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Friday, September 28, 2007

Book review: Science's Blind Spot: Making sense of Darwin's devout

When I first encountered Biola adjunct prof Cornelius G. Hunter's Science's Blind Spot: The Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2007), I was intrigued by the possibility that it might help me understand the people who want to destroy the careers of anyone who doubts that Darwinian evolution can produce mind from mud, and ultimately you from goo.

I fear it is somewhat like trying to understand the jihadis. Friends have told me that, to understand jihadis, I must try, at least briefly, to see the world as they do. Similarly, to understand Darwin's most committed followers, I must undergo a similar mental exercise. For me at least, such exercises do not result in conversion to the alien belief system; rather, they help me make decisions about how to deal more effectively with the believers.

Blind Spot led to a surprising discovery: According to Hunter, the Darwinists are much more religious than I am. Many of them - especially the ones who attend church - are zealous for God's honour in a way that I would never think of. For them, God is too great to provide evidence for his work in any sense that I could view and understand. And this universe is not good enough to have been created by him.
Read the rest at:

Introduction
Part One: Theological naturalism: Why we owe it to God to believe in Darwin
Part Two: Rationalism vs. empiricism: What must be true vs. what the evidence shows
Part Three: Why rationalists cannot live with uncertainty

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