I love reading books written by Richard Dawkins. Quite ironically, he provides some of the very best material I could ever hope to find for use in discussions with my atheist friends about God and His creation, as well as existential science and evolution theory. It turns out that virtually everything I might ever need for my argument in favor of a supernatural God can be found in his book The Greatest Show on Earth: the Evidence for Evolution, simply by following the advice of Dawkins and accepting many of his claims about the theory of evolution on face value. For example, in his book Richard Dawkins claimed that humans share a now-extinct ancestor with the budgerigar (another name for the common parakeet) that lived approximately 310 million years ago, writing that "Every species is a cousin of every other. Any two species are descended from an ancestral species, which split in two." (pg. 254) That would mean every modern living organism must be directly related to every other living organism on earth by descent -- with modifications, of course. Not only is your cousin a chimpanzee, but your slightly more distant cousin is allegedly the cucumber. The most obvious question coming to mind about this idea would seem to be "how?" Now my atheist friends have frequently suggested that I publish the evidence that disproves my cousinship to fruits and vegetables such as cucumbers and turnips so that I might earn fame, fortune, and even to win a Nobel Prize. However, the Nobel Prize does not honor a category for evolutionary biology, making the goal itself … [Read more...]
An open letter to Dr. Jerry Coyne
Dear Dr. Coyne, I’ll do my best to get right to the point. Your reputation as one of the world’s foremost experts on speciation theory precedes you. You are a well respected scientist and educator. I am but a student of those fields in science necessary for any attempt to answer my existential questions. Although I’ve been called a teacher, my background is not in education. By profession, I’m an author, certainly not a scientist. My strong preference is for writing detective novels. However, in the spirit of full disclosure, I should divulge that my most recent book, published this past Easter Sunday, has the title Counterargument for God. I should probably also mention that your advocacy of naturalistic evolution is one of the arguments that I endeavored to counter and defeat in my book. I meant no disrespect. It just happens that I have very good reasons for believing that you're wrong to assume that supernatural intelligence played no role in your existence or mine. Now, I’ve read Why Evolution is True, but I cheerfully admit that I don’t yet quite understand the biological processes allegedly at work. I still have a few questions about your specific field of expertise, if you’ll be good enough to answer them. Your USA Today article written not too long ago asserting that you can be good without God gives me some hope that you will cooperate, even though I suspect David Berlinski may have doubts. If I never ask my questions, you won't have the opportunity to respond if you so choose. True, you have expressed some disdain for creationists in … [Read more...]