”We commissioned Karen Armstrong and Richard Dawkins to respond independently to the question “Where does evolution leave God?” Neither knew what the other would say. Here are the results. ” From the Wall Street Journal

Same topic on the BBCVietnamese.com -

And here’re some exerpts of views from the forum on the WSJ

Nat Ramachandran

God is a concept. Science is real. You can believe in a(ny) concept but you live with reality. Conceptions are not realities and a(ny) reality cannot be a mere conception.

Juan Santamaria

God is God. Beyond any set of human questions or tools, such as science. As a Biologist, I live my profession without mutating it into what is not, a religion. Obviously, many scientists and fanatic followers, not students like the rest of us, have embarked on what seems to be a “pay back time” attitude towards God believers.

Scientists jumping the fence that separates their field from religion, make the same mistakes of religions trying to “explain” their faith through science. The first work, with observable data, while the second is purely spiritual and based on faith. However, one common trait unites them both, they are all subject to human error.

Take for instance what happened to me with the teacher of “Organic Evolution” during my formal studies. Taking the matter of the class outside the classroom, the widely respected doctor decided to make his final exam with a single question: ¿Describe how the theory of evolution opposes the beliefs of creationists?

My answer, which I thought was fairly elaborated and honest, unleashed the good doctor´s fury and I was sentenced immediately to the stake with fatal consequences to my final grade

Danny Black

I suspect if Nat were diagnosed with Cancer then he would go to a doctor first as would most people no matter how religious.

Edward Balfe

There’s nothing quite as disgusting as some Believer tying to push his religion down that throats of those who don’t believe it and at the same time making it sounds as he is doing the victim a favor.

Steven Knudsen

Dawkins tries to imply that religion requires faith but science and evolution merely require observation. Again, that is completely untrue. We do not have a complete fossil record that can track humanity’s evolution from single-cell organisms to our current form. It’s simply not there. So, since it cannot be conclusively observed, it requires faith to believe that it did happen. In my opinion, it requires less faith to believe that there is a God who is beyond our understanding than it does to believe that if you give mud (primordial ooze) enough time, it will become a creature that can understand calculus. Believing in Evolution requires faith.

Dave Brown

I think what I hear you saying is that you want to think of yourself as someone who is fascinated by questions, but what you DO is go with the BELIEFS of others who have inflienced you – parents, friends, church elders, or even politicians. This is a dangerous path. It is the same one followed by the 9-11 hijackers and a lot of suicide bombers.

Edward Balfe

You don’t actually believe that story about Lazarus, do you?

Back then there was no high tech medicine, so a lot of people who are thought to be dead were actually buried alive. If you were in a coffin, it was all over, but if you were in a cave, it wouldn’t be if someone came in and rescued you from dying.

Rus Bolden

But this would mean that the story takes place at a time when rolling away a tombstone a few days after, would result in a person walking out from time to time. In fact, depending on how the “death” went, absent the embalming, one might want to check to be sure. As the story goes, Jesus was informed that his good friend Lazarus was ill, and being a healer maybe he should go help him. He decides to take care of business where he is, creating a delay of two days, to then go see Lazarus, but too late.

There’s a chance that if the tombstone were to be rolled away, Lazarus would walk out. But a slim chance. Sort of like playing the numbers tonight. It is in the realm of statistical possibility that you would win if you played.

To come up with an alternative explanation than that of a miracle, alternative to there being anything spiritual involved, we could think of the episode as a stunt, or a magic trick. Jesus and Lazarus, friends that they were, could have been in cahoots. You know the magic trick advertisements, “Amaze your friends!” And so they did. This alternate explanation, whether it is the right one or not, is one that yields no God, and all the praying is just part of the illusion. So if one does not believe in God, then one could be satisfied that one does not have to, once again. It’s all explainable somehow.

On the other hand, God cannot be disproven. All we can do is decide for ourselves, and if we care to, formulate an explanation.

Je Rivers
If Karen Armstrong’s vague, foggy, fluffy, and flailing essay is supposed to be a defense of God, then God is down for the count. She never adduces any evidence whatsoever for the Big Guy’s supposed existence but, at most, just suggests that it’s something beyond words, something some people just know–and never mind that the supposed Big Guy has always acted precisely as if he doesn’t exist, never lifting a finger to help a dying baby or prevent a genocide. To judge by Armstrong’s essay, it would be just as reasonable and “faithful” to believe in Zeus or Odin as to believe in the Biblical god. And, indeed, it would be. Her essay is a model of self-deconstruction. Richard Dawkins blows her out of the water.

Steven Knudsen
Science is excellent for learning about the world around us through observable, repeatable experiments. However, science is poorly suited for drawing certain conclusions about the past. For example, you cannot scientifically prove that Napoleon ruled France. You can look at written accounts, see paintings, and view things he left behind as evidence, but you cannot repeat and observe his kingship. In the same way, science can try to offer possible explanations for questions like, “How did life start?” “How did the universe come into existence?” “Why are men different from animals?” But science cannot provide definite answers, just possible explanations.

I find it too large a leap that mud becomes a human when given enough time. I find it too large a leap that the values of numerous physical properties (e.g. force of gravity, distance to the moon, nuclear force) are so precisely tuned that if they were altered by only minute amounts, life would be unable to exist. I find it too large a leap that one day there is nothing and the next day, the universe explodes into existence without any cause whatsoever.

Scientific inquiry is very valuable and I am very thankful for those who devote their lives to it. The problem comes when someone believes that scientific inquiry is the only way to find answers. It is similar to this: a man loses his keys on the street at night and decides to only look for them under a streetlight because under the streetlight is where he can see best.
Social progress is poisoned when people assume only one type of answer could possibly be correct, instead of truly looking at all possibilities.

Stephen Beckwith
If only there was someone who could explain how all of the cosmos and earth came from nothing, then I could believe in evolution without a god. Where did the energy for a big bang originate and who provided the particles floating in space? The likelihood of all I see and experience in life being a grand accident, renders me incapable of believing a higher power was not involved. Adding another billion or trillion years on to evolution + big bang is not convincing to me. The complexity and design of life existing in perfect balance between space and time leads me to one logical conclusion there is a designer rather architect that has for a reason unknown hung each piece in an incomprehensible balance and symmetry. Perhaps this life appears cruel and its designer distant, but how can a piece of clay tell its potter what form it should take.

I agree that proving god does exist is not currently possible, but that does not mean that one does not exist. The inability to prove god’s existance does not mean that the alternative is true. Only that we have two alternatives. Chose to believe one, but don’t tell me the other position is a fact. When I say I can not logically believe this complex world happened by accident. My statement does not mean I am telling you not to believe in evolution. Science has not proven the theories of evolution and big bang are fact, for they are a house of card loosely held together by the hypothesis and fossil records. Science has proven many amazing hypothesis as fact, but right now this is not one of them and alternative views share a level of equality.

Patricia Mueller

You are saying science has too many gaps in its logic…and yet you need no proof at all to believe in God?

Hank L

Evolution doesn’t prove that there is no God. It proves the ways living creatures evolved, which is in direct contradiction of the creation theory given by Christians, Muslims, and many other religions (except Buddhism).

So you have 2 theories, Darwin’s & Christians’, on how life come about; one theory is based on logic and scientific evidence, and the other…well..based on imagination and anecdotes. Here you draw your conclusion – whatever floats your boat.

Stephen Beckwith
Science has many beliefs and assumptions that it nearly creates its own religion and I’m not speaking out of turn, its just the way modern science is now.

Richard Yunger

In reality, we waste time and energy debating this. We have no evidence that God exists. Not one of us alive today has concrete evidence that Jesus Christ was sent by God Himself. Christians decide to accept this on faith. That is the key to our salvation – accepting this on faith. Mankind is so incredible, so intelligent, so capable of so much. And at the same time – so evil, so destructive, so ignorant, so weak, so undisciplined, and so unworthy of the life over which mankind presides. How can we ever know for sure? To this point, we have barely traveled beyond the surface of our own planet. We have yet to develop a mechanism to travel back or forward in time (we are not sure it is even possible).

Despite our greatest medical advancements, we cannot conquer death or even human aging. As great as we think our capability to understand our planet and our surroundings is, it is primitive at best. Are we really arrogant enough to believe that all that exists can be tasted, smelled, touched, heard or seen? There are likely senses and manifestations for which we have no cognizance or ability to fathom. There is not and likely will never be a scientific justification (as science relates to mere life on this planet) for the existence of God. You must choose to accept this on faith and live your life based upon God’s word – which consequently was physically written by men. More faith.
Strangely, if we had scientific proof – our debate would focus on the validity of the proof. We would then divide ourselves into two or more “camps” and argue about the existence of God based on the proof. We have witnessed miracles (even modern ones), and it has changed nothing. What is unequivocally true is that
each human being on this planet – once exposed to the Word of God – must make up his own mind. Do you have faith, or do you not. The final truth is that you cannot be warm to this fact. You must be hot or cold.

Lee Warren
Immutable? You need to go back and read your holy book again. It is by having read and re-read the Bible multiple times that I arrived at my agnosticism. If god is eternal, then god is beyond time. If god is beyond time then god is immutable since change (or whatever word you want to use) implies a process through time. Yet, god changed its mind? That is change. Using the predominance of the Abrahamic religions of the west in this discussion, why was god the god of the Jews and then the Christians and then the Muslims and then…?

I know the progression of this discussion as I have had it many, many times. As long as you try to argue any of the ‘omni-’ or loving qualities for god, you have lost the argument. As long as you try to use logic at all, you have lost the argument for god. There is no logic to be found in searching for god, that’s why it is called faith.

Sudhir V
If one takes a look at the deformed babies born with 2 chambered hearts and othe heart wrenching deformities, then it is easy to wonder if we are really created by a benevolent God. God is perfect and such mistakes should not happen.

Alexis Lokee
I have not have time to read all the comments on this article on the fascinating fact that GOD is a reality. No matter what you think, no matter what you do, no matter what you may wish to do, the indestructible truth is that GOD is everywhere. I use to say, being a professional, to the people coming to a point of discussion or conflict: I ONLY KNOW THAT I KNOW NOTHING. And to my opinion that is what all people becoming professionals of any kind should swear when sweared as professional as ALWAYS, for centuries and millions of year as well, what we know is so small to what we do not know.

IS SCIENCE a reality? It is only an attempt to know the truth that escapes our capabilities: You will see changing the concepts crazily every some years because we are wrong!!

We must accept the existence of GOD, HIS presence presence in ourselves, as we live through HIM and thanking HIM for letting us know THERE is a world around us. What is in our minds, even in the minds of the so called mental disabled is what makes us different from the rest of the creation and that have “created” the physics, chemistry, and all the human “wonders” that are a primitive thinking of the greatest reality that is GOD.

Bill Rogers
To those of you who say, “If God is perfect [H]e would ….[fill in the blank]“
You are setting yourself up as higher than God. God does what He wills. And there is always a reason. Sometimes we can understand the reasons. Many times we can not. Why should that be surprising?
We are not equal to God!!

Frank Napoli
But that doesn’t mean that tragedies are all God’s fault. God could have made us all immortal. Who knows – maybe he tried that once. But if we were all immortal, would we ever accomplish anything? If you knew you quite literally had “forever” to do something, how long would it take you to finally do it? I cherish my time with my wife and daughters because I know it is limited.

I wish we didn’t need tragedy and anguish to appreciate how lucky we truly are. But we do. As a minister said at a funeral for a young man, “God was the first to cry.”

David Clinger
i’m w vic and scott … there is no man v god, just a misunderstanding of science and religion.

science says nothing about why things happen – it merely describes the mechanisms that are at play in our physical world. be it nature or god, some unspecified force/power is or was at work, in order for there to be physical laws, and by implication, evolution. if however a literal interpretation of scripture is required, then i can see the conflict. absent a demand for a physical interpretation of scripture, there is no conflict, for the two realms do not overlap at all …

Dave Kerr
A moral life does not require God. If you doubt that, go ask God.

Peter Marlow
“How does evolution explain art, music, creativity, love? How did it all evolve from a single cell? Or beauty, wonder, joy, happiness and the ability to grasp it all?”

It doesn’t. It can’t. What does? The Holy Teapot, of course. My Teapot created me, smiles down upon me, protects me, gives me hope, gives me tea. I believe in the Holy Teapot.

Sahit Muja
People with no inner spiritual life sometimes ask: If God created everything, who created God? The Prophet said that some people would ask this very question: “A day will certainly come when some people will sit with their legs crossed and ask: ‘If God created everything, who created God?’” [1]

At best, the question is based on perceived “cause and effect” relationships. Everything can be thought of as an effect and attributed to a prior cause that, in turn, is attributed to a prior cause, and so on. However, we must remember that cause is only a hypothesis, for it has no objective existence. All that objectively exists is a particular sequence of circumstances that is often (but not always) repeated. If such a hypothesis is applied to existence, we cannot find a creator of the first cause, because each creator must have had a prior creator. The end result is a never-ending chain of creators. [2]

The Creator must be Self-Subsistent and One, without like or equal. If any created being “causes” anything, that capacity was created within that being, for only the Creator is Self-Existent and Self-Subsistent. Only the Creator truly creates and determines possible causes and effects for His creation. Therefore, we speak of God as the Sustainer, who holds and gives life to all of His Creation. All causes begin in Him, and all effects end in Him. In truth, created things are “0″s that will never add up to anything, unless God bestows real value or existence by placing a positive “1″ before the “0″.

In the sphere of existence, what we call causes and effects have no direct or independent influence. We may have to use such words to understand how a part of creation is made intelligible to us and available for our use. But even this confirms our dependence upon God and our answerability before Him. God does not need causes and effects to create; rather, we need them to understand what He has created.

Steve Burmester
Why not take a purely logical look (as I have done) at the two basic options presented in these essays (1) No God or (2) God:

(1) No God. Trust that science is correct that we are each simply an (admittedly incredible) blip in eternity. After we die we disappear, for all eternity. Game over. I personally consider this an ultimately terrifying concept if you dwell on it carefully. Nothingness, forever. Yuck.

(2) God. You defy years of carefully conceived scientific research by some of the most brilliant human minds to this point in known history and take a chance on the concept of a benevolent being Christians call “God”. To me, this frankly flies in the face of everything I’ve learned in school and the simple logic of my human brain. How could “God” exist? The concept and enormity of God is infinitely more outlandish and improbable than that of Santa Claus!

And yet, consider the concepts of “eternity” and “infinite”, and it almost a mathematical certainty that we are foolishly arrogant as humans to say that known science is a certainty. A few thousand years of scienfic developement is zero relative to all time (or even since the big bang).

The other side of it is simply this: wouldn’t you rather take a chance on the concept of the eternal life of the soul (option 2) versus simply eternal nothingness (option 1)? Going with option 2 also presents you will a most worthy life-long challenge: to perfect yourself as God would will it. It also feels pretty darn good aspire to live as Jesus, Ghandi, saints, and the great mystics — my guess is even from a secular point of view, the feedback you’ll get from the world will be a huge positve force; and make you happy.

I’ve been both in columns 1 & 2, but have decided that, logically, option 1 is utterly hopeless and with option 2 you at very least have nothing to lose but everything to gain.

Why not join me in option 2? And still love your option 1 friends, maybe they’ll join us some day…

…once the logic hits them.

George Hana
If you’re looking to buy oranges you’re focus on the color of an orange. How do we know what to look for when we don’t understand what we’re looking for. Faith is a source hope, and without hope there’s no life. We’re not robbot or animals or trees. How can a software program undertands the programmer, how can a software knows his or her creator, how? Evolution confirms that a creator exists. They’re not willing to go beyond our basic senses.

Patrick Conoley
Ms. Armstrong’s concept that ‘religion’ is a psychological tool for consolation is spot on.
The problem comes when individual people and institutions of ‘faith’ behave AS IF they are talking about ‘scientific truth.’
No problem as long as we don’t mix metaphors.
The appropriateness of the tool to the task is vital.
One doesn’t wield an axe to swat a fly.

Ather Anis
Once you realize that there has to be a super power (GOD), who crafted the world in such a way that it seems to progress (or evolutionize) flawlessly, then you SEEK for answers. You can’t explain why the sun always comes from east. Why moon is rotating around the earth in a set pattern, why the stars are in such a pattern. Well science is a moving target, meaning with every few centuries we learn something new that opens our eyes to how the system is working so flawlessly.
When you believe in science you go out and read about it (you learn from old historical experiments and do new to further it), similarly when and if you believe in God, not the God of christianity or God of Jewdism ….. but God as one who created all, and a God who set things in such a way that we are able to look and learn from it (science) then you also go out and learn about him, or what I call SEEK the God. And for starters you don’t have to go far. Read God’s message in his holy books Quran, Bible…. and of all expert agree that Quran is the one that has not been manipulated and changed by humans and remains in its original form.
It doesn’t matter if I call him HE or IT, It doesn’t matter if you believe in God as believed by Christians, Jews or Muslims. All that matters is there is ONE and once you believe than go out and SEEK.

Grant Daniel McDonald

When one studies civilisation and finds that the Irish people are 60,000 years old; 54,000 years older than the Jews/Palestinians; Egypt or Greece and that the myth of Catholicism or Christianity is a mere 2009 years old; one soon realises that there is little evidence to prove any of the cross related bogus elements of that cult. In the year 300 AD when Emperor Constantine who to some was the first pope; went on to fabricate Christianity – a fantasy – which turned out to be one of the most hateful & evil concoctions ever perpetrated on the world.

I am the son of a catholic father who never went to church and a protestant mother who took us to church and Sunday school. Although we as young children would sneak out the side door and play by the cannon from World War One where my grand-father fought for freedom as a Sgt Mgr at Vimy and father who fought at Normandy on D-Day for freedom. Onward christian soldiers … I think not. Such drivel. To be manipulated by a santa claus; an easter bunny and worst of all a bogus cross. One should appreciate each day of life and not expect another … and if there is it will be given by a God of Love.

The Vatican supported Hitler and religion is responsible for more corruption and violence in the world. Pope Ratzinger was involved in the Nazi youth. The Pope & Vatican with its blatant witchcraft related to the bible and its hateful beliefs; tries to rule with extreme prejudices against the world … that may fall victim to religions’ absolute evil. To think of Matthew Sheppard choking on his own blood after being savagely beaten; virtually sanctioned by the church … is beyond comprehension … yet is the same as boys being bullied into suicide; most likely being supported by their parents’ religious beliefs.

What ever happened to … “Love Your Fellowman?” Perhaps the evil preachers should be told to take their cult out of America. Didn’t Thomas Jefferson say that church and state should be separated by a wall and it’s written in the Constitution that there must be separation of church and state. Bigotry and hatemongering against gays should be banned. Tell them to take that cross and shove it where the sun don’t shine … and pay their taxes along the way before they take that cross down forever … with its final station; extinction.

It is written; so therefore it shall be? We are the chosen people? Who wrote that fantasy? United States is supposedly fighting for democracy? It is suppressing gay rights and following an extremist religious & bigoted family values path according to a basic cult riding roughshod over the rights of gay people. Canada and Britain are more civilized with its military and basic dignity. We must respect that these fine dignified gentlemen … His Excellency Governor Schwarzenegger, The Honorable Attorney General Jerry Brown, His Excellency Mayor Gavin Newson, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano & The Honorable Rep. Barney Frank (D) who is personally openly gay … are trying to guarantee equal rights and reflect the respect shown to all; as stated in the American Constitution. To see the religious lunatics manipulate government and our lives … is shameful.
This bogus religious filth should be banned. It exists as a tax exempt structure which discriminates against human rights. The pope, bishops and mormons are cult members promoting discrimination against minorities. That bogus black book called the bible should be banned. Religion and the churches should now be exposed as a bigoted structure that gets away with hate mongering. Love between two guys or girls existed long before these cults existed. By enjoying their tax exempt status and benefits from the state … it also puts them at the mercy of America; to be forced to adhere to the human rights laws.

Religion is thriving like a cancerous growth on society that should be stopped in its tracks; outlawed & banned. Interesting global occurrence … Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien told the Vatican that there was to be no cross erected over the Canadian Parliament buildings … figuratively speaking; when the Pope demanded the Prime Minister go against gay rights. An Alberta bishop had the audacity to say that The Canadian Prime Minister would go to hell for going against the church. Such outrageous evil threats; the religious extremists force upon us trying to multiply … with their control over birthing like animals at the pulpit. With reference to protecting the children.

The Right Honourable Prime Minister … in return; basically told the Pope to go to Hell. The Honourable Hedy Fry, member of the Canadian Liberal Parliament, who happens to be a doctor spoke eloquently to defend the rights of babies being born and stated that she delivered hundreds of newborn children and she was in fact defending their rights by speaking on behalf of equal rights and therefore defending the integrity, dignity and equality for gays.

Many theologians state quite correctly that the birth; crucifixion; resurrection and other elements of christianity actually didn’t even happen! Today’s evangelical extremists are like the nazis who cast others into ovens & are actually supremacists – who practice their bogus hocus pocus – and are trying to suppress and deprive others of their happiness and their legal rights in an open and proud society. Liberty College, Oral Roberts University and others should be looked at as tax exempt terroristic training grounds for evangelical lunatics. It was refreshing in his final weeks; to hear President Bush acknowledge that he didn’t believe in any of that religious bunk. Einstein stated in a letter recently auctioned that the bible was collection of primitive legends. He said believing in God was childish and he as a Jew is no different than another person … not chosen by God. Do you want to be lambs at the slaughter or be wise and reject religious cultist manipulation? Mean & nasty; run by evil and bogus religious cults from Rome or wherever. Is this the world you want?

John Duddey
It does not matter whether a God created man or a man resulted from evolution. What matters is we have life right here and right now. What we do with that life is more important than how life originated.

Steve Goddard

Pascal’s wager:

If god doesn’t exist and you don’t believe, who cares? If god exists and you don’t believe, you’re screwed. Therefore, you better believe!

But if you believe simply out of the fear of eternal damnation, what kind of belief is that? If I’m wrong and I face god, wouldn’t god respect me more because my beliefs were truthful and without motivation? If not, then please sentence me to eternal damnation because I don’t want to be anywhere near a god who would punish his own creation for having free will.
Thanks for the snide remark, Mike. I have read Pascal. And I also know a little about history. More killing and torture has been accomplished in the name of religion than any other belief. That is the big difference. The “godless” dictators you mentioned did not kill in the name of Atheism. In fact, please point to even ONE death that was directly caused because of a person’s non-belief. I know, I know, Hitler killed because he DIDN’T believe in god, even if he didn’t specifically state it, right? Actually, what he did use a lot in his speeches was religion to motivate his supporters. But that really doesn’t help you out much, does it?

Nope, I don’t. But I also can’t disprove that God is in fact the Zeus we read about in mythology class, what about you? If the answer is no, why aren’t you worshiping Zeus and giving him 10% of your earnings?

And if you answer, “because that’s what the bible says”. Then why don’t you also believe in the Quran or L. Ron Hubbard’s “Scientology”?