Big question, short (but good) answers
The Templeton Foundation has a series on “The Big Questions,” where big minds weigh in on what they think the answers are. Their current Big Question is a good one for us to discuss: “Does science make belief in God obsolete?” Here’s a short list of the answers, if only partially:
A Harvard psychologist says, “Yes, if by…”
The Archbishop of Vienna says, “No, and yes.”
A Nobel Laureate in physics says, “Absolutely not!”
A Pakistani physicist says, “Not necessarily.”
A philosopher says, “Of course not.”
A Stanford professor of neurology with a very cool beard says, “No.”
A well-known and lovable atheist author says, “No, but it should.”
An Anglican priest says, “No.”
Another notorious atheist author says, rather unsurprisingly, “Yes.”
A Harvard medical professor says, “No, not at all.”
The publisher of Skeptic magazine says, “It depends.”
A Brown biology professor says, “Of course not.”
A man who’s into biocomplexity and informatics says, “No, but only if…”
Download every one of their answers in very readable form right here. In an age where people refuse to answer questions with any kind of earnestness, projects like these are appreciated.




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back to top10 Comments to “Big question, short (but good) answers”
Science, in its current guise, limits itself by definition to examination of the physical. If it isn’t physical, then science doesn’t touch it.
It can not, therefore, make religion obsolete – unless one adopts the notion that the physical is all thee is. And science doesn’t adress the non-physicial so as to be of no use in whether one adopts that notion.
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Interesting passage from Pinker:
It’s not just that the traditional Judeo-Christian God endorsed genocide, slavery, rape, and the death penalty for trivial insults. It’s that morality cannot be grounded in divine decree, not even in principle. Why did God deem some acts moral and others immoral? If he had no reason but divine whim, why should we take his commandments seriously? If he did have reasons, then why not appeal to those reasons directly?
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Who says the Bible was written to explain our world and how it came to be? If that is all the Bible is about, then it is of no use. Surely anyone reading the Bible stories will see that the Bible is more than about the physical world. This is a fallacy the scientists bring up again and again.
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Those essays are excellent reading. They should dispel the myth that theists are just people who don’t know better. Will anyone challenge the credentials or the obvious intellingence and knowledge of the writers who said no?
A recurring theme in the essays is that science can neither confirm nor deny the existence of the supernatural and of God. That’s not what science does. People who claim either that scientific evidence either proves or disproves God are barking up the wrong tree.
It would be like a medical doctor claiming that a DNA test proves that Mozart was a great composer or like a philosopher claiming that deductive reasoning proves that pineapples are more delicious than grapes.
Science can answer how but not why. It will never be able to answer the question of why things exist, and for that reason it can never make faith in God obsolete.
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another interesting passage from Pinker:
We now know that natural selection narrows down possibilities already written in DNA. According to Watson, Darwin also theorized that acquired traits were inherited by the progeny (pangensis) — but fortunately real science proved him wrong.
Also Watson and Crick discovered the how genetic information is passed from parent to progeny, but they sure didn’t prove how it got to be that way, All they proved was that genetic information is so amazingly structured that it boggles the imagination as to how it got that way. Crick figures it evolved through RNA which is a real stretch — an not a very sound scientific one at that.
Also, tracing back the DNA mutations keeps showing all human life originated not from multiple sources of evolving changes which is politically incorrect and rightly so, but through a single branch — which of course the Bible said all along — it just skipped the billions of years b.s.
But I guess we’re supposed to ignore all that and take Dr. Pinker at his word because he is really smart.
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Kyle A (comment to you on whirled views 23, sympathies on the parting of your sis)
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Mumsee, thanks so much. It has been incredibly sad, but there have been some blessings through it all.
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Thank you Awstar. I was just getting ready to say something similar, but I really didn’t feel like it.
I would like everyone to try to realize that what you see in evidence thoroughly depends on your preconceived ideas, rather than your intelligence or worthiness.
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I believe what we do with our lives and how our lives affect others is a far far more important issue to fret over than did we evolve from swamp goo or not. (Note: I believe in the JudeoChistian triune creator-god)
Do you think kids with bellies bloated by Kwashioker even CARE whether they are evolved hairless primates or image bearers of the deity??
And I suspect lots of evo folks cling to that philosophy and use it to justify indifference to others suffering
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Sawgunner, I think you would classify me as an “evo folk”. While I am Christian, and do believe in God, and that he is the prime-mover and the reasons that the universe came to be, I don’t believe in the literal truth of the Genesis creation myth.
I think evolution is the correct explanation of “how He did it”, and that we came to be through the natural process of laws that He created. That we evolved from, as you inelligantly put it “swamp goo.”
BUT, I want to assure you, that in no way makes me, or any of the many other people I know that believe in evolution, in any way indifferent to others’ suffering. And this is true whether, in addition to beleiveing in evolution, they are Christian, some other faith, or even atheist.
In fact, I find it to be quite the opposite. The atheists I’ve spoken with, since they don’t believe suffering serves any larger purpose or meaning beyond this life, see it as purely evil and something to be both avoided for one’s self, and alleviated for others.
Contrariwise, I think there is a reason, albeit difficult to fathom, that God allows suffering, but that we still have a duty to relieve the suffering of others. I simply see no connection of this belief to beliefs about the mechanisms of creation.
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