It is becoming easier and easier to laugh at atheists nowadays.  However, that doesn't mean we SHOULD laugh at them...  Rather, we should show them respect, and the love of Christ... and we should pray for them, that perhaps God would open their eyes and free them from their blindness...

More on the "fine line" - a brief paper I wrote five years ago in a class.  I came across it again recently and thought others might enjoy reading it or might have some comments.  It's included below.

I also hope to respond to some of the other comments I've gotten recently on previous posts, as soon as Xanga restores them.

here's a fascinating commentary link about a Nature article... and about the eminent scientists who are outraged by it...

And my thoughts:

The Nature magazine seems to be one of the premiere/avantgarde science magazines, as evidenced by the fascinating phenomena that they seem to be somewhat influenced by postmodernism, while still trying to retain their modernist materialist scientific outlook.  They are trying desperately to remain "mainstream scientific" in the naturalistic sense, without offending their increasingly postmodern constituency which believes that science does not have all the answers and that in fact nobody has ANY absolute answers.  Thus Nature recommends "reconciling" science and belief, by relegating belief to "myth" status.  Or perhaps "pleasant myth" or "traditional myth" or "cultural myth" status, if that floats your boat better.

But there are still some die-hard modernists (read the above article), who will not tolerate this mushiness.  I admire them, in a way.  Even though they come to the wrong conclusions, they are seeking the perfect goal - Truth.  They don't tolerate this "religious truth and scientific truth don't have to mesh" platitude.  "They have zeal, but not according to knowledge."

"According to Miller, the Brown University biologist, academia is opposed to explanations that rely on God as a causal agent because they go against the very definition of science: seeking a natural explanation for natural events and phenomenon."

Interesting rhetoric.  Notice especially the word "very" - which instantly attempts to set up a rhetorical/moral/sociocultural gradient by an appeal to an external body of commonly held truth.

What they're saying is the following:

1. If science is defined as strictly "natural" explanation, then by definition creationism (and practically also Intelligent Design) is "non-scientific."  If science is defined more broadly, as in its original meaning (from Latin 'scientia', "to know") of knowledge or general explanation, then of course creationism and ID would be included in "scientific" explanation.

2. If an explanation is not "scientific" by the first definition ("strictly naturalistic"), then it is puerile, weak, reprehensible, unjustifiable, etc.  People are to be disdained and despised if they adopt any explanations that fall outside the realm of naturalistic science.
It should be pretty obvious that #1 is correct (by definition).  However, #2 is actually very weak, and in my opinion, self-defeating.  #2 is actually very similar to logical positivism, which employs the so-called verifiability criterion in an attempt to say that the only sentences that have any meaning are the ones that state facts about things we can see, feel, taste, etc.  The problem is that the verifiability criterion is not itself something that we can see, feel, or taste, so it defeats itself... 

Similarly, the point #2 above is not something that can be proved experimentally, so the statement itself is not scientific, and by its own thesis ought not to be adopted by reasonable people.

The basic problem here is that science cannot reach outside of itself.  Science can certainly say, "This is the best explanation available without appealing to God," but it cannot say, "There is no God" or "This naturalistic explanation is the best one available, period."

It basically comes down to an individual (or societal   choice to say, "I will not believe in anything that I cannot see."

Then the question arises, of course... Why?

Why would one rule out the possibility of intelligent design or special creation by God?  Is there any evidence for the supernatural?  Especially, is there any evidence that makes much better sense if we admit the possibility of the supernatural rather than denying it?

Such as, for example, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead...

Incredible.  Here's an amazing quote from the link, quoted from the Nature article.

"Indeed, it is not the job of a science teacher to meddle with the way their students are brought up or to attack their core personal beliefs. Rather, the goal should be to point to options other than intelligent design for reconciling science and belief."

!!!!!!

As Dilbert would say, "That was just wrong on so many levels."

I hate falsehood (such as, but not limited to, that statement) so much that I can't even think of any word to describe how terrible it is.  Note that I do not hate the people who say such, but the substance of their lies.

It seems these folks are either willfully ignorant (unlikely) or else knowingly and deceitfully trying to hide the fact that "pointing to options other than intelligent design" IS in fact "meddling with the way students are brought up."

Paraphrasing what these folks are saying in a slightly clearer fashion, "We science teachers shouldn't present evolution in a 'dogmatic' and 'confrontational' way... instead we should 'gently', 'gradually', 'subtly' try to brainwash the students toward our naturalistic beliefs."

Note the distinction attempted in the quote between "core personal beliefs" and other beliefs which are presumed to be 'public' or perhaps 'peripheral' - beliefs such as... the origin of life, the meaning of life (or not), the factuality and historicity of those "personal" beliefs...  ! !

HOW DARE a "personal" belief come out of the closet and present itself as actually, historically, scientifically, unilaterally, "TRUE"!  That would constitute narrowminded fundamentalist intolerance in the extreme. . .

(and this too, by Jay Richards, on a lighter note...  There's nothing quite like a good hard dose of satire once in a while...

This was an interesting event earlier this year... there are lots of articles describing it and its 'fallout'... 

http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/01/17/summers_remarks_on_women_draw_fire?mode=PF

http://slate.msn.com/id/2112570/

I'm not going to give my opinion of his comments... yet... 
Here was one of my favorite excerpts from one of the articles (read them in their entirety first...)

"In his talk, according to several participants, Summers also used as an example one of his daughters, who as a child was given two trucks in an effort at gender-neutral parenting. Yet she treated them almost like dolls, naming one of them ''daddy truck," and one ''baby truck." "

Here's an interesting quote... comments welcome...

"If the contents of the Bible did not correspond with the truths which God has revealed in his external works and the constitution of our nature, it could not be received as coming from Him, for God cannot contradict himself. Nothing, therefore, can be more derogatory to the Bible than the assertion that its doctrines are contrary to reason. The assumption that reason and faith are incompatible; that we must become irrational in order to become believers is, however it may be intended, the language of infidelity; for faith in the irrational is of necessity itself irrational....We can believe only what we know, i.e., what we intelligently apprehend."

Charles Hodge, principal of Princeton Theological Seminary between 1851 and 1878] Systematic Theology, 3 vols., reprint (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 1:83-84.

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/what.html

...fascinating set of definitions / starting thoughts, especially for the philosophically-minded.