Tuesday 14 September 2010

CHRISTIANITY & SCIENCE

'I think it is true without question that the churches and religious culture in general have been deformed by a fear of science, and especially by deference toward bad science. They have more or less accepted the notion that then more people know, the less inclined they will be toward belief - a central assumption of atheism. With this comes the idea that whatever is most toxic from a religious point of view must therefore epitomize science. And all sorts of nonsense goes unchallenged.
Christianity has abandoned its intellectual traditions, ceding the ground to anybody in a white coat. Where it has tried to muster courage, it has too often tended to become irrational and shrill. Meanwhile, a great age in true science, an absolute catalog of wonders, passes by unnoticed.'
Marilynne Robinson, 'Marilynne Robinson Takes on Bad Science Writers' in Christianity Today (September 2010). Available online at: www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/septemberweb-only/47-11.0.html