Something to be Wary About

I have a lot of time on my hands at the moment and I've been spending some of it on Richard Dawkins' website. It's a great website and it's amazing how much stuff Dawkins puts on it for free, there's an archive full of stuff. Anyway, I just read a correspondence between Edwin Cartlidge who was (or is) a journalist for the Templeton Foundation and two notable atheists. The Templeton Foundation puts on an annual conference in Cambridge where they attempt to bring science and religion together. Edwin Cartlidge emailed both Anthony Grayling and Daniel Dennett asking them to speak at the event; they both declined. I found something Daniel Dennett said interesting:

"Many years ago I made the mistake of participating, with some very good scientists, in a conference that pitted us against astrologers and other new age fakes. I learned to my dismay that even though we thoroughly dismantled the opposition, many in the audience ended up, paradoxically, with an increased esteem for astrologers! As one person explained to me “I figured that if you scientists were willing to work this hard to refute it, there must be something to it!” Isn’t it obvious to you that the Templeton Foundation is eager to create the very same response in its readers? Do you really feel comfortable being complicit with that project?"

This is something that Christians should be wary of: A false sense of superiority. One example would be Ray Comfort's attempts to get into a debate with Richard Dawkins. Comfort is not interested in discussing theology, he is only interested in debasing science to "prove" Dawkins wrong. While I would like to see the spectacle that such a debate would bring, it is much better that Dawkins steer clear of it for risk of validating Comfort's feeble attempts.

Link to RDF post: Correspondence Regarding the Templeton Foundation.