through natural unguided processes. The most brilliant software engineers in the world cannot begin to duplicate the eloquence we see in the DNA code. It clearly displays the earmarks of intelligence to those willing to see. John E. Tutten, “Is Religion Anti-Intellectual” at American Thinker
Maybe Tutten overstates his case a bit but, in a general way, he has identified the core of the conflict. The very things that should have been the slam dunk for Darwin—the fossil record and the genetic code—seem to want to tell a different story, whether or not the academics want to listen.
Salon readers will, of course, listen. But then, they would listen gladly to “the artistic license to lie.”
As to why most people don’t buy into naturalist atheism, well, that would be a more awkward discussion. One risks saying something unkind, such as that many naturalist atheists seem to work so hard to undermine the brand, there must be something wrong with it. But we won’t go there just now.
Hat tip: Ken Francis who, along with Theodore Dalrymple is the author of The Terror of Existence: From Ecclesiastes to Theatre of the Absurd
See also: Eric Holloway: Atheists, Agnostics More Skeptical Of Evolution Now
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