Science and Religion--McGrath vs. Dawkins

I've been reading Alister McGrath's book, Dawkins' God; Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life. It's excellent!

McGrath is a Christian professor of Historical Theology at Oxford AND holds a PhD in molecular biophysics--doubtful there's anyone more qualified to write a book on the relationship between Science and Religion.

In the book, McGrath critiques the work of Oxford scientist and ardent atheist, Richard Dawkins.

One of the things that really troubles me (as it does when scholars in other areas do it) is the way a man as intelligent and credentialed as Dawkins is so careless and fatuitous in his assessment of a certain field of study, namely religion, when he is so meticulous and thoughtful in his own field. Like many liberal Christian scholars, Dawkins' example shows with glowing clarity the difference between intelligence and wisdom.

Here are a few great quotes from the book:

"Far from being half-witted obscurantism that placed unnecessary obstacles in the relentless place of scientific advance, the history and philosophy of science asked all the right questions about the reliability and limits of scientific knowledge. And they were questions that I had not faced thus far. I was like a fundamentalist Christian who suddenly discovered that Jesus had not personally written the Apostles' creed, or a flat-earther forced to come to terms with photographs of the planet taken from space. Issues such as the underdetermination of theory by data, radical theory change in the history of science, the difficulties in devising a 'crucial experiment,' and the enormously complex issues associated with determining what was the 'best explanation" of a given set of observations crowded in on me, muddying what I had taken to be the clear, still water of scientific truth." (pg. 4-5)

"One of the greatest ironies of the twentieth century is that many of the most deplorable acts of murder, intolerance, and repression were carried out by those who thought that religion was murderous, intolerant, and repressive." (pg. 114)

"The interaction of science and religion has been influenced more by their social circumstances than by their specific ideas." (pg. 142)

"Dawkins' argument [that religious people have little sense of the grandeur of the universe because of their ignorance and aversion to science] at this point is so underdetermined by evidence and so utterly implausible that I fear I must have misunderstood it." (pg. 149)


MM

Article on Angry Atheists

Ben Witherington has a great post on his blog, benwitherington.blogspot.com (linked on Thinking Allowed) about an article on angry atheists recently written in the Wall Street Journal. It's well worth checking out. Here's a profoundly accurate quote from the WSJ article:

"For the new atheists believing in God is a form of stupidity, which sets off their own intelligence. They write as if they were the first to discover that biblical miracles are improbable....that religion is full of superstition. They write as if great minds had never before wrestled with the big questions of creation, moral law and contending versions of revealed truth. They argue as if these questions are easily answered by blunt materialism. Most of all they assume that no intelligent, reflective person could ever defend religion rather than dismiss it....The faith that the new atheists describe is a simple-minded parody. It is impossible to see within it what might have preoccupied great artists and thinkers like Homer, Milton, Michelangelo, Newton, and Spinoza-- let alone Aquinas, Dr Johnson, Kierkegaard, Goya, Cardinal Newman, Reinhold Neibuhr or, for that matter, Albert Einstein. But to pass over this deeper faith-- the kind that engaged the great minds of Western history-- is to diminish the loss of faith too. The new atheists are separated from the old ones by their shallowness."

MM

Redrock Rush

Here are some shots from an early January hike in Capitol Reef National Park. It's called the Frying Pan trail--one of the most magnificent places on the planet.

Rape Of The Soul

I like writing poetry, but I typically don't like people reading it. (For me, having others read poems I write feels like singing in public--not that I ever would)

But this one seems to be along the lines of some other posts on the blog, so I thought I'd throw caution to the wind.




Rape Of The Soul

I want to seek out
Those who won’t come out
Of their lust-licensing oblivion,
Those envelope-pushing minions.

I will raise an acute rage
Against the naked emperors
In Bertrand Russell’s relativistic parade.
Against those who would violate us all,
Who would rape our souls,
By pretending God and morality
Are things we chose,
Like sweetener in our Starbucks,
Or the color of our clothes.

“All meta-narratives are suspect,”
Says the trendy postmodern prof.
Not nearly as much as the thug who murders his wife;
Trendy philosophies are flimsy
When applied to your own life.

Take your subjective morality
To Nanking or Rwanda or Darfur.
You’ll be an Ivan Karamazov,
Left writhing in hope for more
Than your childish evasion
That puts up love and justice for sale,
That frees your money and libido
To go wherever your appetite drives them,
And frees the forces of evil to drive the world to Hell.

MM