A Talk By Richard Dawkins on Atheism in The United States.

God, Evolution, and Scientific Inquiry: A Conversation.

The following is a conversation between me and an old camp friend, Sam Vore, who has since become a pastor. It started when I posted a story on Facebook about the Pope's comments to Africans that condoms would not solve the HIV/ AIDS epidemic there, implying that abstinence and a moral sense of sexuality are the only real solutions. I made an angry comment along with my post about how silly it is that we still listen to men in white robes whom do not hold higher degrees or provide any viable solutions to real world problems in the 21st century when we have the level of scientific data and empirical evidence that we do today to rely on. The following debate occurred as a result of this post.

SAM: As a pastor I'm glad I wear jeans and shirts when I preach and not these robes you speak of...pfew! Religion is bad. Pop christian, islam, buddhism, evolution, catholic, tarot and crystals, conspiracists, mormon, fortune cookies they all do spread ignorance! Matthew is right! But jeff, on principle I would disagree that a person has to be doctor, psychologist, or a social worker to be right. So I don't share your view that only educated people should have a voice. People should read Jesus without any preconcieved bias. Then the world would change for the good. Everyone would work together to eliminate AIDS. Everyone needs to be fed, housed, and given medical care. I agree!.. I don't like the pope.

JEFF: Hey Sam, I agree that SOME religious groups do try to help end social problems. My beef is that they don't seem to understand that there are very educated people doing very useful studies on HOW to solve these problems in universities worldwide. So if they want to help, I believe they should help as concerned people, not as members of a religion, and that they use the methods being established by the educated specialists sans the moralizing religious judgments and alternative treatments. For instance, something like Doctors Without Borders is a very useful, secular group trying to help with the African AIDS epidemic. However, right along side them are missionary groups saying, "I want to help, but I also want to talk about my faith, and about Jesus, and about moral choices these people are making." I don't believe this is helpful because in these religious opinions they are going to contradict the empirical evidence and confuse the people being treated as to who knows what's best. This could potentially make matters worse, making the doctor's job even harder. So I don't believe educated people are the only one's who should have a voice, but I do believe they should be turned to for information on how to best carry out one's good intentions.

Wait, wait, wait...did you just throw evolution in with tarrot cards and crystals spreading ignorance? Sam! Evolution is science! Ok, I know the argument that it is not fact, per say, it is technically a theory, but this is only true because it is only provable through deductive reasoning, not empirical evidence. However, if it is wrong most of what we know in the field of natural sciences can't be true and we should all stop going to doctors and cut all science programs from schools everywhere.

SAM: Yeah I did=) If science needs to be fact, and evolution is as you admit technically a theory, then theory has no place in science as fact and should be placed in the category of religion and faith. You can practice your faith just as I can, but our faith has no place to be taught as fact. If you don't want me teaching my theory of creation in school, don't teach the theory of evolution in school. Dude, don't say that human deductive reason leads us to know evolution is true because human reason also leads us to know there is something bigger than us and therefore we're not just animals. Science is good, but theorys should never be presented as fact, but only as theorys...I want you to know this is all just friendly debate, and I don't disown friends just cause we disagree, just so you know. I also support HIV/AIDS work and personal differences come well after helping human beings.

JEFF: Sam, no one teaches evolution as fact in science. It always has been a theory. However, here is the difference between the theory of evolution and the theory of creationism. The theory of creationism is made up. 100% fabricated out of someone's mind and presented as a viable alternative to evolution despite its being in conflict with numerous other facts in history and actual laws of science that we know for sure to be true. In science it only takes one example of something contradicting scientific law or historical fact for a theory to be dismissed. Evolution, however, is based on the fact that we know living beings evolve in present day reality. We have collected data for long enough periods on species of creatures that proves they have evolved from a point earlier in history to now--be it a week, a month, or a hundred years. We also know from our recorded history that nothing natural has happened that would suggest that things did not evolve in the same way for as long as life has existed. Therefore, evolution is breaking no scientific laws, nor is it in conflict with any historical evidence, plus we can see it happening right in front of us today, thus we can assume it has always happened this way. That's deductive reasoning. We cannot see things appearing out of thin air today, and we know that this is scientifically impossible (for matter to appear out of thin air). Thus we can deduce this is NOT the way human life began. It's a story and should be taught as such. Understanding that things evolves leads to other scientific inquiries necessary to cure diseases, understand natural behaviors and continuing intellectually evolving as human beings. And I believe the reason creationist are particularly upset these days is because this debate was already had over 100 years ago and evolution won. Thus, we don't have to have it again. We can point them to the history books where the debate is recorded and see if they have anything new to add.

SAM: Oh please, No evolutionist has ever come up with a good explanation of how life began in the universe that is any more believable than that God did it. You're right things don't come from nothing so everything has to have an origin therefore the question is of how life began in the first place. Evolutionists theories range from alien seed to random... Read More probability. Nobody finds it ironic that the probability of chemicals arranging themselves into simple proteins is so small that belief in aliens or a creater is more logical? Darwin even said that his theory was quite flawed. And besides, his methods were so primative, and I would speculate (and its ok to do so because evolutionist can make assumptions about things nobody actually saw) that if Darwin had access to equipment today, he would not have come to the same conclusions. Evolution has won like Bush won his first election: if you get down top the root of it, things don't add up. I went through public high school and a public university and thought evolution was fine untill things didn't add up. I started reasoning myself and came to the conclusion that someone created the earth...If natural selection rules the world why worry about protecting species. If pink iquanas in the Galapagos can't evolve maybe they shouldn't be allowed to live among the "fittest." Same for humans. If we destroy the Earth, it means our ethics and consumption lead us to it, and maybe humanity should die out. Life will spring forth again and evolution will continue. If we can't adapt to a warmer earth, or evolve to live in a warm ocean then that's the way its supposed to be. We don't need AC cause we need to start evolving today! Disease helps limit population growth so compassion to stop it would be contrary to the natural order. Or could it be that there is way more to the universe then we know?

JEFF: First I want to say that I appreciate the debate Sam, and you do raise some interesting questions, but at the same time I think you are mistaken about what science is teaching. You're talking about the beginning as though it is completely disconnected from the present. I've never heard the "alien seed" or the "random probability" theories. My understanding of the most plausible theory is Big Bang and Evolution. Big Bang being based on the fact that the universe is expanding in all directions, which implies there may have been a central point that exploded and sent these parts floating off into different orbits. Earth has life based purely on where it landed in the universe in proximity to an energy source like the sun and that it's atmosphere is made up of gases that create water. Micro-organisms grow in water and thus life begins and evolutionary theory picks up there with the adaptations that took place over millions of years to get from there to here. Why does a higher power have to be involved in this equation? I guess the question would be where did the initial chunk of matter that exploded come from, but some Big Bang theorists believe that the universe is going through cycles of expansion and implosion. Meaning that the matter could have always existed (mind blowing as that is) and has been expanding to a point until the physics of outer space send it back into an imploding cycle. It compresses back together, builds pressure until it can't implode any further from the heat build up and explodes again. Seems perfectly plausible to me. It at least follows general laws of physics and biology. It isn't just some random guess based on mythology.

SAM: Jeff, I appreciate the debate too. I always hear out anybody who would like to peacefully share their view. I don't want anyone to think I respect you less because we apparently disagree. The alien seed and random probability theories are just two explanations I've seen from highly educated evolutionists about how life began. Primordial soup and random molecular formation into proteins is just about scientifically impossible. People don't realize how near impossible it is, but people still say life began by chance from primordial ooze. I know the universe is currently expanding. I don't argue with scientists on that observation. God speaking the universe into existence seems like a big bang to me. The fact is the earth is in a perfect spot. I think God put it there, others claim its by chance. Micro organisms grow in water yes, but its the molecules and structure of even single celled critters that are scientifically improbable to have happened. A higher power has everything to do with this discussion. My ancient text says there is a God who created the earth. I look at the data of bones in the dirt and strata in the ground and it proves the text. We can both find fact to try to prove our beliefs. There is a great debate in "science" about throwing creation out of the possible interpretations of the data we collect. If its a mind-blowing idea that matter can exist eternally (which does defy laws of thermo dynamics) could it not also be just as mind blowing that a God really could have made life and the whole universe...I am an educated human being. I believe the God of Israel to be the only living God, who created the Earth. The history of this God is recorded in ancient Hebrew texts as well as first century texts in reference to the hebrew messiah Yeshua of Nazareth, who has delivered the world from sin. If that makes me crazy, I'm happy to be... Jeff, I need to sign off, but today has been good. You can have the final word.

JEFF: Ok, well thank you for the last word. I have had this debate enough times to know I won't convince anyone who doesn't want to be convinced because there is absolutely no way to prove that there is a higher power. I say that means there isn't one. If there has been no empirical evidence to back the theory of a higher power in the history of humankind, that to me is pretty clear evidence that we're doing this on our own (which makes educating ourselves on what has already been tried and what theories are the most radically out of touch even more significant). In my experience many Christians have the luxury of not having the weight of these decisions on their shoulders and when they do they most often put aside their faith and go with science and logic in life and death situations. That's how this discussion was started. I believe religion needlessly instills doubt in science when science never claims to have all the answers, it simply has the best answers humans have come up with. Religion on the other hand strikes me as being very much like the Republican Party right now. They have no ideas. The ideas they do have are old and have been tried and didn't work, but for some reason they think if they just keep raising doubts in people generation after generation this will somehow change the outcome. It strikes me as intellectual dishonesty and ideological warfare. Instead of seeing holes in science and problems in society and trying to help--perhaps choosing that particular gap as what they will spend their life studying in an attempt to solve this question for the next generation--they see a hole and say, "See! Look, your argument is faulty and therefore there must be a God." That's not a theory, or even a debate, it's just a made up story to fill in the holes that science hasn't gotten to yet. And if they weren't hurting anyone I would say, great, who cares, let them believe what they want, but since they are causing confusing and blurring the truth about science and ideologically speaking, not really doing any good for anyone. I think it can be said that people can be moral and concerned and helpful without the need for religious institutions confusing young people and the less educated about whom is telling them the truth.