James Le Fanu: Why Us? (The limitations of science)

by dhw, Wednesday, May 27, 2009, 14:38 (5445 days ago) @ David Turell

David Turell has drawn our attention to Bruce David's attack on "smug atheists" who, he claims, suddenly find that science has begun to turn on them, with lots of evidence supporting the existence of a Creator. - David T: I don't think [Bruce] David is 'smug'. The real issue for him (and for me) is the willingness to follow new scientific developments and possibly reach new conclusions from them as to what may be the underlying 'truth'. - I agree totally with your sentiments, but Bruce D confines his attack to atheists, whereas your comment is general. My objection is mainly to the one-sidedness of his approach. Why doesn't he also mention, for instance, the Creationists who insist that the world is no more than 10,000 years old? When he argues that there are people "for whom being right is more important than anything else" (i.e. than the "truth"), again he makes it clear that he is referring to atheists. As I pointed out earlier, this suggests that no interpretation of science is genuine except his own. George, in his reply, says: "I am an atheist because that's where my evaluation of the evidence leads me." I believe him, and admire his restraint in the face of Bruce D's insinuation that "being right" is more important to him than "the truth". - Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion, p. 100) quotes a study in Nature (1998) showing that only about 7% of the members of the US National Academy of Sciences believed in a personal God. The remaining 93% may have been wrong, or maybe vast numbers have been converted since, or maybe most of them were agnostics or deists or panentheists, but why impugn the integrity of the rest? - Interestingly Bruce D highlights the fact that Antony Flew "has always respected those with whom he disagreed". Bruce D clearly does not. He focuses solely on the smug atheist, as "one who has identified yourself as a member of the elite who know the obvious truth of things". This description fits any number of theists, from the Muslim suicide bomber to the Pope. For me, such one-sided attacks smack not just of smugness but also of bigotry. David T, on the other hand, calls for open-mindedness among theists as well as atheists. Now that I applaud.