Richard Dawkins, world’s best-known evolutionist and the Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, just hosted two one hour "documentaries" on faith and science. Perhaps revealing the true, but often hidden thoughts of evolutionists, his opinion of faith is shown very clearly in the title of the program – The Root of all Evil? NO, he is not referring to the love of money, but to religious faith. Not only that, the episode names are staggeringly plain and intentionally(?) offensive – (1) The God Delusion, and (2) The Virus of Faith.
For those who say evolution has nothing to say about faith, perhaps you should send a letter to the most well-known evolutionary apologist this side of Stephen Jay Gould (and much less of a scientist than Gould,may he rest in peace). Dawkins likens religious training to child abuse (I have to admit, some of the more fundamentalist faiths certainly are abusive), and is just plain over the top with his dislike for faith. Does he speak for most evolutionists? Probably not, but you wouldn’t know that from some of the diatribes, er, dialogues at the Panders Thumb. But I digress. I really need to speak nicely of those folks.
AIG has a complete review of the show, and here’s one snippet from that review, which echoes my own oft repeated problem w/ evolutionist dogma:
In an attempt to persuade us that science and faith are diametrically opposed, he asks: ‘How do we know that the earth is four-and-a-half billion years old and that it orbits the sun that nourishes it?’ Religious accounts of the origin of the world and of life, he argues, are not testable. Dawkins confuses operational science, which is capable of reproducible testing, with his version of origins science, which is not.
A man after my own heart…
Yes, well, he has exposed the dark heart behind the scientist religion, which is that all other systems of thought are wrong! How narrow ;)
I choose reason over religious faith. Nothing dark about it.
I'm sorry you see them as opposed to one another, rather than complimentary. Probably, you chose reason over fanatacism and supertition.
I still hold to Augustine's position on faith and reason – Augustine said that before faith comes, reason leads our life. We should use reason, however, to find sources of truth that we trust. Then, we do not need to be limited to what we can test or understand before we practice it. We can benefit from the wisdom of those who have gone before us, not having to reinvent the wheel. But once we find, through reason, a source we can trust, we can then exercise faith, and let reason trail behind, catching up when it can.
Yep, sounds like a rationalization of irrationality. We must never abandon reason, for it alone protects us from the darkness (whose prime servant is faith). That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence (eg, ID).