The most basic theme of the Does God Exist? ministry
is that science and Christianity are friends — not enemies. For over
forty years we have been trying to get people to understand that if God
created and made the cosmos, and if that same God gave mankind a
written set of instructions about how to live and told us something
about our past, the two have to agree, because they have the same
Author. If they do not agree, either we have misunderstood God’s
written word or we have misunderstood the evidence recorded in the
natural world we observe.
Our opponents in this endeavor have been both from
the atheist community and from the religious community. These are
people who WANT a conflict between science and belief in God. The
atheist group 
believes that their
best bet in
destroying faith in God
is to promote the view that science is supported by evidence and
intelligent thinking, and religion is supported by emotionalism and
ignorance. The religious group considers all of science and those who
are a part of it to be suspect at best. Their view is that science is a
human endeavor, full of human error and selfish motives and of minimal
importance in the grand scheme of things.
These two groups are engaged in an escalating war of
words with the gap between them growing daily. On the atheist side
there has been a rapid growth of atheist activity on every front. Many
cities are now seeing billboards and bus panels touting atheist themes.
Atheists now have a variety of magazines and journals, some of them
being expensive four-color journals printed on coated paper and with a
wide range of talented writers. Skeptic,
Skeptical Inquirer, American
Atheist, Skeptical Briefs,
and
the Humanist are just a
few of the more
visible magazines/newsletters in general circulation. Organizations
like The Committee for the Advancement of Science Education have
morphed from pro-education organizations to out-and-out efforts to slam
religion and discredit belief in God. Atheists are involved in a wide
range of books and materials aimed at the general public, and have been
incredibly successful, with books by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris,
Christopher Hitchens, and others reaching the best seller lists.
Anti-creation sections are now seen in scientific journals such as
Science and Scientific American. There are so many lawsuits going on
opposing religion and belief in God that those of us who are involved
in apologetics rarely have a day when we are not informed of another
one.
On the religious side we see similar growth and
extension. The home-school market is dominated by religious
fundamentalists who have extreme views about both science and the
Bible. There are at least 
a dozen creation
museums
around the country.
Some of these are very small, low budget operations, but others such as
Ken Ham’s museum in Kentucky and Kent Hovind’s in Florida and are in
the multimillion-dollar category. A variety of new publishing houses
have sprung up, printing and distributing materials opposing things
from science which are seen as contradictory to a certain group’s
religious views. In Ronald Number’s book The Creationist, there is a
listing of those viewed as a part of the religious community opposing
evolution. Over 90 percent of those in Number’s study are
dispensational-millennialists, meaning they have a particular religious
doctrine they feel is threatened by some area of science. The number of
creationist television channels that are now on cable, Direct TV, and
Dish Network is very large — 26 channels in the area where your author
lives. The number of creationist journals continues to grow. Like the
atheist materials some of them are expensive, high-quality printing
with four-color pictures and flashy promotions.
Where will all of this end? It appears that
the
government is ultimately going to get involved, and one has to ask if a
political solution is a possibility? What are the courts likely to do?
With the advent of private schools, charter schools, the growth of
homeschooling, and continued pushing to have government control of
education what does the future hold? The problem in this situation is
that the real victims of this whole polarization are the children.
Young people have become pawns in the battles that take place between
adults.
As someone who has been on both sides of this issue
there are five observations I would like to make. I hope these will
cause at least some people to think about their own role in this
situation, and perhaps make a small step toward finding some resolution
of the conflict and minimize the damage to young people.
This statement is true individually and on a general
level. Science is defined in the dictionary as “systematic knowledge.”
Someone may object to a theory or a belief, but real science uses
theory as a tool, and systematic knowledge is neutral in its
application. The more knowledge we have, the better our decisions will
be and the less likely we are to make an error in what we do. Pure
religion is defined in the Bible as “… to look after orphans and widows
in their distress and keep oneself from being polluted by the world”
(James 1:27, NIV). Knowledge can only
assist us in our religion, and
science cannot determine the uses to which its “systematic knowledge”
will be put. In 1 Timothy 6:20 Paul
tells Timothy to “Turn away from
godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called
knowledge [science]” (NIV). Someone who has a degree in science may
have all kinds of personal ideas that have nothing to do with the area
of science in which he is trained. A large percentage of what causes
conflict between faith and science is generated by people with science
backgrounds making statements that have nothing to do with their field
of expertise. Richard Dawkins is undoubtedly the most visible scientist
who is doing this, but so are a number of other scientists who are
atheists. As atheists accelerate the conflict between science and faith
in God, they erode public confidence in science and impede children
from entering science and reduce the funding of science by the general
population.
I have told the story many times of having a student
in my AP Physics class who was one of the most capable and brightest
students I have ever had in 41 years of teaching in the public schools.
This young man taught himself calculus as we did the physics
experiments, and was exceptional in his class work. At the end of the
year he came in to see me and we talked about his ability. I encouraged
him to become a scientist. He told me he really wanted to be a
scientist and was unhappy that he could not go into science as a
career. I asked him why he could not and his reply was, “My faith is
important to me, and I can’t go into science and be a Christian.” This
is not only tragic — it is wrong! Many capable young people are being
propelled away from science because of the misconceptions promoted by
atheists and religious people about the relationship between these two
areas of study.
It is important for science to have a good image in
the general population. The distrust of the global warming message, and
the resulting confusion created by politicians and opportunists is
happening because of the general distrust people have of science. This
damages science and brings harm to innocent people.
One of the major objectives of this journal in the
42 years it has been in existence has been to correct mistaken
teachings by people on both sides of the issues. In the last two years
there have been some incredibly ignorant statements made by leading
atheist scientists, especially Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) and
Sam Harris (The End of Faith).
When Alister McGrath responded to
Dawkins’ errors in his book The
Dawkins Delusion, Michael Ruse, a
leading atheist, said that Dawkins’ book had made him ashamed to be an
atheist. Dawkins is a great biologist, but he is ignorant of the Bible,
and of religion in general, because that is not his field. He has
damaged his reputation as a biologist and as a scientist by his
unfortunate comments on religion.
By the same token, we have had numerous articles in
this journal on leading religious figures who make statements about
science that the average seventh grader would know are not correct.
When Arkansas adopted a book to be used in the public schools that
opposed evolution, the use of the book was challenged in court. Very
few religious people realized that the book claimed that UFOs were
angels of Satan coming to earth to begin the battle of Armageddon right
before the “rapture.” It was only when Judge Overton said the book was
fundamentally flawed that religious people started looking at what the
book actually contained.
We all make mistakes and have misunderstandings. No
one is infallible, and those of us who speak publicly have a huge
responsibility to do our best to make sure we accurately present
whatever we say. It is important for adults to check out what they read
and to whom they listen. A scientist who is commenting on religion
needs to be treated very skeptically, and a religious figure who is
explaining science needs to be treated in the same way. We have freedom
of speech in America (so far) and people can say almost anything. We
cannot minimize the conflict between science and faith as long as we
listen to extremists on both sides who have an agenda and explain
things which they know very little about.
Continuing the ideas in point two, we need to
understand that teaching kids is incredibly hard. Our world is changing
very quickly, and equipping kids so they can live without us in a rough
and tumble world is a challenge. I have seen parents homeschooling
children who were fundamentally ignorant about the things they were
trying to teach the children. I also have seen parents using material
that had major flaws in it, but the parent did not know enough about
the subject to recognize those flaws.
If the purpose of homeschooling is to
keep the child
away from the “nasties” (whatever those nasties might be), it is
misdirected. Sooner or later the child is going to have to function in
the real world. Running into the nasties while they are still at home
and you are able to help them, is far better than keeping them away
from the nasties until they leave home, and then have them trying to
handle the nasties without help. You cannot put kids in a bottle until
age 25 and then dump them out and have them ready to function in the
world. If kids learn how to handle conflict and misinformation while
they are at home, then when their faith is challenged after they leave
home they will not be damaged by it.
If the purpose of homeschooling is to give the child
a better education, to protect them from a physically threatening
environment, or do something the public schools cannot do, that is
another matter. Homeschooling can be very successful, but it
takes dedication and an informed parent to do it. It should not be done
just to keep the child from a racial group, an economic group, or a
teaching that might violate some of our beliefs.
I had reasons for not wanting the world to have
meaning, and consequently assumed it had none. I am concerned to prove
that there is no valid reason why I should not do what I want to. For
myself, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument
of liberation, morally and politically.
— A. Huxley
Any individual is free to believe what he wants and
to express it as he wishes. Dawkins repeatedly denies that there is
such a thing as good or evil (See Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden
[New York: BasicBooks, 1995], page 133), but to state this religious
view in a science book is an error. Peter Albert David Singer, an
Australian philosopher who is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics
at Princeton University, repeatedly states his opinion that humans with
significant disabilities should be euthanized. To state that
unfortunate view as a personal opinion is one thing, but to present it
as a scientific truth is most unfortunate. It has become fashionable to
attack religion outright in the media. Anyone is free to say what he
wishes and the media can print whatever they choose to print, but to
insert personal attacks on religion in scientific papers and journals
simply serves to further polarize the population and generate strife.
What do the two sides in this situation hope to
accomplish? A number of atheists have voiced the opinion that religion
must be destroyed. The claim is that religion causes war and that only
by militarily destroying religion can what is called “the cancer of
religion” be eradicated. The lesson of history is that when atheists or
political forces try to destroy faith they do not succeed. In the past,
religion has 
been driven underground
but it was
not destroyed. Russia,
China, and Albania are modern examples of how attempts to destroy
religion have failed.
By the same token, the beneficial things that come
to mankind from science cannot be debated. Medicine and electronic
advances continue to bless all of us. The notion that we can legislate
atheism out of existence, along with science we disagree with, is not
going to work.
The solution to this whole conflict is education.
When fair-minded people sit down and look at the evidence, the issues,
and the impact of the conflict, they can minimize the differences and
find peace. No one has to compromise his fundamental beliefs, but we
all need to learn and understand — and perhaps learn where we have to
agree to disagree. Remember, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they
will be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9, NIV). (See page 14.)
We need to be known for attempts to bring peace and
understanding, not conflict and dissension. We need to follow the
Apostle Paul’s example and resolve to know nothing “except Christ Jesus
and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much
trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and
persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so
that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power. We
do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the
wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to
nothing” (1 Corinthians 2:2 – 6).
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Does God Exist?, JulAug10.
