Prof. Richard Dawkins, biologist and atheist, believes in evolution, without a God of course, but he "would abandon it overnight if evidence arose that disproved it."
He dismisses the Bible, and all its stories, as man made. No disagreement there.
But most people who grow up with the "unquestionable truth" die with the same belief, as it becomes a personal identity over time. The few spirited individuals who discover they have been deceived all their life can't be blamed for turning in anger to atheism.
Dawkins states "natural selection is a cumulative process" and "Darwin teaches us to seek out graded ramps of slowly increasing complexity. Many flowers use a bribe of food, usually nectar."
Is this not an indication that there is a template with innate intelligence, a brain, which selects, seeks and bribes?
Doesn't Dawkins actually answer his own question? Don't an egg and a sperm create with the process of evolution a living biological creature? A concept of creavolution would sum it up.
Dawkins hopes that someday something as powerful as Darwinism will be found to explain physics. But not without honestly acknowledging our ignorance, and the existence of a Designer(s)-Architect-Intelligence-Brain-God, or whatever one might choose to call it. This has nothing to do with any man-made religious concept.
Sure, we simply call it nature, or some label it pantheism, as it is impersonal and non-responsive to our wishes and prayers. We don't have to ask for miracles and wonders; they're in and all around us.
Science offers no explanation what makes the electron spin within the atom, or the source of this phenomenon. Imagine, if the source that makes the electrons spin was terminated. The universe, and we, would simply disappear because what we perceive as matter is nothing but empty space.
The fact that every atom is a perpetual motion machine has never been acknowledged - and never been duplicated by any human being. The gold atom has 79 electrons in six different shell-orbits. That means the electron-weight-speed is different within each shell to be in perfect balance to counteract the centripetal force of the nucleus. The atom is an incredible piece of machinery.
And that is just half the story of a single atom, since the nucleus seems to be even more complicated.
Scientists are trying to figure this out within the large hadron collider in Cern. They're attempting to recreate the Big Bang by smashing subatomic particles together and searching for the "god particle." Yet, not one scientist, as far as I know, had the humility and admitted, most likely for fear of ridicule, that this cannot all be happenstance and that there exists something far more intelligent than we are.
Would anybody believe in the metamorphosis of the butterfly if it weren't an established fact? Not in a million years.
So, the question of who made the Designer is rather foolish, as we don't even know of who we are. Does the denial of God conveniently exempt us from responsibility for allowing poverty and wars or destroying our beautiful planet in so many ways?
Hoping for a "new Earth" is even worse.
There is a void between fundamental religion and atheism. New words and concepts are needed to honestly acknowledge that we're so ignorant of our ignorance.
Those who believe the universe can create itself spontaneously out of nothing, without a cause, especially Stephen Hawking, have a belief that rivals fairy tales.
Gunther Ostermann,
Kelowna