From the Other Side
Francis Collins, head-honcho of the Human Genome Project, baffles me to no end. I have not read his books and I don't think he has much to offer as this interview in the February edition of the National Geographic indicates.
All he does in the interview is to offer apologies and excuses for God and religion, and pooh-pooh claims that science, including genetics, will eventually be able to answer questions that are currently the domain of religion. He does not have much faith in the power of prayer, except that through it we obtain fellowship (how?) with God; he knows that miracles are highly unlikely, yet believes that they may occur; suffering and evil in the world is not God's fault, but the result of human free-will.
Why only blame the uneducated and the ignorant for holding irrational beliefs?
2 comments:
The problem with Collins is that he is trying to reconcile science and religion in ways in which they fundamentally differ.
I think that his efforts may stem from his personal emotions and experience; apparently, he became 'aware of God' when he saw patients who were beyond hope recover, when he was a doctor. I don't dispute the mysterious power of the mind, which we still have to unlock. But I don't see any reason whatsoever to therefore by default implicate a higher intelligence in wielding that power. Like you said, Collins baffles me to no end too. So also do all the other top scientists who actually believe in a personal deity (unlike the "Einsteinian god" which Dawkins talks about, which is quite reasonable). I cannot help but think they lead schizophrenic lives. It's one thing to talk about the emotional benefits of religion, quite another to believe in God.
May be Collins is beleiving in Da Vinci.."Religion & science go hand in hand"
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