Nuggets from Cosmos, Creator, and Human Destiny—Committing Intellectual Suicide

This passion to destroy all thought of God and all religion is widespread and growing. The theory of evolution has been adopted by scientists and nonscientists as one of the best means toward this end. Leading geneticist Francis Collins, a professing Christian who accepts evolution, says of the angry crusading atheist: “Dawkins is a master of setting up a straw man, and then dismantling it with great relish. In fact, it is hard to escape the conclusion that such repeated mischaracterizations of faith betray a vitriolic personal agenda, rather than a reliance on the rational arguments that Dawkins so cherishes in the scientific realm.” Mathematician J.W.N. Sullivan remains loyal to his atheism, even though he admits that his antagonism against God causes him, like Richard Lewontin, to espouse “patent absurdity”:

“[By] careful experiments, notably those of Pasteur . . . it became an accepted doctrine [the law of biogenesis] that life never arises except from life. So far as actual evidence goes, this is still the only possible conclusion. But since it is a conclusion that seems to lead back to some supernatural creative act, it is a conclusion that scientific men find very difficult of acceptance. It carries with it what are felt to be, in the present mental climate, undesirable philosophic implications. . . . For that reason most scientific men prefer to believe that life arose, in some way not yet understood, from inorganic matter in accordance with the laws of physics and chemistry.”