This gives me a thin but nevertheless arguable excuse to return to one of my favo(u)rite topics: the age-old (and, in my view, pointless) argument between science and religion about how we got here and what it all means.
But, before I launch into that, let me say the following by way of preamble:
1. My first thought on hearing about the "Reason Rally" was to wonder what the collective noun for secularists, humanists and atheists might be. A "Proof" perhaps, or a "Laboratory", or maybe a "Curmudgeon". A curmudgeon of secularists.
2. Inviting Richard Dawkins to represent secularists in order to improve their image is, may I humbly suggest, rather like hoping Newt Gingrich might improve the image of conservatives. Or like inviting Basil Fawlty to address a conference of hoteliers. All are well qualified, certainly, but none of them is exactly a pin-up. Is that the best they can do? Isn't Beyonce an atheist, or Ryan Seacrest?
3. I have, as those numerous (!) keen followers of this august organ will be aware, held forth on this topic before, in my messages of 11/25/05 and 12/26/05, to be precise. You might be wondering if I'm going to say anything different this time. The answer is no: I'm going to say the same things, in a slightly different way. Am I, you might then reasonably ask, going to keep going on about this same topic interminably? The answer is yes: I plan to keep going on about it at some length until someone listens. Don't hold your breath.
So, here goes. In a nutshell, the approach taken by The Referee, for what's worth, is that the age-old argument between science and religion about the origin of things - by which I mean everything - is essentially a non-sequitur. In other words, the question raised by one side is responded to by the other side with an answer which is in fact about something else. This is followed inevitably by confusion. And this in turn is followed by a boring and protracted round of everyone insulting everyone else's beliefs, as though we were all talking about the same thing. We weren't. Let me explain.
The essential point, IMHO (as those young people say), is that the question of HOW we got here is not the same as the question about WHY we are here. The first is mechanics, the second is meaning.
Why does this matter? I'm glad you asked that. Here's why:
Scientists are qualified to answer questions about HOW. Theologians and philosophers are qualified to answer questions about WHY. The origin of the non-sequitur, it seems to me, is that both groups have consistently attempted to get out of their own lane and answer the other guy's question. Or, worse still, both have, in their own way, tried to pretend that there's only one question.
Let's say, by way of example, that you bumped into the Archbish of Canterbury, perhaps having a crafty pint in the margins of the General Synod, and you sidled up to him and asked him to explain the physics behind the Big Bang. What do you think he'd say? I'd like to think that he might pass on the question. I'd hope he would refer you to someone more qualified than he on this point. A physicist, for example. He might perhaps offer you some wisdom on the theological significance of the event, but it's a fair bet that he would leave the physics to someone else.
Looking at the vice versa situation for a moment, does Mr Dawkins respond to out-of-lane questions with such humility? No, he does not. In fact, when the decorated astrophysicist and non-God-botherer Martin Rees (Lord Rees of Ludlow to you and me) suggested in his book "Our Cosmic Habitat" that there are legitimate questions of faith and meaning that "lie beyond science", Dawkins apparently responded by asking "what expertise can theologians bring to deep cosmological questions that scientists cannot?". A classic example of pretending there's only one question.
I wish I could say that my fellow God-botherers have all acted as humbly as I imagined Dr Williams would. Alas, they have not. Whilst there are very many, perhaps a silent majority, who get it, a very vociferous minority have been just as guilty as Dawkins et al in terms of getting out of lane, just in a different way.
The key here is Genesis. Not the complicated hippy prog-rockers turned balding millionaire charity crooners, but rather the opening book of the Bible. Too many of my fellow God-botherers have failed to limit themselves to WHY, and have proclaimed Genesis as a book of HOW.
Here's the key question they need to consider: what if Genesis was never intended as a book of mechanics, but rather a book of meaning? If that's the case, which very many of us God-botherers believe it is, then there is no threat from science, including evolution, since these are matters of mechanics.
In other words, a win-win becomes possible. Suddenly, one can conceive of both a Supreme Being who created us, and a body of scientific knowledge that is gradually discovering how She did it.
Or, if I may, scientific discovery becomes a matter of uncovering the "Fingerprints of God", which just happens to be the title of a book by one Barbara Bradley Hagerty.
"Aha!" I hear you cry, as you emerge briefly from your boredom-induced slumber, "so The Referee is an advocate of Intelligent Design". No, he isn't. Here's why.
ID, as those of us in the know like to call it, attempts to take on science in a battle to find the bits that scientists can't explain and then proclaim that as proof of a creator. There are numerous problems with this, amongst my favo(u)rite of which are: (i) it's just another attempt to answer the other guy's question, & (ii) given that scientific discovery constantly moves forward, it's not a brilliant plan to base your argument on things that scientists haven't discovered, yet.
If the existence of God depends on gaps in science, what happens when those gaps are filled by new scientific discovery? Does God suddenly cease to exist?
I prefer not to take on science in a battle for supremacy. I prefer to invite it round for a nice cup of tea.
That is about the limit that my simple brain can deal with. If you feel the need to get into this in a more serious way, then I would suggest avoiding the ID-peddling anti-evolutionists at Seattle's Discovery Institute and instead directing your attention towards the lovely people of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion in Cambridge, where you will receive some real science, and maybe even a nice cup of tea.
Which leaves me only, as I have done before, to remind you of the wisdom of plant-pot wearing Ohio electro popsters Devo on this issue: "God made man, but a monkey supplied the glue".
And, with that, may I wish you a very happy Spring break post-equinox holiday vacation. Amen.
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