Monday, April 17, 2006

The Universal Acid

One of the strategies that Darwinians have developed to make evolution more palatable to the masses is to insist that there is really no threat, no conflict, between evolution and belief in God. At the level of logic this is true, but in terms of human psychology it's very misleading. The number of scientists who claim that studying evolution as a student drove a stake through the heart of their religious belief is legion. To take just one prominent example consider the late John Maynard Smith who acknowledges in this brief interview the role that reading Darwin played in his journey away from the Christianity of his youth.

It is possible to be a Christian and believe in some versions of evolution, but it is simply disingenuous to deny that evolution is a "universal acid" that dissolves the faith of many of those who embrace it.