Sam Harris

This is one of the reasons why I never tire of having discussions with the religious; you never know what they are going to say next. Would you be so kind as to elaborate on your rather esoteric theory that we derive the scientific method from the Bible ? Sam You might try and read "Genesis and the Big Bang" written by Gerald Schroeder PhD.. I don't have the time nor the inclination to go through a multiple hundred page book to point out all the ways, but he does a pretty good job. This is confusing. You thought it necessary to inform us of a book you like, but in the next sentence you announce that you do not have the inclination to tell us about it. Sam Sam

I wan't aware that when it came to science we were experiencing a problem with too much adulation of the practitioners of this extremely productive and valuable discipline. It seems almost a banal observation to make that a sizable swath of our citizenry hasn't a clue what the scientific method entails even though they are eager to avail themselves of the fruits of this enterprise. Sam

This is one of the reasons why I never tire of having discussions with the religious; you never know what they are going to say next. Would you be so kind as to elaborate on your rather esoteric theory that we derive the scientific method from the Bible ? Sam

This is what is sometimes termed "the God of the gaps" argument, and it is one that apologists make at their peril. For those not familiar with this line of reasoning, it goes like this: Science can not explain X, therefore Yahweh did it. The first problem with arguing this way is that the argument works equally well ( or poorly ) if one replaces 'Yahweh" with Allah, or Lord Brahma or any of the thousands of dead Gods that now lie on that scrapheap of history we call mythology, Secondly, since the body of knowledge we wrest from mute nature via the scientific method is ever increasing, the places where one can interject the tinkerings of a deity are fewer each day. It is child's play for even a semi-educated person to come up with a list of phenomena that used to be attributed to some invisible entity or other which now are understood through science by everyone save a few benighted souls in the wilds of Africa. In the time when the Bible was written diseases were attributed to demonic possession or the wrath of the divine until we discovered microorganisms. Few people now will opt for an exorcism instead of a shot of antibiotics to cure their pneumonia. Until quite recently all well-thinking people knew that earthquakes, as well as lightning, were God's punishment for sinful shenanigans, until we understood that we're living on a cooling crust and discovered plate tectonics. In the Middle Ages, the mentally ill were beaten with sticks as it was imagined this would vacate the demons that resided in these poor people. To my knowledge this cure is no longer in fashion in our psychiatric hospitals. So be very careful using this line of defense for your religious beliefs. In the fullness of time it is a losing strategy. Sam

I am sorry to say that humility isn't the first word that comes to mind when I behold my Christian brothers and sisters, or the second. That isn't to say, of course, that there aren't any humble Christians. It seems to me that the opinion Christians -and many other religious people- have of themselves is contradictory. On the one hand they have a rather negative opinion of themselves as they imagine that they have inherited a sinful nature which, unless remedied, will ensure an experience after death which is so unpleasant that it is best left unspecified. If this were the only opinion one has of oneself, a humble disposition would follow almost axiomatically. However, in addition to thinking of oneself as a wretched sinner, born deserving of Hell, these same people also imagine that the entire universe was constructed with them in mind and that the creator of such fashioned us lowly primates in His image. This amounts to a maximum of servility coupled with a maximum of solipsism, which, I am sorry to say, doesn't strike me as psychologically healthy. Sam