Asymmetric Religion and Philosophy

A recent article in the New York Times by Cornelia Dean quotes the astronomer Owen Gingerich as saying that, by simultaneously advocating evolution and atheism, 'Dr Dawkins "probably single-handedly makes more converts to intelligent design than any of the leading intelligent design theorists".' This is not the first, not the second, not even the third time this plonkingly witless point has been made (and more than one reply has aptly cited Uncle Remus: "Oh please please Brer Fox, don't throw me in that awful briar patch").

It seems witless to Dr. Dawkins except that people instinctively realize that without God, life is meaningless, and recoil from such a conclusion. I don't mean that atheists can't have fun or love or think their life is meaningful. What I mean is that anybody who thinks about it realizes that being a living creature whose existence depended on nothing more than lightning striking some chemical compounds and whose fate will be the same no matter how they conduct themselves in life logically means that their life only has value if people (or just himself), for some phychological necessity, agree that it does. If Dawkins wasn't animated by a hatred for religion, he would admit as much. Oh, and seeing Dawkins interviewed probably sends more people rushing to church than free bingo cards. Standard Asymmetric disclaimer.

Chamberlainites are apt to quote the late Stephen Jay Gould's 'NOMA' - 'non-overlapping magisteria'. Gould claimed that science and true religion never come into conflict because they exist in completely separate dimensions of discourse:

To say it for all my colleagues and for the umpteenth millionth time (from college bull sessions to learned treatises): science simply cannot (by its legitimate methods) adjudicate the issue of God's possible superintendence of nature. We neither affirm nor deny it; we simply can't comment on it as scientists.

This sounds terrific, right up until you give it a moment's thought. You then realize that the presence of a creative deity in the universe is clearly a scientific

hypothesis. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a more momentous hypothesis in all of science. A universe with a god would be a completely different kind of universe from one without, and it would be a scientific difference. God could clinch the matter in his favour at any moment by staging a spectacular demonstration of his powers, one that would satisfy the exacting standards of science. Even the infamous Templeton Foundation recognized that God is a scientific hypothesis - by funding double-blind trials to test whether remote prayer would speed the recovery of heart patients. It didn't, of course, although a control group who knew they had been prayed for tended to get worse (how about a class action suit against the Templeton Foundation?) Despite such well-financed efforts, no evidence for God's existence has yet appeared.

This is just silly reasoning. Except that Dawkins brings up a good point. Why doesn't God just appear (again), rent an office downtown, and start settling arguments? For some reason, God thinks faith is one of the three most important virtues. By making the question of God merely a matter of making an appointment with him, God would render that virtue obsolete.