All in the Realm of Faith

Trevin Wax post:  Science's Leap of Faith:  My Article for the New York Times

This week I received the invitation to submit an article to The New York Times in response to the question: Should Creationism Be Controversial? 

Some of you may have come across technology journalist Virginia Heffernan’s article, ”Why I’m a Creationist,” an essay that immediately prompted sneering criticism from committed naturalists. Using the Heffernan article as a point of reference, The Times posed this question:

Is it really so controversial to believe in biblical creation? Why are some people drawn to origin narratives like in Genesis, and others to the scientific story?

I considered several different ways of answering this question, but the word count requirement (300 words) led me to think of how we might turn the tables, exposing the fundamentalist narrowness of scientists, not creationists (as well as the self-defeating belief that science is the only reliable guide to discovering truth). Here’s the beginning of my answer:

Christian leaders are sometimes accused of dismissing doubters and skeptics, those who question the reliability of Christian teaching. Based on the swift condemnations of Virginia Heffernan’s article, “Why I Am a Creationist,” it appears that such Christians are not the only ones who take offense at skepticism. In challenging a purely naturalistic explanation of the world’s origins, Heffernan ran afoul of people unwilling to entertain even a crack in their naturalistic system.

Interestingly enough, Heffernan did not take a position on how the world was created; she merely expressed her belief that the world was, indeed, created. This educated, rational human, like many others before her, claimed that it makes as much sense to believe in a creator as it does to believe the world came into existence out of nothing. For this, she was ridiculed.

Yet science neither proves nor disproves the existence of a creator. Evidence leads us only to a point, and then we draw conclusions. People like Heffernan look at the elements of our world that appear to be designed and purposeful, and conclude that a mind is supervising the matter. [READ THE REST...]

Click here to read the rest of my response, and also check out the responses from other participants in the forum.