Defenders of the Faith

Scientists who blast religion are hurting their own cause.

 

Email To A Friend

Please fill in the following information and we'll email this link.

Separate multiple addresses with commas

SPONSORED BY
 

As soon as Francis Collins, an evangelical Christian geneticist who headed up the pioneering Human Genome Project during the 1990s, was floated as the possible new director of the National Institutes of Health—he was officially named to the post on Wednesday—the criticisms began flying. Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne of the University of Chicago, for one, said Collins is too public with his faith. Collins wrote a book called The Language of God, frequently talks about his religious conversion during medical school, and recently launched the BioLogos Foundation, which declares, "We believe that faith and science both lead to truth about God and creation."

The critics, though, have it exactly backward: the United States needs more scientists like Collins—researchers who show by their prominence and their example that a good scientist can still retain religious beliefs. The stunning irony in the longstanding tension between science and religion in America is that many scientists who merely claim to be defending rationality from religious fundamentalism may actually be turning Americans off to science, doing more harm to their cause than good.

The poster boy for the so-called New Atheist movement today is biologist Richard Dawkins, author of the bestselling book, The God Delusion. He and other New Atheists attack faith without quarter, and insist that science and religion are fundamentally irreconcilable. In the process, they are helping to keep U.S. society polarized over science and likely helping to make it still harder for many religious believers to accept scientific findings in areas like evolution.

Although the New Atheists are not so numerous, and much younger as a movement than their polar opposite—the Christian right—they've amassed a powerful following, especially online, and have sold millions of books by prosecuting a culture war in precisely the opposite direction from the one waged by Christian conservatives. Science is their watchword, but it has always been about much more than that. The New Atheist science blogger PZ Myers, for instance, has publicly desecrated a consecrated communion wafer, presumably taken from a Catholic mass, and put a picture of it, pierced by a rusty nail and thrown in the trash, on the Internet.

The New Atheists are unswerving in their conviction that irrational religion is the source of many of our ills—especially when it comes to the public's poor understanding of science—and vociferous in their criticism of scientists who nevertheless retain religious belief, like Collins, even though Collins is himself a strong defender of evolution. But the truth is that religious scientists like Collins have the best chance of making religious Americans more accepting of modern science.

Consider the survey evidence, which shows that while most Americans want to have both science and religion in their lives, they'll only go so far to preserve the former at the expense of the latter. According to a 2006 Time magazine poll, for instance, 64 percent of Americans would hold on to a cherished religious belief even if science had disproved it. Many Americans who reject evolution—a stunning 46 percent, according to surveys—assuredly fall in this category.

Label

Newsweek Top Stories
Al Gore's Climate-Change Evolution
Al Gore's Climate-Change Evolution

Using emotion to convince people to change.

Heaven Can Wait
Heaven Can Wait

A new book promises proof of eternal life.

The World's Biggest Foods
The World's Biggest Foods

Monster edibles from around America.

Discuss

Sponsored by

Member Comments

  • Posted By: sananda @ 09/03/2009 8:04:13 AM

    By staying true to your principles and doing what's right for your country, I take it you mean that homosexuality shouldn't be accepted as a normal and virtuous lifestyle. This is true, since scientific data states that the homosexual/bi-sexual loses an average of 20 years from their lifespan due to the nature of the sex they engage in. (US National Institute of Heath) Numerous other studies indicate the lifestyle of a Homophile is a detriment to themselves and to the rest of society. As well, the fact that most homosexuals are atheists doesn't say much for the validity of the doctrine of the Anti-Christ crowd.

  • Posted By: sananda @ 09/03/2009 7:28:23 AM

    It would also be foolish to ignore the fact that all these crimes against humanity were caused by political and military forces, and by "organized religion". The God Creator had no hand in the planning of these events. You were remiss in not mentioning the world's worst Holocaust of all time. Lest we forget.

    http://www.faminegenocide.com/resources/unknown.html

  • Posted By: sananda @ 09/03/2009 7:14:15 AM

    Your savior is the God of Science. It protects you from what you fear the most -- being held accountable for your actions. Why else would atheists denounce something just because they can't see it. Why don't you challenge the fact you can't see the air you breathe? Why don't you challenge the fact that apes are still amongst us, even though they're all supposed to have evolved into man? And if they're still evolving, where are all the half-ape/half-man creatures? It's fools like Dawkins who states there is "no good and no evil" in this world, who are conjuring up the so-called "fairy tales". A troubled conscience, or simply a lack of critical thinking, is what's getting in the way of realizing that.

Reply

Report Abuse

Enter comments if any for reporting abuse

My Take

Customize the NEWSWEEK homepage
to feature your favorite columnists.

Customize Now