ReligionDispatches.org

It might be easy to dismiss Dawkins and Ham, but it might not be quite so easy to dismiss the debate. Science vs. Religion might be hard to define, but evolution vs. creationism is something we can deal with. As far as I know, Darwin didn't attack religion, but he has been attacked by religion. Science has long resisted this debate, but after the creationists took the White House science seemed to become especially inspired. There has been a wealth of new evidence and understanding in the last decade and especially the last few years, including the fossils showing how modern birds evolved from dinosaurs, fossils showing how whales returned from land back to the sea, and fossils filling in more details about how humans started walking upright and began the process to evolve into the modern man we see today. There has been several new programs produced by Nova and BBC showing the case for evolution better than ever. Science is debating their side through their work, and they are making it available to the public on DVD. Dawkins is out to make money on the lecture circuit. Christianity seems to be hoping for something like a draw so that they won't have to change their thinking too quickly.

The debate should not be between an atheist like Dawkins and a creationist. The debate should be between progressive Christianity that understands the overwhelming evidence for evolution and the creationists.

Jim Reed - you're right about Darwin - he knew that his ideas would cause dismay amongst some religious people, including his wife, and tried hard to avoid attacking, or appearing to attack, religion.

I found it disappointing that the speakers railed against, as they saw it, the lack of intellectual rigour that Ham and Dawkins utilise and then, having almost grasped the reason why their apparent intellectual arrogance is irrelevant, carefully descended into pastiche.

I suspect that both Dawkins and Ham seek to influence people who do not have the luxury of being paid to think, people who have never been seriously encouraged to think for themselves, people whose ability to understand complex mixes of multisyllabic words is limited/undeveloped.
I very much doubt that Dawkins and Ham are trying to impress university staff who have the ability to talk fluently about abstract concepts.

evolution v creationism, as a debate, is not about Ham and Dawkins - it is, I suggest, about whether (both individually and universally) people's interests are better served by a cool, rational, sometimes mentally uncomfortable and often challenging approach to life or by a warm, illogical and generally mentally cosy existence untroubled by consideration of difficult questions.

In summary, this seemed to me to be a, doubtlessly erudite though somewhat pretentious, exercise in telling the world what they've been doing with their time whilst totally missing the point of the conflict they take as their subject matter.

CP3O - Are you trying to say they set Dawkins and Ham up as their paper tiger?

Be careful what you say about Dawkins. He responded one time to something about him here on RD.

I take this to be saying that I, Richard Dawkins, have publicly cast doubts upon Francis Collins' suitability for his job heading NIH. That is a lie. I have never done so. On the contrary, on the several occasions when I have been publicly asked about this appointment, I have supported it.

Richard Dawkins

The speakers make a few errors. The idea that professional wrestling is socially positive, that it deals with submerged social conflicts and sophisticated issues, is as light-weight a point as any the speakers impeach others of. Reveling in the most blatant and simple-minded stereotypes might be pleasant entertainment, but it is hardly the deep work of cultural leadership and progress. Indeed, it is just such idiocy (however cognitively interesting) that feeds the most regressive precincts of our culture, as Hunt'in Housemom Palin can probably attest, if she not only embodied such stereotypes, but thought about them.

On the other hand, the speakers were excessively dismissive of the atheist side of the equation. I'll take only one point- Dawkins's so-called finishing move of not having to study Leprechaun-ism or Flying Spaghetti Monster-ism, to go along with Aquinas and Augustine.

Dawkins is making a complex point, which is that each religion claims it is true, and studying them each in detail is quite evidently not required for religious people to dismiss each of the others. So why should he, who dismisses only one more religion than his advesaries do, attend in detail to the endless theological maunderings that his particular antagonist might favor, whether Lutheran, Evangelical, Catholic, Islamic, etc? It is up to the antagonist to present such material, if they believe it is evidential and compelling.

Additionally, it is understood, that as someone growing up in the culture as we are, surrounded by the trappings of the dominant religious cult, Dawkins has ingested the primary arguments on the matter. He does not state that he is a theologian, but a scientist, which is to say, a religious lay-person who is perfectly capable of meeting the religious mindset where it exists in the culture. He attacks popular religion, not the ethereal reaches of academic theology. In this, he is hitting the culturally significant mark, and if the current speakers would rather he adhere to the Queensberry rules of polite theologians speaking of inconsequential matters, that would be missing the point of these debates badly.

This is not to say that he should not make sense, which does happen, quite painfully. But the speaker's quest to make Ken Ham and Richard Dawkins somehow equivalent fell flat, since on each of their detailed points, Dawkins, unlike Ham, is quite defensible. Take the issue of religious fundamentalism- while this may be recent as an academic category, it is hardly recent as a form of religion. Islamic history shows fanaticism from the very start in the service of the religion, and within a few decades of the founding of Islam, new sects were already being founded to restore the purity and extremism of the original conception.

Taking one page from early Christianity, the Judaizers obviously were interesting in restoring the fundamental Jewish / Torah character of Jesus and Christianity, and could be termed fundamentalists of their day, were they not otherwise disposed of as heretics. Such examples could be multiplied endlessly.

Lastly, on the topic of faith and reason, Luther was quite explicit, teaching that they are antithetical. The Catholic church, while asserting stoutly that they are compatible, bases that compatibility on faith "underlying" reason, which is not quite the same as Hume's more modest operational faith (or James's). And it is common for religious people to recognize that faith happens outside of reason.. that it is not compelled or requiring of reason. Whether it happens in the teeth of reason, I will leave the many debate combatants to work out.

Burk, you wrote, "Dawkins is making a complex point, which is that each religion claims it is true...." Already, Dawkins is mistaken. His understanding of religious truth is propositional and literal, but many religious people, especially outside the West, do not think in this way. Their religious beliefs are mythical, literary, inspirational. That is why Dawkins's critics accuse him of a superficial understanding of religion. He understands religion in the same way fundamentalists do - in the same way Ken Ham does. Furthermore, while you cite historical accounts of religious fanaticism, you overlook accounts of scientific fanaticism, such as the Social Darwinism that contributed to WWI, and the various eugenics programs that occurred in some Western nations during the 20th century. Neither science nor religion is ethically superior to the other.

Hi, Brbethel-

The religion you cite is obviously not the reason why these debates take place- its adherents might be more on the side of Dawkins than the other. Mythical, literary, etc. spiritual systems aren't making propositional claims, as you say, and thus are not the issue being debated. Hopefully you feel no offense coming from the atheist corner, though apparently you do. For my part, I am perfectly cognizant of spiritual emotions and needs as a staple of the human condition, apart from propositional claims which are a separate matter.

On the ethical point, Dawkins was not saying that "science" is ethically blameless, but that it is the proper way to establish propositional claims about nature, such as the existence of gods and supernatural phenomena. And, that using reason in such ways provides zero support, let alone evidence, for such things. Therefore, they are not real, and religion, if needed, should indeed confine itself to mythical, literary, and inspirational modes of discourse.

I have great respect for Don Cupitt, for instance, who promotes just such a non-realist understanding of Christianity.

Returning to the superficial aspects of understanding- If we set aside all the mythical, literary, etc. understandings of religion, which are not the issue, unless undergirded by actual belief in the dogmas and propositional claims, then that simplifies the matter considerably, cutting down the work that needs doing. There is nothing in the obscure recesses of Aquinas, Anselm, Augustine, and the lot which has not been dutifully deployed as the greatest possible proofs of god.

As other fields summarize and systematize as they go on, in order to communicate effectively and allow new work to be added to the old, so have religious proofs and dogmatic formulations been boiled down, all for the sake of our efficient argument. And what are we left with after leaving the truly inane arguments behind? The basic ontological argument, fine tuning, the argument from design, embarrassing theodicies, and a few others, which are yet far from compelling, in debate with their critics.

Best!

My comment does not address specific points in this particular debate though it may accidentilly. My point is that God,the ultimate designer and creator of all that is, does exist and that this fact is abundantly clear from the things that exist. I'm not only talking about the sensorially perceptive universe of things but also about the " macro " and " micro " universe of things we can " sense " through the tools of science. These realities scream out for an ultimate intellegent designer. See the Evidential Power of Beauty ( Thomas Dubay,S.M., Ignatius Press, 1999).

Without this ultimate designer ( whom I call God, after St. Paul, Aquinas,etc.) it is impossible to account for the fact that anything exists, let alone for the complexity, the order, the evident purpose of the systems we encounter absolutely everywhere. This is not a scientific statement, it is a philosophical one. Science, at least in most textbooks, through at least some of its " popularizers " by the " politically correct " media ( i.e. PBS) is unwilling to acknowledge the validity of such philosophical conclusions.

It seems to me that if such is the case then science is in the very ackward position of being unable to account for the existence of the facts it investigates let alone for their evident ordering and purposeful ordering.

Finally, I would like to ask science how it accounts for the fact that the entire universe of reality seems to be ordered for the specific purpose and benefit of mankind?

Further, how does it account not only for the fact of astounding beautiy everywhere but for the stupendous fact that there are creatures ( mankind ) who have the facility to appreciate this beauty. A facility which literally and clearly is not essential for anything, it is not even essential for the existence of man, it is superfluous, unless it exists to draw man's attention to his creator.

I will close by stating that atheism is a dead end, it is a closed system which provides no reason to do one thing rather than another, it is a perscription for chaos, and absolute brutality. See Jean Paul Sartre, Simone Beauvoir and others. If the present day scientific demegogues of atheism at least had the honesty to admit this to their students and their fawning admirers in the popular media I could at least admire them for their honesty.

Academic theology is as relevant to popular debates about religion as it is to pro-wrestling.

Science studies the evidence to learn about the creation and evolution of the universe and the development of life on earth. Religion maintains belief systems that are rooted in prehistoric times. Science is locked into following the evidence and can't change its ways, but we can probably make some progress in this debate if religion could adopt something along the lines of the scientific method for the study of its beliefs.

The scientific method is useful for discovering propositional, literal truth. But religion outside of fundamentalist circles involves the mythical, the literary, the inspirational. When religion does proffer literal statements, as fundamentalists are fond of doing, then, yes, they should adopt the scientific method to test their statements. But many religious people, especially outside the West, do not need the scientific method for their religions, because their religions aren't at odds with science.

I was raised as a Christian, and so Christianity is what I try to question. I try not to complain about any other religion too much, and hopefully I haven't. As I think you are saying, fundamentalist Christianity creates problems with their literal statements (based on their beliefs and ignoring any other evidence). I think most here on RD would dismiss much of the beliefs of the fundamentalists. I think that is the point where the interesting questions begin. Is progressive Christianity doing it right, or are they in some way enablers for the fundamentalists and perhaps even influenced to some degree by them? Do we ignore the little inconsistencies, or do we try to highlight them and refuse to let them be shoved aside?

"But religion outside of fundamentalist circles involves the mythical, the literary, the inspirational."

And the profitable as well.

Too much time spent on the minutiae of professional wrestling and not even a word about the more important issue of why - why do we find ourselves in this poisoned atmosphere of tiresome and unresolvable debate? What is it that we so fear that we are unwilling to listen and learn? What can be done to create a non-threatening environment for the open exchange of ideas?

Different sides have different needs. Science does the work, and uses peer review to weed out weak or wrong arguments. They aren't good at convincing people of belief. Christianity needs the debate to end in a draw because they have no arguments to make. They do better at things that can't be proved one way or the other, and in a period where science is making such rapid advances they are having trouble adapting fast enough. Their ace in the hole is the masses rooting for them, so they concentrate on recruiting to stay in the game.

Life is not really about things being either this or that, most often things are both this and that.

I think one of my problems with the Religion Obsession is that everything we believe to be true in one way or another becomes a religion.

Science is a religion with its believers as adamant that there is empirical proof of science and Theological believers are about the validity of their book.

What science has done is to expose that all we can "prove" resides in a world that has a great probability of not existing.

Their are position of view issues in all we know about science. We are still not fully embracing the full impact of the Theory of Relativity. We have a fixed position of view. We are three-dimensional beings fixed in time and size. We can send out probes to take pictures that give us pictures that we are able to "see" but only record that spectrum. If we saw differently would what we "see" be different.

Dogma is not unique to Religion, science has its dogma. The Big Bang is held in high reverence in the Scientific Community, but it just a theory and unknown. Science is trying to describe a world we will never be able to fully understand just as religions try to understand God and will never be able to do so.

It is in the nature of man to try to understand and that should be a good thing. The catch is that at some point in our existence we start to want to have certainty. At that point we quit trying to understand and try to validate the understanding we think we have. Both Science and Religion do this because both are the province of man.

People are imperfect receptors and need a large amount of humility in both science and religion to keep us aware of our limitations and the probability that most of what we think we know is wrong or incomplete.

I am pretty sure that if in fact we live in a space that is infinite, we do not exist in any solid material form. If this is true, and I fear it is, then what allows us to not exist and still observe our non-existence.

If science and religion could quit their parochial bickering and join to contemplate this phenomena we might actually get closer to understanding the world we live in.

It seemed to me about halfway through the presentation that Professors McCane and Mathewson were engaging in the same activity as Dawkins and Hamm, tag teaming them. A further correspondence also came to mind; as Wrestling may lead some to experiment and learn about the physics, physiology, and psychology of what is being represented, the debate between Dawkins and Hamm may also cause some who have not given it much thought to investigate and see what is behind the smoke and mirrors. Secondly, despite Wrestling’s stunt choreography, real blows and injuries occur; in similar fashion this debate may actually expose genuine reasoning and logic.
While I don’t totally agree with Dr. Gould’s “non overlapping magisteria”; I think the foundation of this debate has come from one magisteria trying to replace the other. As a Christian, I don’t buy evolution as a whole but I don’t equate my faith as science, and I reject the attempt to make science into a faith, which appears to be a side effect of this particular match.

Science works through a process of peer review, the scientists themselves are their own worst enemies, and non-scientists could never tear a scientist apart the way another scientist could, and certainly would if he thought there was any chance to do the job. What is your concern about evolution as a whole? Do you think scientists aren't doing their job? Any religion that is unfairly critical of science isn't doing science any harm, but they are doing damage to their own religion. Just something to consider.

Religion and science both are two different things. These both cannot live under the same roof.
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