{"id":151,"date":"2005-11-20T13:43:30","date_gmt":"2005-11-20T19:43:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/?p=151"},"modified":"2006-05-12T08:07:07","modified_gmt":"2006-05-12T14:07:07","slug":"from-the-atheists-pulpit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/nada\/id\/from-the-atheists-pulpit\/","title":{"rendered":"From The \r\n\r\nAtheist’s Pulpit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Somebody light a <\/p>\n

candle because Krauthammer and I are on the same side of an issue. Holy cow! Even as I savor this moment of worlds-colliding, I marvel <\/p>\n

that I could argue Krauthammer is being unfair to some<\/em> IDers (this is a disturbing universe, indeed). Those very few IDers who <\/p>\n

believe they are pursuing a “science of irreducible complexity” — a bold new way of looking at things — feel tarred by the “Jesus on a <\/p>\n

dinosaur” brush. Sorry, but there are many more who believe evolution is the devil’s tool and the world is 4000 years old than believe <\/p>\n

there are merely points in an otherwise clockwork system where god intercedes. Not that truth is a popularity contest.<\/p>\n

Still, I <\/p>\n

always enjoy the Clash of Conservatives. Krauthammer is one of the cardinals of the Radical Right — a ‘must read’ in the West Wing (or <\/p>\n

have read to you). Here we see the arrogance and utterly unshakable certainty directed against — good god! — forces equally arrogant <\/p>\n

and unshakable. ‘The Truth is Ours<\/i>‘, both sides shout with equal ferocity, and ‘those who disagree are beneath contempt.’<\/p>\n

The true gift from god here is not that the ranters can’t simply give up and shout “Commie! Hippie! Democrat!” No, no, sweeter still <\/p>\n

is that somewhere deep inside each opponent has to realize, “damn, I just called another right-winger wrong.” The Monolith of Radical <\/p>\n

Right Infallibility called into question by its own faithful?! Hosanna! mjh<\/span><\/p>\n

PS: I believe Krauthammer <\/p>\n

would join me — again! — in irritation at the Albuquerque Journal’s headline, “God and<\/em> Science Made the Lemurs”. There isn’t <\/p>\n

a person alive — whom you’d want to talk to — who would say ‘science made the lemurs’. Made?<\/em> Are headline writers less <\/p>\n

educated than real journalists or does years of straining for groan-inducing puns dull the wits as much as it seems to?<\/p>\n

Two more <\/p>\n

specimens:<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kansas wrong to see science as an enemy of God, just ask Einstein — Quad City Times <\/p>\n

[mjh: so much for the pursuit of brevity]<\/span><\/p>\n

Science isn’t religion’s foe: an idea that’s still evolving — Bothell Herald<\/p>\n

[mjh: groan]<\/span>
\n—–<\/p>\n

Charles Krauthammer: Evolution by any other name is still . . .<\/a><\/p>\n

BECAUSE every few years this country, in its <\/p>\n

infinite tolerance, insists on hearing yet another appeal of the Scopes monkey trial, I feel obliged to point out what would otherwise be <\/p>\n

superfluous \u00ef\u00bf\u00bd that the two greatest scientists in the history of our species were Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, and they were both <\/p>\n

religious.<\/p>\n

Newton’s religiosity was traditional. He was a staunch believer in Christianity and member of the Church of England. <\/p>\n

Einstein’s was a more diffuse belief in a deity who set the rules for everything that occurs in the universe.<\/p>\n

Neither saw science <\/p>\n

as an enemy of religion. On the contrary. “He believed he was doing God’s work,” wrote James Gleick in his recent biography of Newton. <\/p>\n

Einstein saw his entire vocation \u00ef\u00bf\u00bd understanding the workings of the universe \u00ef\u00bf\u00bd as an attempt to understand the mind of God.<\/p>\n

Not a crude and willful God who pushes and pulls and does things according to whim. … Newton’s God was not at all so crude. The laws <\/p>\n

of his universe were so simple, so elegant, so economical, and therefore so beautiful that they could only be divine. …<\/p>\n

Let’s <\/p>\n

be clear. “Intelligent design” may be interesting as theology, but as science it is a fraud.<\/p>\n

It is a self-enclosed, tautological <\/p>\n

“theory” whose only holding is that when there are gaps in some area of scientific knowledge \u00ef\u00bf\u00bd in this case, evolution \u00ef\u00bf\u00bd they are to <\/p>\n

be filled by God. …<\/p>\n

How ridiculous to make evolution the enemy of God.<\/strong> What could be more elegant, more simple, <\/p>\n

more brilliant, more economical, more creative, indeed more divine than a planet with millions of life forms, distinct and yet <\/p>\n

interactive, all ultimately derived from accumulated variations in a single double-stranded molecule, pliable and fecund enough to give <\/p>\n

us mollusks and mice, Newton and Einstein? Even if it did give us the Kansas State Board of Education too.
\n—–<\/p>\n

QOTD<\/abbr>: “How ridiculous to make evolution the enemy of God.<\/strong>” Amen.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Somebody light a candle because Krauthammer and I are on the same side of an issue. Holy cow! Even as I savor this moment of worlds-colliding, I marvel that I could argue Krauthammer is being unfair to some IDers (this is a disturbing universe, indeed). Those very few IDers who believe they are pursuing a … Continue reading From The <\/p>\n

Atheist’s Pulpit<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-id","category-the-atheists-pulpit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}