Friday, September 3, 2010

Francis Collins does not support your beliefs

Yes, I've read Francis' book and yes, I've read George Cunningham's book (Decoding the Language of God) and no, Francis Collins does not agree with you.  (You should read both books! George's book is well written and does a wonderful job of deconstructing Collins' arguments.)

This is not a review of Francis Collins' book, The Language of God.  In short and simple terms, the book does not make a lucid argument for the belief in god.  The god it describes is definitely not the Christian god of any Christian I know.

Almost every time that I discuss god belief with someone who _thinks_ they're prepared for the discussion, they refer to C.S. Lewis and Francis Collins (ie. "Francis Collins is a great scientist, he decoded the human genome and he believes in god... " - never mind the FACT that he didn't decode the human genome - he does have scientific credentials). 

To be sure I don't miss the point: 
If you believe any of the following...
  1. that the earth is less than 10,000 (100,000 or 1,000,000 or 4,000,000,000) years old
  2. humans were created in their present form
  3. the theory of evolution by natural selection is false
  4. that man and dinosaurs walked on earth at the same time
  5. that you're not related to my petunia
  6. the story of Noah is historical fact
... then do not suggest that I could be wrong because Francis Collins wrote a (hardly lucid) polemic about his reasons for belief in a creator god. 

The usage of Francis' book in arguments is reminding me of people referring to another book to support their beliefs - the name of the book eludes me.  It is blatantly clear to me that MOST people who refer to such books as being the definitive answer to all arguments against theism have never read the actual books.

Oh, right, the other book is the Bible.  Read it before you argue on behalf of it.  It doesn't say what many think it does.  Now get back to shunning people who eat shrimp.

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