Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellowships in Science & Religion

What if the Great God Debate isn't about the existence of God at all?

What if the great atheist writers of our age have missed the point? What if, as God debater Terry Eagleton says, "they reject the Christian gospel not because it's garbage, but because it's too radical for them"?

The oldest questions of all - Does God exist? Can science prove or disprove it? Is religion good or bad? - have become the highest-profile intellectual debate of the decade. It's a war of books, stoked to white heat by the war on terror, when some have thought the West was in a toe-to-toe cultural Armageddon with Islam.

Eagleton, one of the best-known public intellectuals in the world, holds professorships at Lancaster University and the National University of Ireland, Galway. He has written more than 40 books and all but haunts talk shows, book reviews, and op-ed pages.

But against the atheists? Wittily, merrily, trenchantly so. Eagleton mischievously lumps Dawkins and Hitchens together as "Ditchkins" throughout his book. It's unfair. He's glad. Partly, it's to mock what he sees them doing to religion - tarring all belief as fundamentalism.

The book grew out of a furious 2006 Eagleton review of Dawkins' The God Delusion, in which the former slammed what

Eagleton is a recent entrant in the God Debate. With a glittering resume ranging from literary criticism to history, he is a writer with serious Marxist and socialist credentials. In his new book, Reason, Faith, and Revolution, he comes out squarely - against the atheists.

He's diving into a brainiac mosh pit. Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett have weighed in on the

On days like these, all the songs and poems about spring start popping up in your mind. It's time again for flowers, budding trees and… allergies. Gardeners are on hyperdrive, and churches, sanctuaries, and temples are sprucing up for a week of celebrations. As commentator John Timpane remarks, it is a time for renewing the spirit and and remembering the meaning of lent.

Timpane: Friends always ask his time of year: What's this Lent thing all about? Here's one answer: Remembering.

I’m curious: Is there anybody on the stage that does not… believe in evolution?

That was the question put to the 10 GOP presidential hopefuls during a May 3 Republican presidential debate on MSNBC.

Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) already had said he did.

But when the rest were asked the same question, three hands went up: those of Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Ah, the flood of facile jokes!:

Those Luddite Republicans!

They don’t believe in evolution because, in their case, it didn’t happen!

Et cetera. Hardy har har.

Three candidates do not a party make. But it was a telling moment for those wondering where the GOP is headed.

…each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom

W.H. Auden, “In Memory of W.B. Yeats”

Do we have free will or not?

A huge question, not to be dismissed. There’s a reason people have worried it so. Our default belief that we are not compelled in our choices, that we are freely responsible for our lives—this belief is central to our sense of self, of the universe, our sense (if we have one) of the purpose of life.

Experiments in neuroscience seem (to some) to threaten all that. And a recent surge of books and articles has frothed the waters. Most visible, perhaps, was New York Times columnist Dennis Overbye’s column in January titled “Free Will: Now You Have It, Now You Don’t”. Overbye largely accepts that free will—at least, as it’s often and traditionally defined—is an illusion. An invigorating and necessary debate.

Will free will survive? As we forge into the future and encounter more and more new, hard dilemmas, what we think of human choice and responsibility could affect public policy. Suppose it’s determined we really are not in control. That might change our notions of justice, human rights, reward and punishment. And much else.

So you want us to be mindful of all the connections we’re making, and to think and act ethically regarding them?

John Timpane

Yep.

The Philadelphia Inquirer

Sounds like a lot of work. Why do I have to think about all this? It’s going to slow me down. This sounds all very idealistic and all, but people probably aren’t going to do it. It’ll slow them down too much.

John Timpane

Maybe not as much as you think. It’s more of a shift in attitude. It could actually help you make better decisions—better connections, more useful to you, more productive, more human. And remember, I don’t want anyone to be serious 100 percent of the time. One of my “Commandments of Consciousness” is, after all, “play.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer

OK, show me how this could work with, say, e-mail.

John Timpane

Any ethical rule you’d observe in treating people, you’d observe in your connections. You’d keep the other person in mind. E-mail

On February 14, Judge John E. Jones 3d addressed a crowd at the Lutheran Theological Seminary. Jones presided over the Dover “intelligent design” trial, eventually ruling that the Dover School Board could not order teachers to read a statement referring to intelligent design in classes discussing evolution. During his address, Jones, a Lutheran, said he diverged from those who insisted that either the Bible or the U.S. Constitution should be read literally. He spoke of the excitement and pride with which he conducted the trial: “Most federal judges will tell you they assume their positions to decide important cases.” Before his talk, Jones spoke with The Inquirer about when he first heard of intelligent design, and what it was like to be a part of judicial history.

What if God spoke, and said: "What's this intelligent design stuff? That ain't science!"?

Would ID proponents keep on talking? "Well, not if you redefine science"… "There's too many holes in the theory of evolution"… "Life is too complex for it to be the product of random mutation"… "This is academic censorship!!! "

Rather than hurling down serpents, frogs, and thunderbolts, The Divinity might clear the throat and politely restate: "Sorry, one more time: Intelligent design is not science. "

This week, it wasn't God talking, exactly—but, by some lights, it came pretty close. On Tuesday, the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano published an article, by University of Bologna evolutionary biologist Fiorenzo Facchini, which said a Pennsylvania judge was right to nix the Dover school board's attempt to order teachers to read an ID-related statement to students.

In agreement with Judge John E. Jones 3d, Facchini wrote that "intelligent design does not belong to science and there is no justification for the pretext that it be taught as a scientific theory alongside the Darwinian explanation. "

While the paper is not an official Catholic Church voicebox, anything that gets printed must pass close scrutiny to jibe with Vatican thought. Hilariously, the Discovery Institute, a flimsy cover for neocreationist advocates, and one of the failed powerhouses behind the

The long-awaited ruling on the Dover "intelligent design" trial came yesterday, and the results were bad for ID—and good for democracy. They were good for those who read the Bible, those who read Darwin, and those who never read anything. This was a triumph for the Constitution, so it is one we all can share.

U.S. District Judge John E. Jones 3d ruled that the Dover Area School Board may not order teachers to read a statement about intelligent design in school biology classes on evolution. ID is a theory that questions Charles Darwin's account of evolution and posits that an "intelligent designer" must have directed the development of life forms on Earth.

The backbreaker was the judge's ruling, amply backed up by trial testimony, that ID is simply not science. Jones pointed out that a main pro-ID scientist, Lehigh biochemist Michael Behe, had hinged his argument on belief in God. Since no other scientific proposition rests on belief in a deity, "Professor Behe's assertion constitutes substantial evidence that in his view... ID is a religious and not a scientific proposition." Oops!

The judge ruled that, since ID is religious rather than scientific, the Dover school board violated the First Amendment's ban on government favoritism toward any particular religious belief in its ID vote last year. (Almost all who voted for ID either have left the board

Chance is one thing, necessity another. That’s what they say.

Right?

Chance is what happens for no reason. It just happens to happen. It’s happenstance. Coincidence.

Necessity happens for a reason. It’s cause and effect. It’s consequence.

But what if these distinctions really don’t hold up?

What if chance and necessity aren’t that different? What if they are so intimately knotted we can’t undo them?

What if—yikes—what if they’re just about the same thing?

When I look at my children, all these questions come bubbling up. I think: How’d they get here? It seems impossible, a miracle. But I know the story, and I start retelling it in my head: My wife and I met… but first her parents and my parents had to meet… and their parents…

Many of the things we think are coincidences aren’t that coincidental. My friend and favorite mathematician, John Allen Paulos of Temple University has written this great book called Innumeracy, in which he tells us that many of the things we think are just amazing coincidences aren’t all that.

If there are 23 people in a room, chosen from all the world’s people absolutely at random, what is the probability that two of them have the same birthday? One chance in two. It’s not an amazing coincidence but actually pretty likely. How

For the last few weeks, the ID folks have been having their say in the Dover, Pa., "intelligent design" trial. U.S. District Judge John E. Jones 3d may rule as early as mid-month.

At issue is whether the Dover school board can order teachers to read a statement about "intelligent design" (ID) before they teach ninth-grade biology classes on evolution. ID argues that life's complexity did not arise by chance (as in Charles Darwin's view) but rather is the work of a knowing, planning designer.

Judge Jones should rule against the Dover board. ID deserves passing mention - sidebars in textbooks, perhaps, and some class discussion - but not mandated inclusion in science classes. Why? Because as science, ID just doesn't cut it.

Here is the pro-ID strategy, and why it just doesn't hold up:

• Poke holes in Darwin's theory of evolution.

  The ID side talks of "gaps" in the evolutionary record - but such claims have been decisively disproven. They say evolution can't account for the origins of life. True - but then, it doesn't claim

It's the end of absolutes for both religion and materialist unbelief.

Neither has the knockout card, the open-and-shut, slam-dunk, airtight case.

And that should knock both of them back a step.

Each has something to say to the other, indeed the same thing: "Give up your fundamentalism—it's toxic, and it's hurting you."

Healthful words now, when evolution and intelligent design are being debated in Dover, Pa.

Both belief and unbelief may be much qualified in the coming decades. In a trend already 50 years old, belief increasingly may get hauled out of church, as believers feel less and less need for an institutional lens through which to believe.

Materialism (sometimes called "naturalism," sometimes "rationalism") is the belief that all that exists is the visible, concrete universe of matter. That's it—nothing else, no spirit realm, no divinities, no afterlife. There is a fine, august tradition behind materialist unbelief. But—especially in the minds of some who believe they are representing or defending science—it has taken on a dismissive energy. In years to come, materialism may actually benefit from admitting it's just a guess, more like other beliefs than most materialists admit.

At least, such are my conclusions after participating in the Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellowships in Science and Religion. This summer, 10 journalists attended seminars for two weeks at Cambridge University in England, went home for five weeks to prepare presentations, and returned for a last week of seminars, presentations, debate, English ale, and amazement at our chance to study God and science in 15th-century splendor.

Many stars joined us: evolutionary biologists Richard Dawkins and Simon Conway Morris; cosmologists John D. Barrow, Owen Gingerich, and Paul Davies; theologians Russell Stannard, Nancey Murphy, and Ronald Cole-Turner. They gave brilliant talks, argued with one another, with us, and with the cosmos; challenged us to stretch our minds and write better about science, religion, and the

It's hard to overstress the importance of the "intelligent design" trial going on now in Dover, Pa. Science is watching. So are teachers, judges, students, believers, lawyers and political leaders all over the world.

The result of Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District et al. could change how science is taught in schools throughout the land.

In October 2004, the board of the Dover Area School District voted 6-3 to reword the ninth-grade biology curriculum. Before beginning to teach evolution, science teachers must now read students a four-paragraph statement on a theory called "intelligent design" or ID.

Questioning Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, ID asserts that the complexity of living things could not have come about by random mutation, as in the Darwinian view. There must be an intelligence behind the design of the universe - a designer. Eleven parents have sued in federal court, claiming the board's decision amounts to teaching public school students a particular religious viewpoint and thus violates the constitutional separation of church and state. ID proponents say their theory isn't religious because it does not mention God. Now Judge John E. Jones 3d must decide who's right.

In 2001, scientists announced they'd mapped the human genome—the string of genetic instructions woven into our DNA. That map has led scientists to buried treasures of understanding.

Now the same thing has happened for the chimp genome. The Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium, a huge international scientist cooperative, announced the sequence in the Sept. 1 issue of Nature. So we're about to know our closest cousins better.

The common chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) is our closest living evolutionary relative. Both Pan and Homo (our genus) are branches from a common ancestor, from which the two lines went different ways about 6 to 8 million years ago. Chimps have changed since then—and so have we, in spectacular fashion. The chimp genome now gives us a point of comparison. It's close: And ourselves. This new map may help us answer one of the biggest of all questions: What makes us human?

Help us answer, mind you—not answer everything. Keep that in mind.

On Monday, in a round-table discussion with journalists from five Texas newspapers, President Bush said he thought intelligent design should be taught to students alongside evolution.

"Intelligent design" is the belief that the universe and the Earth show evidence of a thinking, purposeful plan. That belief is thousands and thousands of years old; the phrase is of fairly recent coinage.

President Bush made his remarks in the broadest, blandest terms: "I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought."

That's the line you're hearing from many politicians: "I think students should learn all sides of an issue," etc. Sounds reasonable, right? No nice person could possibly take exception, right? Ah, but many do. They're afraid intelligent design - especially when it gets capitalized, as in Intelligent Design - is just "warmed-over creationism," anti-scientific Christian fundamentalism looking for a back-door into classrooms. In school districts throughout the land - in Dover, Pa., in Kansas, in Michigan, and elsewhere - debate rages over whether these ideas have any place in the way we teach our children science.