Stand to Reason Blog

Should Science Study Religion?

Some scientists suggest so.  Before I can decide, I have a couple of questions: 1. What do they mean by science? and 2. What do they mean by religion?

Scientism dominates belief about reality these days.  It's the idea that what is real is what can be studied by science.  Science is universally applicable to every kind of knowledge pursuit.  Empirical study is the most reliable kind of knowledge.  That's pretty much how people approach things these days.  The man the lab coat is the authority on every kind of subject. 

But science can only study things that fall within its domain and methodology.  And since naturalism dominates science these days, for science to study religion, religion has to be reduced to a purely natural phenomenon.  Religion becomes behaviors, brain chemistry, etc.  That's not religion.  While science may be able to study certain aspects of religious phenomena, science just can't study religion.  It falls outside its territory.  But that's not surprising.  Lots of important things do:  morality, values, logic, consciousness, theology, etc. 

If science cannot study religion because it doesn't have the resources to do it without fist reducing it to something else, that doesn't mean religion isn't part of the real world where facts and truth guide us to discover reality.  It simply means it's another area of study.  So I'm guessing I'll answer this question "no."  We should use another area of knowledge to study religion.

How Old Is the Earth?

R.C. Sproul of Ligonier Ministries explains how he approaches this question:

 

Theistic Evolution Follow-up

I wrote yesterday about the inadequacy of the evolutoinary process to explain the development and complexity of life we observe.  Theistic evolutionists accept the proposition that the natural processes are adequate to explain this.  In practice, theistic evolution is a naturalistic view of the origins of life.  TE does allow for other miraculous events and God's sustaining power, but not God's intervention for creative purposes once the natural process has begun.  In an artice today by Darrell Falk, president of The Biologos Foundation, he states this clearly:

Thus, we should not assume with certainty that God would choose to use supernatural flurries of activity if his ongoing regular activity—that described through natural laws—would accomplish the same end, albeit over a longer period of time. [emphasis added]

This is the crux.  For theistic evolution to succeed as an explanation, the natural processes have to be fully adequate to explain the development of the universe after the beginning without God's supernatural intervention.  And the evidence just isn't there.

Evolution and Divine Action

Greg's guest on the radio program Sunday was Fuz Rana from Reasons To Believe to discuss theistic evolution. (Jump to the third hour as indicated by the chapter marks.)

Theistic evolutionists accept evolution as a valid description of how all of life evolved from the beginning.  They also believe that God exists, began the universe and sustains it.  TE have a strong commitment to evolution as a fact and Christianity as true, as well, but an explanation of the two has not been worked out in a robust scientific and theological framework.  BioLogos, probably the leading theistic evolution organization, describes God's involvement with the evolutionary process:

If the laws of nature can explain an increasing number of natural phenomena, how is God involved? The laws of nature do not exist apart from God. They are a reflection of the activity of God. If God ceased to uphold the laws of nature, there would be no universe.

It's an orthodox Christian position that God sustains the natural processes.  We agree on this.  However, if evolution is fully adequate to explain the origins of life, then God does not insert Himself into the process of evolution.  He begins the process and  sustains it, but He doesn't alter it in any way after initiating it.  So practically speaking, theistic evolution adopts methodological naturalism for the normal process of evolution and origins.

But these processes don't account for life.  Evolution isn't an adequate explanation.  There's nothing in evolutionary mechanisms that suggests goal, purpose, or outcome from the beginning.  "Fully gifted" creation (which is the only way to get purpose and intended outcome if God kicks things off and evolution takes over) just isn't indicated in the evidence.  In fact, it's contraindicated by the evidence.  Stephen Meyer explained on a recent radio broadcast that study of the cell shows that there just isn't enough information built into it to account for the complexity of life we observe. Information has to be introduced into the process.  Yet this is exactly what cannot happen according to evolution and therefore theistic evolution. God doesn't insert Himself into the process other than sustaining it.

If God intervenes at all then it's not evolution; it's some form of intelligent design. If God doesn't intervene, then we don't have an adequate explanation of life.  Theistic evolutionists suggest God could have done this, or God could have done that ("fully gifted evolution" is one of these suggestions), but so far all of these are either not indicated by the evidence or insert God into the process.

The idea of theistic evolution has been around for 150 years, yet there's nothing more satisfying in the account today than in the history of this idea.  It would require a significant reworking of theology, not just origins.  That hasn't been done in a way that doesn't radically alter Christian theology, and there's no reason to do such a thing since evolution isn't a compelling explanation.

The data of human origins, archaeology and molecular chemistry all harmonizes with the literal Biblical account of God's special creation and intervention.  That's where the evidence leads, not to evolution.  Therefore, there's no reason to attempt to harmonize theism and evolution, and so far they haven't produced a rational or satisfying account.

Does Analytic Thinking Decrease Religious Belief?

A University of British Columbia study just released “finds that analytic thinking can decrease religious belief, even in devout believers”:

Researchers used problem-solving tasks and subtle experimental priming – including showing participants Rodin’s sculpture The Thinker or asking participants to complete questionnaires in hard-to-read fonts – to successfully produce “analytic” thinking. The researchers, who assessed participants’ belief levels using a variety of self-reported measures, found that religious belief decreased when participants engaged in analytic tasks, compared to participants who engaged in tasks that did not involve analytic thinking.

The findings, Gervais says, are based on a longstanding human psychology model of two distinct, but related cognitive systems to process information: an “intuitive” system that relies on mental shortcuts to yield fast and efficient responses, and a more “analytic” system that yields more deliberate, reasoned responses.

“Our study builds on previous research that links religious beliefs to ‘intuitive’ thinking,” says study co-author and Associate Prof. Ara Norenzayan, UBC Dept. of Psychology. “Our findings suggest that activating the ‘analytic’ cognitive system in the brain can undermine the ‘intuitive’ support for religious belief, at least temporarily.”

This is interesting to me because I had the exact opposite experience—it was only when I started thinking analytically about religion that I became convinced Christianity is true.

My first thought when I read the opening of this article was, “I guess it depends on what information is available for you to analyze!” If an analytical person has only heard rational arguments against religion, but never for religion, it would be no surprise if he were to be less religious. But after reading how the study was conducted (as explained in the excerpt above), I think it might show something else. And sadly, it would make sense in our culture today.

I say this because it seems the participants in this study weren’t given any information about religion to analyze—no arguments for or against religion (or anything else). Rather, the researchers were merely trying to activate the areas of the brain associated with analytic thought.

So now imagine you’re an average religious person who has been taught not to think about religious matters, but only to feel them; not to analyze religious claims to determine what is true, but to consider them nothing more than personal preferences.

If you’ve walled off your religious ideas from your analytic thinking, is it any surprise that when you’re focused on the grandeur of analytic thinking (e.g., looking at The Thinker*), or activating the analytical parts of your brain, that you would be drawn away from your purely-feelings-based religious ideas? If you “undermine [a person’s] ‘intuitive’ support for religious belief,” and there is no accompanying analytic support present in that person’s mind, then of course belief will go down.

But does this happen because of the very nature of religious thought, or is this merely a cultural problem? Consider this: It was serious thinking that led Aristotle to believe in a First Cause. In his mind, deep, analytic thought was not disconnected from ideas about immaterial things. So activating the analytical parts of Aristotle’s brain would most certainly not have caused him to believe less in his idea of a First Cause. And he, of course, is only one example.

So just at first glance, this study might only reveal how people currently view religion—whether they subjectively associate religion with analytic or intuitive thinking, whether they’ve ever thought about religion analytically before. And what it finds, unsurprisingly, is the current cultural practice of thinking of religion as being in a separate category from reason.

The bottom line is, it's not the case that all religious ideas are by nature tied to intuitive thinking at the expense of analytic thinking (the researchers probably wouldn't deny that). Thinking they are is a culturally created phenomenon.

But in saying that, I don’t want to fall into the related cultural trap of conceding that one can’t reason about the kinds of things that activate the intuitive side of the brain—things like meaning and purpose, according to the researchers:

Analytic thinking undermines belief because, as cognitive psychologists have shown, it can override intuition. And we know from past research that religious beliefs—such as the idea that objects and events don't simply exist but have a purpose—are rooted in intuition. "Analytic processing inhibits these intuitions, which in turn discourages religious belief," Norenzayan explains.

But the question is, are we more or less reasonable when our intuition is inhibited? The former is often assumed (the researchers suggest this, citing how intuitive thinking led participants to incorrect answers when it was used in matters like math, where I agree it ought not be applied), but I don’t think it’s justified overall since we actually need intuitive thinking in order to apprehend certain truths about reality. I can’t give you a syllogism proving love, justice, or goodness, but that doesn’t mean they’re irrational subjects about which we can’t reason once they've been apprehended. On the contrary, to deny their existence and not include them in our thinking about reality would be to have a less reasonable understanding of what is true.

So if a person is having one type of thinking inhibited in favor of another, we can’t assume that person is acting more reasonably—not if the inhibited thinking is the correct way to perceive certain truths. In other words, the reduction of a person's ability to engage in intuitive thinking doesn't necessarily mean he's thinking more clearly about what's true in this world.

I'd be interested in hearing if these types of experiments inhibited other true apprehensions of reality that depend on intuitive thinking. For example, would activating analytic thinking cause people to have a more difficult time correctly reading social cues? Would thinking about social relationships and engaging in tasks that focus on reading body language cause a temporary lowering of their ability to solve logic puzzles? Just as such things wouldn't prove that a person who perceives social cues is a bad thinker, neither do these experiments prove that those who perceive truths about religion are bad thinkers.

Granted, these comments are based on the news reports, not the study (I only have access to the abstract at this time), and I don’t know what conclusions the researchers will draw, if any. But you’re bound to hear someone draw unwarranted conclusions about the reasonableness of religion based on this study (I already have), so these are just a few things to keep in mind as more of the details come out and we're able to think through them.

_____________________

*I’m not sure why looking at the Rodin sculpture causes analytic thinking. It seems to me it’s more likely to merely create a desire in the participant both to join in with the beauty and prestige of what’s being portrayed and to likewise be thought of as a thinker. This, of course, would cause the participant to give answers that would put him into what he perceives to be the scholar’s corner (that is, what our culture has taught him is the scholar’s corner, not necessarily where analytic thinking actually leads). And currently, that corner is a scientism that rejects religion. This would end up measuring cultural perception more than anything else.

The Trouble with Theistic Evolution

Greg interviewed Stephen Meyer on Sunday's radio program, who had some very helpful thinking about theistic evolution.  He offered questions and problems from a biblical and a scientific standpoint.  (Here's the program - it's in hour three, which you can skip to in this enhanced version with chapter marks.)  Meyer is the author of Signature in the Cell (and Greg interviewed him about the book).

Meyer said it's important to first clarify which definition of evolution theistic evolutionists (TE) use.  There are three definitions of evolution: 1. change over time, 2. common descent, 3. the mechanism of change-undirected natural selection.  As in any discussion, it's important to understand the terms.  Different TEs may use different definitions.  The first definition is uncontroversial - living things change over time.  Either the second or third definitions are problematic for the Biblical record and believing in a Creator. The second two definitions also have scientific problems that should call into question adopting evolution at all.  Common descent undermines the historicity of Adam and Eve, and alternative interpretations leave serious theological problems.  Regarding the third definition, God can't direct an undirected process. (More on this in a moment.) 

TEs want to influence the church to adopt the view.  Some think the church is out of step scientifically and it would enhance our effectiveness with unbelievers if we adopt what science has purportedly proven.  There serious scientific reasons to question that.  And there are serious theological reasons to question the compatibility of theism and evolution.  If they wish to make their case, they first need to be very clear about the terms before expecting anyone to consider their view. 

TE, of course, accepts that Darwinism is true and attempt to harmonize it with theism.  But there are good reasons to seriously question Darwinism in the first place.  Meyer said that the fossil record is conflicting and discontinuous - it doesn't support Darwinian evolution. Some TE suggest that God front-loaded the design for the universe and let it evolve on it's own.  However, Meyer said that the evidence just isn't there to support this idea.  Study of the cell shows that there isn't enough information built in to account for the variety and complexity of life we observe in the universe.  Meyer explains it more in this video.

Mutation is inadequate to explain the creative power for the variety of life.  Mutation produces very little new information - not enough to build proteins, which are the fundamental building blocks for life.  Meyer told us that there's already discussion among Darwinists to formulate a new theory of evolution replacing mutation as the mechanism of change because they're recognizing it's deficiency.  That is the very core of Darwinian theory.  If evolutionists are finding it lacking explanatory power, why should theists adopt it?

Further, the idea of an unguided process is built into Darwinism. It's not an extraneous detail that can be removed and replaced with a guided process.  Some TE explain that there's randomness in the indeterminacy of the outcomes, but God guides it to an outcome.  But a necessary part of Darwinism is the unguided nature of the process, not only the indeterminacy of the outcome.  If God guides, then it's not evolution. If God doesn't guide, then it's not theistic.

Darwinists say that we observe design, but it's deceptive - it's really random.  Creationists - whether young or old earth - agree that there's design and use that as evidence of a Designer. TE accept that things appear random or really are random, but that God is sovereign over it all.  TEs have different ways of explaining this.  But this is truly God of the gaps because it's not based on evidence - they've already acknowledged the randomness of Darwinism.  It may be a faith statement based on theology, but it's not scientifically or rationally based on any evidence inherent in the universe if it truly appears to be random.  That is very different from creationists arguing from the observation of design in the universe for a Designer.

Darwinism fails on the merits so why try to marry it to theism?  Meyer finished with a warning against marrying Christianity too closely with scientific theories that may be rejected in time as they're studied more. (And that seems to be a real possibility for Darwinism.)  He explained that the Roman Catholic church's opposition to Galileo was not primarily for theological reasons, but because the church sided with the scientific consensus of the time that Galileo was challenging.  The church associated itself too closely with a theory that was eventually rejected.  Darwinism has scientific problems.  It presents theological problems.  So there are both scientific and theological problems against theistic evolution.  Rather than making the church more effective by adopting evolution, it could end up making us even more irrelevant as science changes.

Check out the Faith and Evolution website, which explores whether it's consistent to be a Christian and evolutionist.  Another good resource is Jay Wesley Richards' book God and Evolution. And here's an article Greg wrote about theistic evolution.

Theistic Evolution Incompatible

Jay Wesley Richards explains why theistic evolution is an attempt to join incompatible ideas. The view requires redefining one of the terms, which fundamentally changes the terms.

Either God designs the details, or nature shuffles the deck and natural selection chooses the winning hand.  The mechanism is either conscious and intentional (design), or unconscious and unintentional (natural selection).  Creation is teleological; it has a purpose, a goal, an end.  Evolution is accidental, like a straight flush dealt to a poker rookie.

Theistic evolution means design by chance.  That’s like a square circle--there is no such thing.  Blending Darwinian evolution with creation is like putting a square peg in a round hole.  It just doesn’t fit

Here's a past issue of Solid Ground that goes into detail on the subject.

Sam Harris' Moral Argument

Sam Harris is attempting to offer a "scientific" explanation for morality.  He's responding to the grounding challenge for naturalism - where do moral values fit in a purely material, physical world?  This is a significant challenge for naturalism and atheism since morality is something human beings universally know is real.  So any worldview has to be able to account for it or else it's a fatal flaw of that worldview.  Harris attempts to explain how science can account for moral values.

In this call from a recent radio program, Greg explained some of the fundamental flaws in Harris' account.  The first step Harris makes is wrong - he identifies the mind as the brain.  But as Greg points out, minds and brains have different properties, so they can't be be the same thing.  Harris asserts this and then Harri's explanation suffers from circular reasoning.  Greg explains.

Sam Harris' Moral Argument

Question Evolution

Evolution is dancing on the Titanic.

The current evolution/creation controversy is based on two fundamental errors. First, the issue is cast as a conflict between the indisputable facts of science and the dogmatic faith of religious fundamentalists. Second, two entirely different definitions of science are used interchangeably, obscuring the true nature of the discussion.

Facts vs. Faith

Douglas Futuyma opens Science on Trial, his compelling polemic against creationism, with these words: "Fifty-seven years after the Scopes trial, fundamentalist religion and evolutionary biology are again fiercely at odds, and science is still on trial." Douglas Futuyma, Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution (Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates Inc., 1983), p. 4.

Futuyma's words echo the sentiments of the academic rank and file: Creationists are obscurantist flat-earthers whose commitment to superstition keeps them in darkness. The verdict of science is clear. Darwinian evolution is an indisputable fact.

This characterization is simply false.

Following the complete failure of the Origin of Life Conference in Berkeley in the late 80's to produce a plausible scenario for how life itself chemically evolved, Dr. Robert Shapiro wrote a book entitled Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth. ("Creation" here refers to biochemical evolution.) Shapiro is an educated skeptic, an eminent chemist from New York University and an expert in his field. In his book he decimates the reigning ideas of how life could have evolved from non-life.

Michael Denton wrote Evolution: A Theory in Crisis to show that the original scientific objections to evolution that faced Darwin--and were argued powerfully by his contemporaries--still apply after more than 100 years of scientific research and progress.

Both of these books were written by non-religious people raising scientific objections to evolution. Shapiro remains an evolutionist, hoping that the future will turn up more evidence for biochemical evolution than the past has been able to produce. Denton ends his analysis with this statement: "The Darwinian theory is the great cosmogenic myth of the twentieth century," and then adds, "like the Genesis-based cosmology which it replaced."

You have no friends of religion here. These men are inside of the established scientific community, not outside of it. Yet each offers scientifically rigorous and compelling arguments against the idea that known natural processes are adequate to explain the biological complexity of our world.

Michael Behe is a cellular biologist with impeccable credentials. In his book Darwin's Black Box, he shows that the irreducible complexity of life can't be explained by Darwinian gradualism.

James Shapiro of the University of Chicago, a molecular biologist and a deeply committed evolutionist, made this candid remark in response to Behe's work:

There are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations. It is remarkable that Darwinism is accepted as a satisfactory explanation for such a vast subject--evolution--with so little rigorous examination of how well its basic theses work in illuminating specific instances of biological adaptation or diversity.  James Shapiro, "In the Details...What?," National Review, September 19, 1996, pp. 62-65.

Niles Eldridge, one of the world's leading experts in vertebrate fossils, describes the actual situation paleontologists face:

No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It never seems to happen. Assiduous collecting up cliff faces yield zigzags, minor oscillations, and the very occasional slight accumulation of change--over millions of years, at a rate too slow to account for all the prodigious change that has occurred in evolutionary history. When we do see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it usually shows up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence that the fossils did not evolve elsewhere! Evolution cannot forever be going on somewhere else. Yet that's how the fossil record has struck many a forlorn paleontologist looking to learn something about evolution."  Niles Eldridge, Reinventing Darwin: The Great Debate at the High Table of Evolutionary Theory (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995), p. 95.

This problem is so severe it has spawned an entirely new school of evolutionary thinking--punctuated equilibrium, championed by Harvard paleontologist Stephen J. Gould. It's also spawned a bitter feud between Gould's camp and traditional Darwinists like Richard Dawkins who still hold to gradualism in spite of the paucity of fossil evidence for it.

Phillip Johnson has made a fair observation when he states, "If eminent experts say that evolution according to Gould is too confused to be worth bothering about, and others equally eminent say that evolution according to Dawkins rests on unsubstantiated assertions and counterfactual claims, the public can hardly be blamed for suspecting that grand-scale evolution may rest on something less impressive than rock-solid, unimpeachable fact."

We are within our rights to question the stability of the entire enterprise. But the minute we do, we run into a second problem.

Two Faces of Science

Science has two definitions. The first is the most well known. Science is about a methodology--observation, experimentation, testing, etc.--that allows researchers to discover the facts about the world. Presumably, this is what evolution is about--the facts of science. Science in this sense has prompted the litany of concerns expressed above by evolutionists.

The second definition of science involves the philosophy of naturalistic materialism: matter and energy governed by natural law. Any view that doesn't conform to this definition is not scientific.

These two definitions are not always compatible. Evolution is a case in point. At first blush it seems like evolution is about scientific facts. But when facts suggest design, the second definition is invoked. The philosophy always trumps the methodology. That is, any scientific methodology (first definition) that supports intelligent design is summarily disqualified by scientific philosophy (second definition) as "religion disguised as science."

Futuyma says, "Where science insists on material, mechanistic causes that can be understood by physics and chemistry, the literal believer in Genesis invokes unknowable supernatural forces." Douglas Futuyma, Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution (Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates Inc., 1983), p. 12

Creationists claim, however, that these forces are knowable, at least in principle. Consider this analogy. When a dead body is discovered, an impartial investigation of the scene might indicate foul play and not accident. In the same way, evidence could, in principle, indicate an agent in creation rather than chance. This is not faith vs. evidence, but evidence vs. evidence.

Notice how Futuyma conflates these definitions in the following statement taken from Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution, the most widely used college evolutionary textbook:

The fact is, in a scientific sense, there can be no evidence for supernatural special creation. Belief in special creation must rest on faith, on the authority of the Bible and its most literal interpreters. The fundamental conflict, then, is between two incompatible ways to knowledge. Science emphasizes evidence and logical deduction, and is forever uncertain. It deals not with irrefutable facts engraved on stone tablets, but with hypotheses that may be refuted by tomorrow's experiments and concepts formulated by fallible human minds. The best scientific education encourages skepticism, questioning, independent thought, and the use of reason."  Douglas Futuyma, Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution (Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates Inc., 1983), p. 18

How does Douglas Futuyma know in advance there "can be no evidence for supernatural special creation"? Because it's stipulated by definition. Even if evidence is available, it cannot be allowed. Further, no independent thought regarding the fact of evolution (as opposed to the method of evolution) is allowed either, in spite of Futuyma's assertions to the contrary. Any denial of evolution is simply not "science."

Darwinism as Dogma

Clearly, the paradigm is paramount and everything must be done to save it. Harvard Genetics Professor Richard Lewontin is very candid about this fact. In The New York Review of Books he makes this remarkable admission:

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs...in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.[6] [emphasis in the original]

Here Richard Lewontin, distinguished Harvard Genetics Professor, admits that the apparatus of science is not geared to pursue the truth wherever it may lead, but rather to produce philosophically acceptable answers.

Phillip Johnson sums it up: "The reason for opposition to scientific accounts of our origins, according to Lewontin, is not that people are ignorant of facts, but that they have not learned to think from the right starting point."

Presumed Guilty

Once one presumes evolution, many of the pieces seem to fit. If you simply presume someone associated with a crime is guilty, you're bound to find some pieces of evidence that appear incriminating. But if your suspect produces an airtight alibi, you must rework your presumptions.

In the same way, Darwinism has fatal flaws, in spite of some circumstantial evidence for common ancestry. The mechanism (natural selection) is not adequate to do the work it needs to do. Behe and others have made this clear. The gradualist pathways from one transition to another cannot be reconstructed, as Gould has pointed out. Robert Shapiro of NYU admits there is no current evidence that life could come from non-life. Paleontologists can compare fossils all they want, but if evolutionary processes cannot even produce the most basic amino acid sequences necessary for life, then the game can't even get started.

To label creationist efforts as "religious zealots conducting stealth campaigns," as one editorial did, skirts the issue entirely. It is easier to dismiss any objections to evolution as flat-earth religion than to intelligently and fairly engage the facts in public discourse.

Three Errors

The view that "religious" theories should not intrude in science is guilty of a several of logical errors.

First, it commits the either/or fallacy by asserting that a view is either scientific or religious. Design models might have some factual support. We see the blending, for example, in near-death experience (NDE) research, or conclusions about the existence of a Creator based on Big Bang cosmology.

Second, it commits the straw-man fallacy by assuming that creationists make no use of scientific methods. This is not the case. Creationists are happy to present an abundance of scientific evidence for their view, if they're allowed. This evidence needs to be addressed instead of disqualified.

Third, it assumes that the reigning scientific views do not have religious significance. This is false. All cosmological views have metaphysical significance. If evolutionary naturalism is true, the only place for God is in the imagination of the faithful.

Read This Book!

I want to recommend a book that gets right to the heart of this issue in a clear and accessible way. It's called An Easy-to-Understand Guide for Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds by Phillip Johnson.

You'll get first-rate advice on how to be a player in this discussion without getting bogged down in unnecessary details. You don't need a technical background, just a simple game plan. It's an easy read and a powerful tool that will help you expose the real issue in this debate.

The evolution/creation controversy is not about evidence. It's about the power of an academic elite to enforce a philosophy. This fact is becoming increasingly obvious to the public. Once this becomes clear, then evolution will have to stand on its own merits and it won't be able to do so.

Evolutionists are dancing on the Titanic. If it were not for philosophical strong-arming in the field of science, Darwinism would have become an historical curiosity long ago. It's only a matter of time before the iceberg hits.

Do We Need Religion for Morality?

Richard Dawkins says no.  “We don’t need to get morals from our religions … We don’t want to find morals from the holy books. We can have our own enlightened secular values.”

We do need God, however, to account for the existence of morals.  Evolution - no natural process - can do that.  Morals are immaterial, universal values.  They aren't physical things so science can't study them and natural processes can't explain them. There's no mechanism in nature or evolutionionary theory to explain the nature or existence of morality.

The only alternative for a committed naturalist as Dawkins is is moral relativism.  But then naturalists have to give up their claim that morality has any obligation on us because relativism gives up any universal claim.  Yet naturalists such as Dawkins and Michael Shermer want to maintain that they do believe in objective morality.  This was illustrated in Greg Koukl's debate with Shermer a couple of years ago.  But they have no adequate explanation for morality in their materialist worldview. 

Morality has to be explained and fit in a worldview.  And theism is the only one that has explnatory resources for the source and nature of morality.  It's called the "grounding problem." Religions and holy books may or may not reveal specifics of morality, but it's God that is the explanation for why morality exists. 

At the end of the article, Dawkins blunders by claiming that if God created the universe then His existence needs an explanation, so it explains nothing.  Dawkins obviously has never attempted to consider the arguments he disagrees with. 

We know from observation, and it's a fundamental fact of science, that events need causes.  No event occurs without a cause.  There are two kinds of causes - other events and persons.  Persons can be independent actors, causes without a need for further explanation.  God is a person, and as an immaterial being wthout a beginning, He has no need of a cause and is an adequate explanation in Himself. So God as the first cause of the universe needs no further explanation for His existence.

Now Dawkins may not accept that this God exists.  But the cosmological explanation is logically sound and doesn't beg the question of God's existence.  In that way at least, it is explanatorily superior to evolution for the origin of the universe.