Godbothering

Ophelia Benson points out that 


Jerry Coyne points out another outbreak of godbothering from Francis Collins - which is all the more inappropriate (the apt word, for a change) now that Collins is director of the National Institutes of Health. (The outbreak is inappropriate, not the pointing it out.) The publisher does not omit to get in the obligatory slap at those god damn pesky impertinent inappropriate noisy New Atheists:

“Is there a God?” is the most central and profound question that humans ask. With the New Atheists gaining a loud voice in today’s world, it is time to revisit the long-standing intellectual tradition on the side of faith.

'Is there a god?' is not the most central and profound question that humans ask; far from it; at this stage of the game it could better be called the most futile time-wasting childish infatuated question that humans ask. The voice the 'New Atheists' have gained, if they have gained one, is really not all that loud compared to the voice the Old Theists have had and continue to have for the last however many thousands of years, so I really don't see why so many people feel compelled to pitch such a huge fit about a few atheists finally plucking up the nerve to say atheist things aloud instead of under their breath in a closet when no one is home. I really don't. I really don't see why so many people are so god damn truculent about having to share a minuscule corner of the discourse with atheists. I don't see why our 'gaining a voice' is treated as some kind of foul presumption...

God and science together

It is unfortunate that recent polemics have been pitched as a contest to the death between science and God. Time Magazine sponsored a debate under that heading ("God vs. science") a couple years back between Richard Dawkins and genome project leader Francis Collins (author of The Language of God, now head of the NIH). Fact is, having your science and God too is not disallowed by the logic of atheism.

Collins is not the only Darwinian who believes in God. Darwin himself believed in God for most of his adult life, or at least did not actively challenge that inherited belief; and even when he seemed to lose his own faith, after the death of his little girl Annie, he continued to defend others' faith. He was a Jamesian ahead of his time.

I've mentioned "theistic evolutionists." Ken Miller (Finding Darwin's God) is one...