Would we be better off without religion?
On Tuesday this week the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper held a debate on the question “would the world better off without religion”. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to make the event and the Herald didn’t really publish much of a summary of the debate, so it’s unclear how the the evening unfolded.
Leading up to the event two articles were published in the SMH, one in the affirmative and one in the negative. However the highpoint for me was a letter written to, and published by, the Herald from a person I know very well. The letter was in response to the article supporting the negative position and is reproduced below.
It may remain a mystery to John Lennox why people choose a non-theistic explanation for creation, but for me the reasoning is quite straightforward (“Why not every scientist worships at Darwin’s feet”, August 18).
There is no evidence of a god, so why would Lennox assume that for every unanswered question of science and reason the answer has to be that God did it?
Throughout human history mankind has created gods to fill the gaps in its limited knowledge. In the past that included the weather, the movement of planets and the sun, and all manner of illnesses. Today some people, including some scientists, who should know better, claim that parts of the human body, such as the eye, are too complex to have evolved and thus must have been designed.
Lennox would have us believe that because these individuals cannot see how such a structure could evolve over hundreds of millions of years, there must be a creator. But again and again evolutionary scientists demonstrate how such structures could evolve or indeed have evolved. As each bit of reasoned deduction is added to the mix, Lennox’s god of the gaps gets smaller and smaller.
Most people don’t like to think of themselves as just another animal. So the story that we were specially created and given domain over this planet, and have a special place to go to after our death, plays to our vanity, ego and gives us solace in the face of death.
But we are just another animal. We may have evolved some extraordinary capabilities, but that is no more an argument for a god than the fact that a platypus can feel with its nose.
Let us suppose that Lennox is correct and there is a creator. Then we are faced with the hard decision: which one? And even once we have selected a god from the many on offer, which of the big questions have we solved? Well, none. All we have done is move them up a level. “Where did we come from?” and “What is our purpose?” now becomes “Where did God come from?” and “What is God’s purpose?” Using theistic reason there can only be one solution: another god created god, and so on to infinity.
Rather than being an answer, theism is a cop out. It says: “I don’t know, I don’t want to understand, I just want to be happy in my irrational beliefs.” That may satisfy Lennox, but not me.
Paul Gittings Russell Lea
