The ID Report

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Riffing off Joey Campana's valuable backgrounder on the REAL relationship between the Templeton Foundation and ID, Denyse O'Leary suggests that there is a power struggle going on over at Templeton, with funding for ID as a key bone of contention. How else to reconcile the views of honcho Charles Harper and honchess Pamela Thompson? They certainly aren't singing from the same hymnbook.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

When I was young (the Middle Stone Age, if you must know), the average atheist came in two flavours:

1. The atheist bore. After he announced that he KNEW that there is no God and that he could PROVE his case in a MERE three hours, ... he somehow mysteriously stopped receiving desirable invitations to dinner. That, he maintained, was just another typical example of the random flux of the universe.

2. The private atheist. Typically, he had lost his faith as a result of horrendous wartime experiences. He never wanted to discuss the details, and seldom joined an organization that needed a postage meter. He would gladly help shingle the church roof but did not pray with the congregation. People usually included him in gatherings. He was wounded, but never - in principle - a mere bore. After all, he had realized a fundamental social fact: People who do not want religion rammed down their throat do not want irreligion rammed down it either.

These people were often attracted by materialism (the belief that matter is all there is). But it was never clear whether they were really materialists or just didn't believe in God. The distinction is critical. Buddhists don't believe in God either, but they are generally non-materialists. They do believe that the soul is immortal and that you cannot escape the consequences of your actions, in the next life if not this one.

So, as we will see, there is a significant difference between materialist and non-materialist atheists. And materialist atheists hate non-materialist atheists almost as much as they hate Christians.

Recently, however, the social landscape around atheism in the Western world has changed a bit. Materialist atheists in particular have attempted to institutionalize their beliefs as a sort of Church of Atheism.

As Gary Wolf explains in Wired,

MY FRIENDS, I MUST ASK YOU AN IMPORTANT QUESTION TODAY: Where do you stand on God?

It's a question you may prefer not to be asked. But I'm afraid I have no choice. We find ourselves, this very autumn, three and a half centuries after the intellectual martyrdom of Galileo, caught up in a struggle of ultimate importance, when each one of us must make a commitment. It is time to declare our position.

This is the challenge posed by the New Atheists.

[ ... ]

The New Atheists will not let us off the hook simply because we are not doctrinaire believers. They condemn not just belief in God but respect for belief in God. Religion is not only wrong; it's evil. Now that the battle has been joined, there's no excuse for shirking.

Three writers have sounded this call to arms. They are Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett. A few months ago, I set out to talk with them. I wanted to find out what it would mean to enlist in the war against faith.

The new Church of the Non-Believers, as Wolf terms it, is in part a response to the intelligent design controversy. But in a larger sense it is a response to the persistent failure of evidence for materialism over a large number of areas, including the ones staked by the intelligent design advocates. Not surprisingly, therefore, the materialist atheists are full of hostility to the evidence presented by others, see dark political plots everywhere, and very much want to limit or circumscribe all non-materialist perspectives in some way. They are also a strikingly incurious lot, prone to dogmatism and to accepting foolish theories of human behaviour.

And they are full, chock full, of angst. As Richard Bernstein explains in the International Herald Tribune,

To atheists like Weinberg, Dawkins and Harris and their many avid readers, it is clearly disappointing that in America, unlike in most of Europe, rationalist, scientific ideas have not become the norm. Harris gloomily recites poll figures on this point: 53 percent of Americans, he says, believe in creationism, which to scientists is like believing that the sun revolves around the Earth. In what he sees as an illustration of mass self-delusion, 80 percent of the survivors of the Katrina disaster claim that the hurricane and flood strengthened their faith in God — rather than serving as powerful evidence, as it does for Harris, that God does not exist.

So, if you survived Katrina but do not see it as Harris does, there is clearly something wrong with you. Jane Lampman observes in the Christian Science Monitor:

While critics point out that religion is a genuine reflection of people's experience and will always exist, Mr. Harris suggests it could be equated with slavery, which once was widely acceptable, but eventually was looked upon with horror.

But she is quick to reassure us that, nonetheless, the atheist churches wish to be known for their tolerance of other faiths.

Well, let's have a look at the new Church of (materialist) Atheism and its prospects in an increasingly anti-materialist age

Next: Part 2: Antireligious zealotry riffs off materialist science

Series on the Anti-God Crusade:

Part 1: What's with the recent anti-God crusade, supposedly in the name of "science"?

Part 2: Antireligious zealotry riffs off materialist science

Part 3: The Beyond Belief conference

Part 4: The "Blasphemy Challenge"

Part 5: Why the acclaim for atheist authors?

Part 6: Profiles in militant atheists - Daniel Dennett and Breaking the Spell

Part 7: Profiles in militant atheists - Richard Dawkins and the God Delusion

Part 8: Profiles in militant atheists - Sam Harris and Letters to a Christian Nation

Part 9: Darwinism and militant atheism

Part 10: British atheists vs. ID-friendly Truth in Science group

Part 11: So what are the actual trends in religion?

Part 12: Unmasking the authoritarian intent of the militant atheist campaign

Part 13: Theistic evolutionism and the new militant atheism

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

What's all the fuss about? Why the big atheist putsch?

Ever since the Big Bang, materialist science has come in for a lot of trouble. As I set out in By Design or by Chance?, things that cannot happen by chance in the lifetime of the known universe cannot happen - unless some force or law has overruled chance.

In that case, the most reasonable assumption is that the universe and life forms did not come about by chance, but by design. That does not prove that any specific intelligent design thesis is true; it just makes design a reasonable proposition. Denunciation of the fact base or anyone who asks questions about it changes nothing.

To make matters worse, life sciences are not confirming that everything just sort of happens by a Darwinian pathway and neuroscience is not confirming that mind comes from mud. It's just not happening the way it was supposed to.

Another development in recent decades is that the collapse of worldwide communism removed huge numbers of people from the percentage who could technically be described as atheists. So they are in the mix now, clamoring for attention to their real perceptions.

And, worse still for materialists, increasing numbers of people are refusing to permit employers, bureaucrats, and other "minders" to divorce them from their spirituality.

As if that wasn't bad enough, a growing number of biologists acknowledge that the way in which evolution is taught often promotes materialist atheism rather than science as such.

Put simply: Materialist science is in trouble. And the trouble does not stem from traditional religions, though materialists are - as one might expect - quick to blame their troubles on traditional religions and to reassure themselves that - despite all the evidence - traditional religions are doomed. But, materialists are also smug and thus cannot imagine or respond to any source of trouble arising from their interpretation of the evidence.

They have apparently decided instead to target the Christian religion as the source of their problems. One outcome is that, as we shall see, many materialists want to start a new religion to compete with the traditional ones, including a Darwin Day (Christmas, Eid al-Fitr, and Chinese New Year all rolled into one?). The new religion lacks at least one ingredient that you hear about every Sunday in a Christian church ... any guesses?

Next: Part 3: The Beyond Belief conference

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

The main problem with atheists, it seems to me, is not their Godless Sunday at home. In bad weather, I envy them that, actually.

No, the main problem is that they can't resist starting a church - hence the Beyond Belief conference, essentially an effort to institutionalize atheism:

Just 40 years after a famous TIME magazine cover asked "Is God Dead?" the answer appears to be a resounding "No!" According to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in a recent issue of Foreign Policy magazine, "God is Winning". Religions are increasingly a geopolitical force to be reckoned with. Fundamentalist movements-some violent in the extreme-are growing. Science and religion are at odds in the classrooms and courtrooms. And a return to religious values is widely touted as an antidote to the alleged decline in public morality. After two centuries, could this be twilight for the Enlightenment project and the beginning of a new age of unreason? Will faith and dogma trump rational inquiry, or will it be possible to reconcile religious and scientific worldviews? Can evolutionary biology, anthropology and neuroscience help us to better understand how we construct belief, and experience empathy, fear, and awe? Can science help us create a new rational narrative as poetic and powerful as those that have traditionally sustained societies? Can we treat religion as a natural phenomenon? Can we be good without God? And if not God, then what?

Then what, indeed? A church without Jesus, apparently. The media were quick to pick up on that. As The New York Times described the meeting,

Somewhere along the way, a forum this month at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., which might have been one more polite dialogue between science and religion, began to resemble the founding convention for a political party built on a single plank: in a world dangerously charged with ideology, science needs to take on an evangelical role, vying with religion as teller of the greatest story ever told.

Carolyn Porco, a senior research scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo., called, half in jest, for the establishment of an alternative church, with Dr. Tyson, whose powerful celebration of scientific discovery had the force and cadence of a good sermon, as its first minister.

Indeed, New Scientist went as far as to describe the meeting thusly:

IT HAD all the fervour of a revivalist meeting. True, there were no hallelujahs, gospel songs or swooning, but there was plenty of preaching, mostly to the converted, and much spontaneous applause for exhortations to follow the path of righteousness. And right there at the forefront of everyone's thoughts was God.

Yet this was no religious gathering - quite the opposite. Some of the leading practitioners of modern science, many of them vocal atheists, were gathered last week in La Jolla, California, for a symposium entitled "Beyond belief: Science, religion, reason and survival" hosted by the Science Network, a science-promoting coalition of scientists and media professionals convening at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. They were there to address three questions. Should science do away with religion? What would science put in religion's place? And can we be good without God?

Now, the church - as we all know - is the weak point of any religion. And when all you've got is a church - and remember, these people are supposed to be "beyond" belief - well, to me, that sounds a bit like getting married and finding out that you have no spouse but two mothers-in-law ... and more too, if you want them!

Here's a transcript of an exchange, courtesy of a friend, that gives the general idea of how the atheists would go about evangelism:

Tyson: I want to put on the table, not why 85% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences reject God, I want to know why 15% of the National Academy don't. That's really what we've got to address here. Otherwise the public is secondary to this. [Moderator then turns to the panel for responses.]

Larry Krauss: It's hard to know how to respond to Neil, ever. But the question you asked about "Why 15%" disturbs me a little bit because of this other presumption that scientists are somehow not people and that they don't have the same delusions -- I mean, how many of them are pedophiles in the National Academy of Sciences? How many of them are Republicans? [laughter] And so, it would be amazing, of course, if it were zero. That would be the news story. But the point is I don't think you'd expect them in general to view their religion as a bulwark against science or to view the need to fly into buildings or whatever. So the delusions or predilections are important to recognize, that scientists are people and are as full of delusions about every aspect of their life as everyone else. We all make up inventions so that we can rationalize our existence and why we are who we are.

Tyson: But Lawrence, if you can't convert our colleagues, why do you have any hope that you're going to convert the public?

Krauss: I don't think we have to convert those people. They're fine. That's the point. They're doing science. I don't understand why you need to do that.

(Session 2, from the conclusion of a talk by Neil deGrasse Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium. (beginning at the 40:47 mark in the clip))

Hmmm. You see what I mean about no spouse but two mothers-in-law? Here are some other highlights:

Neil deGrasse Tyson tirade on Stupid Design

Melvin Konner mocking Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins on Religious Child Abuse

Sam Harris replies to Scott Atran

Steven Weinberg’s Crazy Old Aunt Analogy of Religion

Sam Harris—Religion is only for lunatics and idiots

Goodness, it's hard to think of a single reason for joining these people's sect unless you have a lot of hostility to vent! And $30 billion from Bill Gates isn't going to change that.

Actually, it's hard to tell whether some of these people hate Christians more than they hate each other. Thus I would argue against any atheist getting involved with them, on mental health grounds alone.

Advice to atheists: If you must be an atheist, stay away from the Church of Atheism (Hostile). They don't "just want your money" - it's worse than that - they want to mess your head. Stay home on Sunday then and listen to classical music. (Avoid finding out that most of the great musicians were believers as long as possible.)

But ... dear reader, lest you think that no atheist could come up with an idea that might attract the public, have a look at the teen-directed Blasphemy Challenge.

Next: Part 4: The "Blasphemy Challenge"

(Note: See also Dennis Wagner's comments, also on this site.)

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

"Hi my name is Lindy and I deny the existence of the Holy Spirit and you should too."

As Newsweek continues the story,

Jan. 8, 2006 issue - With that five-second submission to YouTube, a 24-year-old who uses the name "menotsimple" has either condemned herself to an eternity of punishment in the afterlife or struck a courageous blow against superstition. She's one of more than 400 mostly young people who have joined a campaign by the Web site BlasphemyChallenge.com to stake their souls against the existence of God.

The brainchild of filmmaker Brian Flemming, who directed the antireligion documentary The God Who Wasn't There and of atheist Web site RationalResponders.com 's cofounder Brian Sapient, the YouTube blasphemy challenge was a brilliant marketing device aimed and advertised directly at youth.

That is, it focused attention on the new militant atheism among a younger market segment that is most unlikely to buy and read books by Richard Dawkins , who provided the campaign with some help, or by Daniel Dennett or Sam Harris either.

As Jerry Adler's Newsweek article admits, most theologians do not interpret blasphemy against the Holy Spirit as simply making a statement of that type, so most of the kids are probably doing it for a lark, but their atheist elders are deadly serious. Atheists don't tend to have many children, so they must recruit.

Indeed, blogger Frank asks,

You want us to leave you alone. Fine. But why must you insult our spiritual background doing it? Couldn't you guys have made a video that said, "I'm a proud and open atheist" without bringing in the Holy Spirit or our Bible into it? You guys specifically chose Christianity. Why couldn't *YOU* guys leave *US* alone?

Well now, that is an interesting question. Part of the answer, as we shall see, is sheer spite at the unexpected robustness of spirituality. But a look at the social landscape might suggest other answers as well.

Next: Part 5: Why the acclaim for atheist authors?

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Richard Dawkins was recently named Person of the Year by BBC Belfast. That is only one of many examples of the acclaim that authors who used to market science but now market atheism have received throughout the media.

Typically, they are regarded as making bold, new, and highly controversial statements. Bold, yes, but, as a matter of fact, there is little that is new or highly controversial in any of it. It was all said much better back in the18th century. Only the dust covers have been updated.

One thing I have learned from a lifetime in media is that most media people are unidirectional skeptics - they are very skeptical of non-materialism but not the least bit skeptical of materialism.

Two things follow: Journalists in the legacy mainstream media are regularly astonished by phenomena that better informed people might have predicted - for example the prevalence of religious belief in a high tech age. Journalists are among the least likely people to be devoutly religious or to know many people who are, and they naturally assume that everyone is like them.

Second, you can make them believe just about anything about religion - as long as it is materialist - as the curious saga of the God Helmet* demonstrated. Indeed, any thesis about human behaviour, no matter how ridiculous, will be treated with respect if it is called "evolutionary psychology." In that respect, evolutionary psychology seems to have inherited its dunce cap from Freudianism. What the two have in common is, of course, materialism.

Not only that, but religion is in fact the only large subject in which ignorance is actually sort of "cool." People who would be embarrassed to know nothing of sports may not be the least bit personally embarrassed by referring to Carmelite nuns at John Paul II's funeral as "karma light" nuns. Well, yes, they will admit it is a mistake. But it's not necessarily embarrassing to know so little about the world's great faiths as to regularly make such errors.

Biola historian Richard Flory offers the interesting thesis that many journalists see their role as actually replacing traditional religion as a source of beliefs and values:

Richard Flory nicely documents the ways in which journalistic "professionalization" went hand in hand with secularization. According to the doctrine of the professionalizers, journalism was uniquely essential to civilization; the evolution from primitive to professional journalism was inevitable; journalism was the "educator" of the masses; religion was reduced to morality and ethics, and all religions were to be treated equally; professional journalism was the functional equivalent of and successor to religion. As Flory shows, journalists were very explicitly instructed in these doctrines, and he illustrates the effectiveness of the instruction in the treatment of religion in the New York Times over the past century."
- Richard Neuhaus, FT March 2005: The Public Square

It's worth keeping in mind that for fifty years, media have worked with the assumption that traditional religions would die out. A number of false guesses were made. Here are two of them:

1. The troubles of dying liberal Protestant denominations were regularly mistaken for a decline in interest in religion; few noticed the new storefront churches that had begun to dot the urban landscape or the megachurches of the suburbs.

2. Media stereotypes were never updated and became increasingly at odds with reality - leading to many further bad calls. If we look at the worldwide Anglican communion today, for example, the average Anglican (Episcopalian) is NOT an upper crust British gent but a thirty-year-old black African woman. And her bishop is probably a graduate of a world class university who regularly sends missionaries from Africa to darkest Europe ... And he regards the American Episcopal Church as apostate (seriously heretical).

People who don't know that sort of thing should not be writing about religion, but often are.

The fact that materialism, not religion, is in decline has provoked in an institutional tantrum that vents itself in the great deal of attention paid to the spate of anti-God and anti-Christian books - despite the fact that they say nothing new and are generally off the mark. Let's take a look at a few of the better known authors and their books.

(*That's in Chapter 4 of the forthcoming book The Spiritual Brain by neuroscientist Mario Beauregard and myself).

Next: Part 6: Profiles in militant atheists - Daniel Dennett and Breaking the Spell

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

While most people who have paid any attention to the current spate of anti-God books have heard of Richard Dawkins, they may have overlooked the much greater academic influence of Tufts philosopher of mind, Darwinist guru, and Darwin look-alike Daniel Dennett.

In his recent book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon , he candidly announces,

"I appreciate that many readers will be profoundly distrustful of the tack I am taking here. They will see me as just another liberal professor trying to cajole them out of some of their convictions, and they are dead right about that--that's what I am, and that's exactly what I'm trying to do."

and proclaims

"It is time for the reasonable adherents of all faiths to find the courage and stamina to reverse the tradition that honors helpless love of God--in any tradition. Far from being honorable, it is not even excusable. It is shameful. And most shameful are the priests, rabbis, imams, and other experts whose response to the sincere requests from their flock for moral guidance is to conceal their own inability to give reasons for their views about tough issues by hiding behind some 'inerrant' (read 'above criticism') interpretation of the sacred texts. It is one thing for a well-meaning layperson with a deep allegiance to a religious tradition to delegate authority to his or her religious leaders, but it is quite another for those leaders to pretend to discover (thanks to their expertise) the right answers in their tradition by a process that has to be taken on faith and is inaccessible to even the most well-meant criticism."

In Dennett's Breaking the Spell, as in the entire recent spate of atheist books, there isn't a single new idea of any significance, as noted earlier. The two main things that the current crop of atheist books have going for them is the unperturbable certainty of their authors that they are conferring a great public benefit - a certainty that they uncritically project onto others - and the assurance of a good deal of flattering attention from the legacy media.

The flattering attention will usually not include references to the highly illiberal elements of the anti-God extremists' message - elements that typically come to the fore whenever Darwinism is questioned, on whatever ground. For example, as philosopher Alvin Plantinga notes, regarding an earlier Dennett work, Darwin's Dangerous Idea ,

Dennett doesn't confine himself to matters just of theoretical interest. He sees serious religion as steadily dwindling with the progress of science, but suggests that we should keep a few Baptists and other fundamentalists around in something like cultural zoos (no doubt with sizable moats to protect the rest of us right-thinking nonfundamentalists). We should preserve a few Baptists for the sake of posterity--but not, he says, at just any cost. "Save the Baptists", says he, "but not by all means [Dennett's emphasis]. Not if it means tolerating the deliberate misinforming of children about the natural world." Save the Baptists, all right, but only if they promise not to misinform their children by teaching them "that 'Man' is not a product of evolution by natural selection" and other blatantly objectionably views.

Essentially, he doesn't mind children knowing about religions other than Darwinism; the problem comes when they take any other religion seriously and act on it.

Recently, Dennett had major heart surgery and announced his belief in a sort of "goodness" (in "Thank goodness" ), about which Gonzaga law prof David DeWolf notes,

What is interesting in "Thank Goodness" is that Dennett does not reject the search for meaning, but instead proposes an obviously ersatz religion, which displaces traditional theology. Dennett doesn't say, "Look, I'm a scientist. I'd like to believe in tooth fairies and Santa Claus, and a benevolent God. But my scientific integrity demands that I recognize that we are nothing but selfish creatures, endowed with a fierce desire for survival, and a number of socially constructed illusions that make us more successful as a species. Like everyone else, I'll indulge my infantile wishes when I choose to. But if you want to know what the answer is to the question of whether there is meaning in the world, I'd have to say there is none." Instead, Dennett proposes the ersatz religion of "Goodness," which is a silly form of rationalism and panglossian progressivism that wouldn't stand up for one moment of the kind of skepticism that he directs toward traditional theology.

But the really interesting thing about Dennett is that he is a philosopher of mind. Well, so far, most of the key problems that materialists would need to solve about mind in order to demonstrate the legitimacy of their position are unsolved, and they have no idea where to look in order to solve them. That sheds an interesting light on the certainty with which they attack all traditional perspectives on life, mind, and humanity. Whatever else their certainty is, it is not the certainty of people who actually know something better or truer.

But perhaps the anti-God crowd feels no need to know something better or truer if they can convince themselves and others that anyone who disagrees with them is merely deluded. Which brings us to Richard Dawkins.

Next: Part 7: Profiles in militant atheists - Richard Dawkins and the God Delusion

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Ever since American Microsoft billionaire Charles Simonyi paid for his chair at Oxford in the Public Understanding of Science, zoologist Richard Dawkins has promoted atheism and an extreme form of Darwinism as the best way of doing science. In recent years, however, he has become best known for using his chair to promote atheism, rather than for promoting science ideas. His actual ideas, the selfish gene and the meme (a hypothetical mental variant of the hypothetical selfish gene) have not fared well under analysis, but no matter. He promotes atheism, and for many people, that is enough.

Dawkins has had plenty of time in recent years for a bestseller, The God Delusion and a variety of media interviews against traditional religious beliefs, both with fans and with skeptics.

Here he is, sounding off on Book TV and getting trounced at Vere loqui:

Dawkin's whole discussion of the naturalistic explanation of religion assumes that such an explanation renders the beliefs thus explained illusory. But if a naturalistic explanation for a belief renders it illusory, and all beliefs can be explained naturalistically, then atheism too can be explained naturalistically, and is therefore illusory. He who lives by naturalistic explanations must die by them.

All of Dawkin's explanations seem stifled and contrived by his own ideological materialism. He uses his naturalistic world view as a Procrustean bed into which he tries to fit everything, however much he has to hack and stretch it to fit. And what a small bed it is.

The second problem with Dawkin's book is the condescending tone with which he dismisses the arguments of those with whom he disagrees. One religious argument is "amusing, if rather pathetic," another "a joke," another "silly," and another "a grotesque piece of reasoning." This glib attitude particularly plagues the section of the book dealing with the traditional arguments for Christianity.

In either case, Dawkins makes clear that anyone who thinks that there is a mind or purpose behind the universe is not to be appeased:

Scientists divide into two schools of thought over the best tactics with which to face the threat. The Neville Chamberlain 'appeasement' school focuses on the battle for evolution. Consequently, its members identify fundamentalism as the enemy, and they bend over backwards to appease 'moderate' or 'sensible' religion (not a difficult task, for bishops and theologians despise fundamentalists as much as scientists do). Scientists of the Winston Churchill school, by contrast, see the fight for evolution as only one battle in a larger war: a looming war between supernaturalism on the one side and rationality on the other. For them, bishops and theologians belong with creationists in the supernatural camp, and are not to be appeased.

He belongs to the latter school, of course, so the clergy who accommodate Darwinism will get no quarter from him, even if they can sneak by National Center for Science [Darwinism] Education . His intolerance has been noted by almost everyone, and a number of thoughtful critics have come forward - as might be expected in any situation where they are free to do so.

For example, Marilynne Robinson writes in Harpers's, regarding his most recent book :

It is never a surprise to find Dawkins full of indignation. In his new book, The God Delusion, he has turned the full force of his intellect against religion, and all his verbal skills as well, and his humane learning, too, which is capacious enough to include some deeply minor poetry. Truly this book is a sword which turneth every way, to judge by the table of contents at least. There is no doubt in Dawkins's mind that the evils of the world are to be laid at the doorstep of the church, mosque, and synagogue, and that science must be our salvation. It is the "God delusion," which has afflicted almost everyone almost anywhere through the whole of recorded time, that has made us behave so badly. And Science (by which he really means his version of Darwinism) is our potential rescuer from this vale of tears. We need only to become more Dawkins-like in our thinking. This is a fairly cheery view of things beside others on offer, at least as regards the ongoing life of the planet, which he seems to assume.

Indeed, fellow Darwin fan H. Allen Orr, echoes the disappointment,noting,

The most disappointing feature of The God Delusion is Dawkins's failure to engage religious thought in any serious way. This is, obviously, an odd thing to say about a book-length investigation into God. But the problem reflects Dawkins's cavalier attitude about the quality of religious thinking. Dawkins tends to dismiss simple expressions of belief as base superstition. Having no patience with the faith of fundamentalists, he also tends to dismiss more sophisticated expressions of belief as sophistry (he cannot, for instance, tolerate the meticulous reasoning of theologians). But if simple religion is barbaric (and thus unworthy of serious thought) and sophisticated religion is logic-chopping (and thus equally unworthy of serious thought), the ineluctable conclusion is that all religion is unworthy of serious thought.

The result is The God Delusion, a book that never squarely faces its opponents. You will find no serious examination of Christian or Jewish theology in Dawkins's book (does he know Augustine rejected biblical literalism in the early fifth century?), no attempt to follow philosophical debates about the nature of religious propositions (are they like ordinary claims about everyday matters?), no effort to appreciate the complex history of interaction between the Church and science (does he know the Church had an important part in the rise of non-Aristotelian science?), and no attempt to understand even the simplest of religious attitudes (does Dawkins really believe, as he says, that Christians should be thrilled to learn they're terminally ill?).

In fact, the book is quite clearly a screed written by a man who knows that his fans will adore him no matter what he does or says.

Fellow atheists have complained about his "deadly certitude", but no matter. Dawkins has a ready answer. He assures the world that his critics are not humble, like him.

Waiving the question of Dawkins is proud or humble, one may very well ask two questions: Is his view of life promoted at public expense in textbooks and science standards? And what would happen to a person - even an atheist - who decided, on the basis of evidence, that radical atheistic materialism is not true?

The answer to the first question is probably yes, and the answer to the second question is the subject of the next installment. What if an atheist is NOT a radical materialist? Is he protected by his atheism or is he just dog meat?

Next: Part 8: Profiles in militant atheists - Sam Harris and Letters to a Christian Nation

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

A pundit frequently sought by the media to speak against traditional religion on behalf of the current atheist campaign is perennial neuroscience grad student Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation.

From what I can tell, Harris is misplaced among professional materialist atheists. As David J. Theroux notes, he has bought into a variety of New Age and Eastern beliefs such as reincarnation. That has subjected him to many materialist attacks. Remember, materialists "know" that there is no soul .

Harris's dilemma has a simple explanation: He is in neuroscience, and he knows perfectly well that neuroscience does not confirm materialism. That fact is regularly updated at my new neuroscience blog, the Mindful Hack.

Yes, yes, many neuroscientists are convinced materialists. But that doesn't mean that neuroscience confirms the success of materialism any more than the fact that mid-twentieth century Russian leaders were convinced communists confirms the success of Marxist economics.

It just means that the people who are fronting the party line can cause any amount of trouble for dissenters. I have it on reliable evidence that many atheists are indeed gunning for Harris.

Is Harris really an atheist? Yes, but here's the deal: He is an atheist of the traditional, NON-materialist variety. Many people, particularly American Christians - and for very understandable reasons, as we shall see - do not realize that many atheist traditions are non-materialist. (Many atheistic traditions are also pacifist and/or tolerant of other faiths.)

The skinny: Theism means believing in God (or gods). Atheism means not believing in God (or gods). Atheism does not - in principle - mean believing that human beings are merely meat puppets or that there is no free will. That sort of belief is properly called materialist atheism.

The stress here should be put on "materialist." The materialist honestly believes that humans are merely animals with accidental big brains. Darwinism is the materialist's creation story because it supports such an explanation, where almost no other system of belief would.

Eastern traditions such as Buddhism, however, are completely different. For them, mind comes first and is distinct from the brain. Thus, Buddhism can - and does - accommodate belief in gods but may not consider them essential to salvation. So one could be a Buddhist and an atheist - but no serious Buddhist could be a materialist.

Thus, to me, the puzzle is not why Harris is a non-materialist atheist. That is not even uncommon. Historically, most atheists have been non-materialists. Materialist atheism only became common in the twentieth century, with the advent of the "meat puppet" approach to humans, which owed a lot to Darwinism. No, the puzzle is, why does Harris want anything to do with the materialist atheists? They view him the same way they view anyone who thinks that the universe is top down instead of bottom up.

Angry secular humanists have certainly responded to Harris's enthusiasms for non-materialist ideas and a variety of Christians have also responded.

But Harris is only an incidental target for the materialist Darwinian atheists (and I am not even sure why he remains in their company). As we will see, traditional Christians are their primary real target.

Next: Part 9: Darwinism and militant atheism

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Last November, the Center for Inquiry/Transnational got started, sharing a home in Amherst, New York, with the Council for Secular Humanism and the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), publishers respectively of FREE INQUIRY and SKEPTICAL INQUIRER magazines.

For these people, science is applied materialism, and they are very concerned about developments that challenge that perspective, including the intelligent design controversy. Indeed, to judge from the press release, anyone who thinks that "evolution" is neutral on the question of religion, as Darwin lobbyists routinely claim, should know better.

Indeed, Darwinist PZ Myer made this quite clear in his comments on the National Center for Science Education's executive director Eugenie Scott's soothing claims that Darwinism is not opposed to religious traditions:

Take off the comfy cardigan, Dr Scott. Scientists have a role to play in our culture, and it's not as the pleasant, soothing flim-flam artists, mumbling consolation and excuses in return for a donation on the offering plate. We're supposed to be clear-eyed and critical, even when it's easier to play the priest and lie. I think you're doing a bang-up job of accommodating the American citizenry to the fluff and nonsense of woolly religious thinking, but that's not a job that needs to be done, and it's not your job.

And if anyone wonders how Myers would regard a professing Christian, his comments on columnist Mike Adams, who spoke at the University of Minnesota (where Myer teaches) are instructive:

Mike S. Adams, columnist for TownHall, Horowitzian shill, anti-feminist, creationist clown, homophobic bigot, warrior for free speech, professional racist, gun kook, academic-by-accident, beauty contest judge, and just generally contemptible far, far right-wing nutcase.

and that's not the half of it. Go here for some sense of how serious Darwinists view religious types in general. And here is Myers' comments on Catholic Darwinist Ken Miller. In the end, Darwinism cannot tolerate any meaningful non-materialist perspective, and views it as a form of "endarkenment" , not to be tolerated.

Of course, some would argue, not every Darwinist is like that. Perhaps not, but it is a reliable indicator of the true state of affairs that the "moderates" tolerate the "extremists" quite well.
Indeed, the Beyond Belief conference makes the true direction quite clear: Those theistic or Eastern traditions that are willing to morph slowly into materialist atheism, treated as a religion can spare themselves many attacks by increasingly militant atheists, who have, in many cases, found public funding for their cause. Anyone who so much as wants equal time for evidence for non-materialist views faces a storm - made all the foggier by Christian clergy who wish to converge with the materialists. Perhaps such clergy hope to be eaten last?

Next: Part 10: British atheists vs. ID-friendly Truth in Science group

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

The world's best-known Darwinist happens to be a Brit, Richard Dawkins (though he owes his position as Oxford's Professor of the Public Understanding of Science, to American Microsoft billionaire Charles Simonyi).

Dawkins also happens, as we have seen, to be a vociferous atheist. So, when a group of British science types wanted to investigate intelligent design theory, they found themselves in an environment where atheism and science were rather hard to separate.

A November 19, 2006 article in the London Times, "Godless Dawkins Challenges Schools", screamed

RICHARD DAWKINS, the Oxford University professor and campaigning atheist, is planning to take his fight against God into the classroom by flooding schools with anti-religious literature.

Just what the beleaguered schools need. Caught between Islamic extremists, drug dealers, sclerotic administrators, antisocial unions, and irresponsible parents, they, um, need a whack of "anti-God" literature to mix into the swirl ...

The Guardian was quick to spread rumours that Brit ID folk were all young earth creationists (=the planet is only 6000 years old and was crated in 144 hours), making clear that either you believe in Darwinism (mud creates mind) or you believe that the planet is only 6000 years old.

That, of course, lets Darwinism off pretty easy ...

Meanwhile, the budding Brit ID group, Truth in Science, has come under serious fire simply for wanting to get the materialist crud out of science education, to enable a discussion of the questions around law, chance, and design. But that won't be easy.

So many elite atheists are so bound up with Darwinism as a creation story that it appears to be almost immune from rational criticism. The atheists' desperation is easier to understand if you look at the actual worldwide trend against their view.

Next: Part 11: So what are the actual trends in religion?

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

As far as understanding the anti-God crusade is concerned, the most useful thing to know is that the longstanding mid-twentieth century prediction that religious belief would wither away has been largely falsified. Rather, it is atheism that is stagnant or withering away. As Uwe Siemon-Netto writes, for UPI (March 3, 2005),

"Atheism as a theoretical position is in decline worldwide," Munich theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg told United Press International Tuesday.

His Oxford colleague Alister McGrath agrees. Atheism's "future seems increasingly to lie in the private beliefs of individuals rather than in the great public domain it once regarded as its habitat," he wrote in the U.S. magazine, Christianity Today.

Two developments are plaguing atheism these days. One is that it appears to be losing its scientific underpinnings. The other is the historical experience of hundreds of millions of people worldwide that atheists are in no position to claim the moral high ground.

It's no wonder that militant atheists are anxiously writing books promoting their view. Their view is sufficiently odd that they are sure to find an audience. But even those who don't believe in God do not necessarily describe themselves as atheists. The major change has not been an increase in atheism, but the rise of a much broader and more eclectic spectrum of beliefs, and in general, a return to belief in meaning, purpose, or God. One may question the merit of a great deal of it, but the trend is clear.

I suppose that atheists are like dinosaurs. If doomed dinosaurs could write books, they too would find a large audience - but a large audience might not change their fate.

More ominously, the atheist books have not advanced new ideas. The only thing that's really new is the extremism, but that wears pretty thin after a while.

Meanwhile, as Richard A Schweder notes in The New York Times , referencing the atheistic horrors of the twentieth century,

At the turn of the millennium it was pretty hard not to notice that the 20th century was probably the worst one yet, and that the big causes of all the death and destruction had rather little to do with religion.

[ ... ]

Even some children within the enclave are retreating from the Enlightenment in their quest for a spiritual revival; one discovers perfectly rational and devout Jews or Hindus in one's own family, or living down the block. If religion is a delusion, it is a delusion with a future, which it may be hazardous for us to deny. A shared conception of the soul, the sacred and transcendental values may be a prerequisite for any viable society.

The flurry of court cases and civil rights hearings around specific issues such as intelligent design in the school system , at universities , or in science facilities are a symptom of the change. The materialists, atheists, and Darwinists must rely on courts to compel where their ideas cannot persuade.

Next: Part 12 Unmasking the authoritarian intent of the militant atheist campaign

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

While some clergy are content to reassure their congregations that going along with materialism (especially Darwinism) is okay, many thoughtful Christians and Muslims are getting the picture pretty fast. The threat is not an intellectual one, but a political one.

Generally, Christian philosophers are not taking the anti-God campaign very seriously. Philosopher Alvin Plantinga writes that Dawkins' The God Delusion is difficult to take seriously as philosophy:

Now despite the fact that ths book is mainly philosophy, Dawkins is not a philosopher (he's a biologist). Even taking this into account, however, much of the philosophy he purveys is at best jejune. You might say that some of his forays into philosophy are at best sophomoric, but that would be unfair to sophomores; the fact is (grade inflation aside) many of his arguments would receive a failing grade in a sophomore philosophy class. This, combined with the arrogant, smarter-than-thou ('thou' being believers in God) tone of the book can be annoying. I shall put irritation aside, however and do my best to take Dawkins’ main argument seriously.

The boredom and lack of defensiveness on the part of Christian philosophers is not too surprising, considering that - as has been widely noted - the anti-God campaign has not come up with a single new idea of any substance.

(Note: The whole of Plantinga's comments will be available at Books and Culture in due course.)

But one thing the anti-God campaign has come up with is the desire for new rules to restrict religious believers. As Sam Schulman notes in "Without God, Gall Is Permitted" (Wall Street Journal ),

What is new about the new atheists? It's not their arguments. Spend as much time as you like with a pile of the recent anti-religion books, but you won't encounter a single point you didn't hear in your freshman dormitory. It's their tone that is novel. Belief, in their eyes, is not just misguided but contemptible, the product of provincial minds, the mark of people who need to be told how to think and how to vote--both of which, the new atheists assure us, they do in lockstep with the pope and Jerry Falwell.

For them, belief in God is beyond childish, it is unsuitable for children. Today's atheists are particularly disgusted by the religious training of young people--which Dr. Dawkins calls "a form of child abuse." He even floats the idea that the state should intervene to protect children from their parents' religious beliefs.

Schulman is unsparing in his description of the truncated sort of literature that this new generation of atheists produces.

Tobias Jones writes in The Guardian that the campaign is not merely authoritarian but totalitarian:

There's an aspiring totalitarianism in Britain which is brilliantly disguised. It's disguised because the would-be dictators - and there are many of them - all pretend to be more tolerant than thou. They hide alongside the anti-racists, the anti-homophobes and anti-sexists. But what they are really against is something very different. They - call them secular fundamentalists - are anti-God, and what they really want is the eradication of religion, and all believers, from the face of the earth.

Well, yes. Given that materialist atheists do not believe in free will, they have nothing to lose by attempting to simply force people to do what they want. Or use eugenics for the purpose. The thing to see here is that people who do not believe in free will do usually enjoy power and its uses.

For that matter, Dinesh D'Souza comments that, generally speaking, materialist atheism has been a much better recipe for mass murder in recent history than has any form of religious violence or persecution:

It is strange to witness the passion with which some secular figures rail against the misdeeds of the Crusaders and Inquisitors more than 500 years ago. The number sentenced to death by the Spanish Inquisition appears to be about 10,000. Some historians contend that an additional 100,000 died in jail due to malnutrition or illness.

These figures are tragic, and of course population levels were much lower at the time. But even so, they are minuscule compared with the death tolls produced by the atheist despotisms of the 20th century. In the name of creating their version of a religion-free utopia, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong produced the kind of mass slaughter that no Inquisitor could possibly match. Collectively these atheist tyrants murdered more than 100 million people.

But for people who believe that humans are "a mere grab bag of atomic particles", accusations of violence against religious groups are probably only talking points anyway.

Slowly, those who believe in a non-materialist universe are beginning to see that they have more in common with each other, despite differences in the specifics of their beliefs, than they do with the materialists. Muslim intellectual and ID enthusiast Mustafa Akyol observes:

Said Nursi, in the 1950s, foresaw an alliance between Islam and Christianity against materialism. He prophetically wrote, "A tyrannical current born of naturalist and materialist philosophy will gradually gain strength and spread at the end of time, reaching such a degree that it denies God. ... Although defeated before the atheistic current while separate, Christianity and Islam will have the capability to defeat and rout it as a result of their alliance" (Nursi, Letters, s. 77-78). Half a century after Nursi, the stage for that alliance is set.

Intellectual Muslims, fed up with the pathological anti-Western hatred of the radicals who defame Islam by their violent acts, are seeking the right way to express and stand for their faith and identity in the modern world.

Intellectual Christians have already found that way. They encountered materialism before we did, because it grew right in the heart of Christendom. They have been standing against it for several decades.

Akyol is perceptive in seeing that materialists use Western Christian secularism - which originated in a desire not to violate the conscience of others - to make war on all spiritual traditions.

People from the great religious traditions of the East are also beginning to see what is at stake.

One problem that we face in the West today, however, is that many Christians, unlike those of whom Akyol speaks, have simply accommodated to materialism, and to Darwinism as its creation story.

Next: Part 13: Theistic evolutionism and the new militant atheism

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

The boredom and lack of defensiveness on the part of Christian philosophers is not too surprising, considering that - as has been widely noted - the anti-God campaign has not come up with a single new idea of any substance.

(Note: The whole of Plantinga's comments will be available at Books and Culture in due course.)

But one thing the anti-God campaign has come up with is the desire for new rules to restrict religious believers. As Sam Schulman notes in "Without God, Gall Is Permitted" (Wall Street Journal ),

What is new about the new atheists? It's not their arguments. Spend as much time as you like with a pile of the recent anti-religion books, but you won't encounter a single point you didn't hear in your freshman dormitory. It's their tone that is novel. Belief, in their eyes, is not just misguided but contemptible, the product of provincial minds, the mark of people who need to be told how to think and how to vote--both of which, the new atheists assure us, they do in lockstep with the pope and Jerry Falwell.

For them, belief in God is beyond childish, it is unsuitable for children. Today's atheists are particularly disgusted by the religious training of young people--which Dr. Dawkins calls "a form of child abuse." He even floats the idea that the state should intervene to protect children from their parents' religious beliefs.

Schulman is unsparing in his description of the truncated sort of literature that this new generation of atheists produces.

Tobias Jones writes in The Guardian that the campaign is not merely authoritarian but totalitarian:

There's an aspiring totalitarianism in Britain which is brilliantly disguised. It's disguised because the would-be dictators - and there are many of them - all pretend to be more tolerant than thou. They hide alongside the anti-racists, the anti-homophobes and anti-sexists. But what they are really against is something very different. They - call them secular fundamentalists - are anti-God, and what they really want is the eradication of religion, and all believers, from the face of the earth.

Well, yes. Given that materialist atheists do not believe in free will, they have nothing to lose by attempting to simply force people to do what they want. Or use eugenics for the purpose. The thing to see here is that people who do not believe in free will do usually enjoy power and its uses.

For that matter, Dinesh D'Souza comments that, generally speaking, materialist atheism has been a much better recipe for mass murder in recent history than has any form of religious violence or persecution:

It is strange to witness the passion with which some secular figures rail against the misdeeds of the Crusaders and Inquisitors more than 500 years ago. The number sentenced to death by the Spanish Inquisition appears to be about 10,000. Some historians contend that an additional 100,000 died in jail due to malnutrition or illness.

These figures are tragic, and of course population levels were much lower at the time. But even so, they are minuscule compared with the death tolls produced by the atheist despotisms of the 20th century. In the name of creating their version of a religion-free utopia, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong produced the kind of mass slaughter that no Inquisitor could possibly match. Collectively these atheist tyrants murdered more than 100 million people.
But for people who believe that humans are "a mere grab bag of atomic particles", accusations of violence against religious groups are probably only talking points anyway.

Slowly, those who believe in a non-materialist universe are beginning to see that they have more in common with each other, despite differences in the specifics of their beliefs, than they do with the materialists. Muslim intellectual and ID enthusiast Mustafa Akyol observes:

Said Nursi, in the 1950s, foresaw an alliance between Islam and Christianity against materialism. He prophetically wrote, "A tyrannical current born of naturalist and materialist philosophy will gradually gain strength and spread at the end of time, reaching such a degree that it denies God. ... Although defeated before the atheistic current while separate, Christianity and Islam will have the capability to defeat and rout it as a result of their alliance" (Nursi, Letters, s. 77-78). Half a century after Nursi, the stage for that alliance is set.

Intellectual Muslims, fed up with the pathological anti-Western hatred of the radicals who defame Islam by their violent acts, are seeking the right way to express and stand for their faith and identity in the modern world.

Intellectual Christians have already found that way. They encountered materialism before we did, because it grew right in the heart of Christendom. They have been standing against it for several decades.

Akyol is perceptive in seeing that materialists use Western Christian secularism - which originated in a desire not to violate the conscience of others - to make war on all spiritual traditions.

People from the great religious traditions of the East are also beginning to see what is at stake.

One problem that we face in the West today, however, is that many Christians, unlike those of whom Akyol speaks, have simply accommodated to materialism, and to Darwinism as its creation story.

Next: Part 13: Theistic evolutionism and the new militant atheism

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

The biggest loser from the new militant atheism which claims to speak for science is the "accommodationist" type of theistic evolutionist.

Traditionally, theistic evolution simply meant that theists accept that the world has not always appeared as it does today. Once there were trilobites; now there are horses. Life forms rise and fall, as do empires and hemlines.

However, much of what is called theistic evolution today is simply an attempt to sell Darwinism, the creation story of materialism, to people who are not materialists. I call that "accommodationist" theistic evolution - it attempts to accommodate spiritually directed institutions to rule by materialists.

One result is projects like Evolution Sunday or the Clergy Project (getting clergy to promote materialism in the guise of Darwinism).

Usually, Christians (or other theists or people who accept that there is meaning and purpose in the universe) are urged to "accept" - in broad terms - "evolution." Darwinism, which nakedly refutes everything the theist believes, is the form of evolution that the sponsors are actually interested in promoting, to judge from their other activities. But they do not spell out its implications with the candor that the anti-God Darwinists do.

Surprising numbers of clergy go along with it, too. For example, in this article, a Lutheran "poster cleric" Nelson Rivera reassures us,

For people of faith, "thinking from below," that is from the realms of nature and history, is helpful. When we think from below, we can recognize the involvement of God with God’s people and creation, as is true with thinking from above. Thinking from below, however, leaves room and freedom for recognizing that God makes it possible for us to gain a perspective from our experience in the world. ... Eventually, however, we get to some metaphysical construction about our relationship to the whole and to God.

Thinking from above, by contrast, allows very little space, if any, for considering the evolutionary process, which requires freedom and some place to acknowledge chance and accident. Chance and accident are consistent with God's involvement in human life and creation. In thinking from above one can’t easily move from there to allow for knowledge gleaned from a study of evolutionary biology. The study of evolutionary biology teaches us much about the richness, complexity and wonder of God and God's creation. We need to remember, though, that it's sinful for us to think we have the capacity to finally figure out creation and who God is.

"Thinking from below" (the virtuous thing to do) necessarily means accepting materialism. The universe is clearly either either bottom up or top down, and Rivera's pitch is just as clearly a sell job for bottom up - substituting materialism for spirituality. And of course, it is "sinful" for us to think we can finally know God, even though that is one of the promises of Scripture - on earth as it is in heaven.

Sometimes, political messages are obvious as well, even in churches that promote separaton of church and state.

In other cases, accommodationists promote a self-limiting (kenotic) God, in order to rescue Darwinism. As Peter James Causton perceptively writes in "Darwin's Ghost: Can Evolution & Christianity Be Reconciled?" (Catholic thinkmag Commonweal),

in its confident assertions about how God does and does not create, kenotic theology cannot avoid a certain air of presumption. Might it not also be presumptive in its wholesale embrace of Darwinism?

Causton writes cautiously, but there may be less need for caution than in the past, at least in Catholic circles. The Catholic Church, long misrepresented as accepting Darwinism, is beginning to make its position ever more clear. Christoph, Cardinal Schoenborn has firmly insisted that teaching only Darwinism in schools means teaching only a "materialistic, atheistic" view of the universe. Of course that's true - but it didn't used to be polite for a senior cleric to say so.

The underlying problem of accommodationist theistic evolution, of course, is the felt need to embrace Darwinism - and the materialism from which it springs. As I have suggested above, the most likely explanation, based on my encounters with theistic evolution accommodationists, is that they assume that materialism is basically true and that spiritual traditions must somehow accommodate themselves to its rule.

Put another way: Once you do think that materialism is not true, Darwinism is not true either. That raises the question of why any clergy should feel the need to sell "evolution" to their congregations, as part of their ministry.

That's why the accommodationists are the big losers. People will think of questions they never used to ask before, like "why exactly are you telling us all this stuff about how God allows everything to happen by chance .... ?"

Meanwhile, the militant atheists push on, saying - essentially - the same things militant atheists said in the eighteenth century, to as much or little purpose, and most of the world goes on ignoring them. Plus ca change ...

Return to the beginning: http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/2/2007/02/26/lstrongglemgpart_1_l_emg_what_s_with_the

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

(Post-Darwinist is just what you think, life without Darwin. Mindful Hack is Denyse's blog on the neuroscience issues relevant to the intelligent design controversy.)

Evolutionary biology: Better without Darwin?

Basically, the controversy was never about Darwin's theory as such, of course, but about the use of Darwin's theory to preach a materialist origin of life and the mind. It is one thing to say that natural selection explains which squirrels will survive the winter - another to say that it completely explains life, the universe, and all that. Materialists, faced with growing dissent worldwide, now want to spin materialism through some sort of "God-talk"

Why did anyone ever believe Darwinism?
One reason is that when third-raters proffer unfalsifiable explanations - without themselves having the least sense that they might not be proferring wisdom - they can sound very, very convincing.

New Age discovers AI and ID?

The scenario, as prophesied by Ray Kurzweil's Foreword, seems materialist, but it's a bit hard to tell. Kurzweil, interestingly, is not a fan of Carl Sagan's billions of civilizations out there in space.

Marsupial frogs: Another reason to check out of Darwinism
"Marsupial frogs put the lie to two Darwinian myths: (1) that homologous features arise through similar developmental pathways, and (2) that development replays evolutionary history. " - Jonathan Wells

Intelligent design like the Big Bang theory?

Now, I don't know if intelligent design will turn out to be as significant - or more or less - than the Big Bang theory, but I do know the size of the debt that ID owes to the Big Bang.

Recent stories at the Mindful Hack

1. Health: Hospitals now factor lifestyle beliefs and practices into wellness

Some hospitals have come a long way toward realizing how important it is to adapt to the life beliefs of patients, especially the older ones, according to a recent article in Jewish World Review:
"The hospital perks of yesteryear — designer gowns, valet parking, Internet access — stressed luxury and convenience. Today, hospitals have found G-d.

Hospitals are now touting "Shabbat elevators" for observant Jews, "bloodless surgery" for Jehovah's Witnesses and Muslim prayer rooms.

The new services show that hospitals have begun adapting to the religious mosaic of patients — and are increasingly marketing to patients not by disease or age, but by belief."

2. Evolutionary psychology watch: Natural selection, not consciousness, accounts for sexual jealousy?

What, you may ask, is the connection between the idea that consciousness is an illusion and the idea that sexual jealousy is simply the outworking of natural selection? Well, if you believe that consciousness is not an illusion and that it can initiate action, you can readily account for the hostility that a person (or dog or cat, for that matter) perceives toward a new favorite. An intelligent life form perceives benefits lost and reacts accordingly. No further explanation in the form of a mechanism is needed because the perception itself drives the process.

(But the evolutionary psychologist is compelled to seek for a mechanism that drives the process, hence the obsession with the search for an illusory driver in the form of natural selection.)

3. On Sam Harris's Letters to a Christian Nation

"The thing is, you can be anti-God in the US, and your books will sell. Try being anti-God in the Middle East and your head may be rolling and bouncing along the cobblestones. The real tragedy of modern-day materialist atheism is that it's quite easy in places where no one takes you seriously and quite impossible in places where everyone does."

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

The goal of the Intelligent Design Movement is to achieve an open philosophy of science that permits consideration of any explanations toward which the evidence may be pointing. This is different from the current restrictive philosophy that rules out of consideration the possibility that a creator may be responsible for our existence, even if the evidence is pointing in that general direction.
-- Phillip E. Johnson, Think, (The Royal Institute of Philosophy), February 19, 2007.

In case you missed it, February was a delightful month for Darwinists. Not only did a few hundred enlightened churches celebrate Evolution Sunday to honor Darwin, but Kansas (of all places) became the first state to officially impose on public school students an atheistic definition of science, also in honor of Darwin. In what should be an embarrassment to true scientists, the tail of Darwin continues to wag the dog of science, while the tale of Darwin seeks to wag the God of religion. By keeping their friends (state government) close and their self-made enemies (churches) closer, Darwinists believe they can conquer the world, effectively severing the science versus religion Gordian knot. Darwin the Great can be successful, Darwinists know, if his disciples can neuter any opposition from religious folk and manipulate support from state folk. This month saw both, to the amazement and wonder of free thinking people everywhere. God help us.

Proving the point that defending Darwinism has become more about religion than science, the design deniers of Darwinism believe they have found a way to make deniers of us all: proselytize among the differently religious. By recruiting those who apparently affirm a designer to affirm that design is only apparent, Darwinists succeed with maculate deception: Evolution Sunday cleverly enlists name-brand churches having only a facade of faith in a creator God to honor a belief that neither needs a creator nor wants a God. A quick read of the names of the participating churches and their leaders proves the point--brothers and more than a few sister reverends of a common faith in man, matter and motion, the first being the product solely of the other two.

Evolution Sunday is the brainchild of an apostle of the Darwinist faith who believes that evolutionary theory is "fully harmonious with religious faith" and that "religion and science are not adversaries." This, of course, is what intelligent design theorists have maintained all along, at least with respect to theistic beliefs in a creator God. What the Darwinists make clear is that one must be careful which religious faith one chooses. Darwinism is perfectly compatible with Religious Humanism, for example. Naturalistic evolution is, in fact, one of Religious Humanism's central tenets as expressed in the Humanist Manifestos. Ditto for Evolution Sunday churches that deny the plain teaching of their traditional holy book in favor of those of the Humanist Manifestos--finding harmony between "science" and "religious faith" is not difficult when both agree that matter is all that really matters.

If Darwinists are serious that there need be no conflict between science and religious faith, then to be consistent they need promote not only Evolution Sunday but Creation Monday. Why not circulate a letter for biology teachers to sign stating that there is no conflict between science and religion, and let a class period be set aside to explore creationism and understand intelligent design, pointing out the "harmonious" relationship between the two belief systems? And why stop there? Why not initiate chapel services at the National Academy of Sciences? How about a time of worship and a moment of prayer at the next camp meeting of the National Association of Biology Teachers? And why don't Darwin's apostles train high school and college bishops to proffer an explanation of how evolutionary theory is fully harmonious with religious faith in a creator God, starting with "In the beginning" and going from there?

Not content with subduing Sunday only, the Darwinists continue to cement absolute control of educating young minds on the five days they already control. Realizing that defending the scientifically indefensible to an informed populace is an increasingly impossible task, Darwinists in Kansas have finally made it official: "informing" is not in their best interest and for this reason the manipulated majority on the Kansas State Board of Education removed "informing" as part of the science teacher's job! Informing has no place for those who have opted instead for unabashed indoctrination. Seeking their own best interests over those of the people they serve, Darwinists have decided the best defense is offense, and what an offense it is. Offending truth, reason and the sensibilities of free thinking people everywhere, Darwinists have lost all pretense of objectivity in their active suppression of the truth and their vocal insistence for their previously unstated goal: state-sponsored atheistic naturalism.

Kansas, bless its evolved heart, is the first state in the nation to officially adopt a definition of science that is non-objective, naturalistic, and atheistic. In a fit of anti-ID fervor, however, the Kansas avengers may have thrown out the crybaby with the holy water. By defining "scientific knowledge" as describing and explaining "the physical world in terms of matter, energy, and forces," the wizards of ooze not only defined out of science intelligent design, but every other scientific discipline that relies on inferences of intelligent design. Archeology? No longer science in Kansas if we wish to assume unknown intelligent causation for a piece of clay shaped like a pot. To remain scientific the pot (or "apparent pot") must be explained as being caused by only matter, energy, and forces. Anthropologists? Good luck explaining signs of an ancient camp fire only in terms of matter, energy and forces. Forensic scientists? Sorry, you must now be called Forensic Believers if you wish to infer unknown intelligent causation for that murder, arson, or other crime for which you were previously permitted such logical inferences. And psychology? Don't even think about it; they've gone and lost our minds. Objective scientists of all stripes? Better move out of Dodge.

Now that the month's hoopla is past, we can consider the absurdity illustrated by Darwinists who insist that their version of evolution is scientific, and believe the problem is with religious rubes who just don't get it. If the problem were truly one of Christians rejecting science, then we would need more than Evolution Sunday. In fact, we would need more than a month of Sundays, and may need to impose on Monday and Tuesday as well. But, of course, Christians, Jews, Muslims and other believers in a creator God do accept scientific findings; which is why no one feels compelled to organize "Gravity Sunday," "Round Earth Sunday" or "Insects Have Six Legs Sunday". But "evolution" in its strong form of unguided, purposeless creation of man fails the litmus test of being observable, testable, or even compelled by the evidence. No amount of liberal religious "harmony" can remedy a lack of hard, physical evidence.

A cynic might conclude that the goal of Darwinists, in keeping with their chosen theory, is to destroy objective science itself to further their selfish genes. After all, destruction is what Darwinism is all about. Natural selection is a sanitized term for the concept of the preservation of one living being by the killing of another, and "evolution" has become a meaningless euphemism for a system "red in tooth and claw". One wonders how successful the religious Darwinists would be were they to promote "Killing of the Weak Sunday" or "Preservation of the Favored Races Sunday," as Darwin himself might propose. Unless free thinkers and people of good faith everywhere oppose the determination of dogmatic Darwinists, the death of objective science cannot be far away. And like doves lured into a snake pit, those of purported faith in a designer risk certain death unless they quickly adapt to escape the cunning instincts of those naturally wise as serpents.

Roddy Bullock is the Executive Director of the Intelligent Design Network of Ohio (www.idnetohio.com) and is the author of The Cave Painting: A Parable of Science, published by Access Research Network. Send comments to: roddybullock@idnetohio.com.

Copyright 2007 Roddy M. Bullock, all rights reserved. Quotes and links permitted with attribution.

References:

Phillip E. Johnson, Intelligent Design in Biology: The Current Situation and Future Prospects, Think, The Royal Institute of Philosophy, February 19, 2007. http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=3914&program=DI%20Main%20Page%20-%20Article&callingPage=discoMainPage

Evolution Sunday and the Clergy Letter Project, http://www.butler.edu/clergyproject/rel_evol_sun.htm

Kansas Science Standards, http://www.kansasscience2005.com/

Definitions of State Science Standards, http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?id=333

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

✞ One of the most interesting discussions I've ever had on the intelligent design controversy was with Jay Kelly at Wired Parish. Kelly, who has a background in philosophy, sees the big picture better than most radio hosts.

www.oakgrovemedia.com/interviews2/oleary_promo.mp3

Note: You'll have to use this link. I can't make it work by embedding it.

✞ I may have mentioned Beyond the Book's You Better Believe It, presented by the Copyright Clearance Center. The Center's Chris Keneally interviews four Canadians, including me, on the book scene in Canada:

Panelists include Marlene Coghlin, the executive director for Christian Booksellers Association in Canada; Denyse O’Leary, Canadian-based journalist and author of an award-winning book on intelligent design, By Design or By Chance?; Oriah, the author of several inspirational and prose-poem best-selling books; and Brian Stiller, president of Tyndale University College & Seminary, and founder and former editor-in-chief of Canadian magazine Faith Today.

I talk a bit about the origin of my recent book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?.

✞ Here's a show that was a lot of fun! Australian science journalist Robyn Williams, author of Unintelligent Design: God Isn't as Smart as She Thinks She Is and I go at it, with Sheridan Voysey of Open House Australia trying to moderate. I had meant to say more about Williams' interesting book, summarized at Amazon,

Why make the earth, the solar system, our galaxy and all the rest when the Garden of Eden was all that was wanted? And then there's lifespan. During long periods of human history, the life expectancy of men was a mere 22 years and children were lucky to toddle, let alone grow up. Why the waste? And shouldn't we sue God for sinus blockages, hernias, appendix flare-ups and piles, not to mention bad backs? Using all sorts of examples from the natural and scientific world Robyn Williams takes on the stalking monster of fundamentalist religion and creationism in a short, wicked and witty debunk of intelligent design. This is a book to infuriate the Christian fundamentalists and amuse the rest of us.

Williams is fundamentally - so to speak - confused about the difference between intelligent design, optimal design, and perfection. Intelligent design just means input of a higher level of information than law and chance together account for. Optimal design means the best available design, given constraints, but the best optimized systems do not perform well under all circumstances. As for perfect design, well, in a universe where everything must be mortal, it would be disastrous. But I digress. Robyn and I are poles apart, no less.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

I'll be back blogging here soon, but I am in the last stages of the new Spiritual Brain book, so this for now:

Fun for once: Dilbert cartoonist fights back against "ass hat"

Media watch: New York Times profiles/targets young earth creationist who received geology PhD

From the American Scientist's bookshelf: What Darwinism really means to its supporters

ID in the UK: Engineering prof speaks for design

Thinkquote of the day: Avoiding simple, obvious truths

Now 700 scientists doubt Darwin

Darwin Day: Get it while it's hot

Thinkquote of the day: The infamous Wedge document

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

I've been busy with the latest book. More later.

But here's what's on the Post-Darwinist blog today:

http://post-darwinist.blogspot.com/2007/02/recent-events-in-intelligent-design.html

If this link breaks, just go to http://post-darwinist.blogspot.com

Also look at the archives, because this lot will shortly be replaced by a new one. Fun stuff is happening fast.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).