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5 Shocking Plot Twists in the Story of Science and Faith

In his excellent book, Modern Physics and Ancient Faith (University of Notre Dame Press, 2003), physics professor Stephen M. Barr recounts the typical story of the the universe as told by scientific materialists. It's one of the best summaries of the naturalist worldview I've read, from any perspective: "The world revealed by science bears little resemblance to the world as it was portrayed by religion. Judaism and Christianity taught that the world was created by God, and that things... Read More

Is It Reasonable to Believe in Miracles?

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Filed under Belief

Should I believe in miracles? This question doesn’t pertain to whether I should believe in this miracle or that miracle. It has to do with whether I’m rationally justified in believing in miracles as such. David Hume's Wisdom for the Wise The eightenth-century Scottish skeptic philosopher David Hume argued the wise man should not believe in miracles. The basis for his assertion was what might be called the “repeatability principle”—evidence for what occurs over and over (the... Read More

What the Media Got Wrong about Pope Francis and Evolution

Have you heard about Pope Francis’ recent comments about God, evolution, and Creation? If so, chances are you’ve heard wrong. Here are four things you should know:   1. Pope Francis is Not an Atheist Amazingly, the popular news site Independent Journal Review (IJ Review) ran — and as of this writing, is still running — the following headline: “God is not a Divine Being”? We’re supposed to believe that the pope got up, denied that God was actually God, and that everything... Read More

What Does the Latest “Big Bang” Discovery Mean?

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Filed under Cosmology

Over the past few days the world of cosmology and astrophysics has gone “supernova.” Researchers affiliated with the BICEP2 telescope in Antarctica announced that they had discovered empirical evidence for a key part of the Big Bang theory, cosmic inflation. One aspect of this discovery that I found really interesting is that it forms an almost perfect parallel to a discovery that was made sixty years ago. The First Telescope Discovery   In the early twentieth century, the Belgian... Read More

Toward a Better Science/Religion Venn Diagram: Responding to Chana Messinger

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Filed under Science

  EDITOR'S NOTE: Today's post is in response to yesterday's from atheist blogger Chana Messinger titled I Need a Better Science/Religion Venn Diagram. Be sure to read that one first.   I would like to thank Chana Messinger for her thoughtful and gracious reply to my piece on the need for caution in using the Big Bang to argue for God’s existence. Here I will offer a few thoughts in response, though I should say up front that I’m not familiar enough with Messinger’s thought... Read More

Has Stephen Hawking Made God Unnecessary?

A few weeks ago, Stephen Hawking delivered a lecture at the California Institute of Technology titled "The Origin of the Universe," and you’re likely to have heard about it because, according to mainstream media outlets, Hawking has put God out of a job. In an article headlined “Stephen Hawking lays out case for Big Bang without God,” NBC News describes the presentation:   Stephen Hawking began the event by reciting an African creation myth, and rapidly moved on to big questions... Read More

Big Bang or Big Bloom?

Big Bloom

In science today, we are under the tyranny of an image, the image of an explosion—the Big Bang. Ironically, this term was not derived from evidence but from contempt. Sir Fred Hoyle (1915-2001), the celebrated astronomer, was so incensed at the notion that the universe might have a beginning that he began to refer to proponents of this view as believing that the universe started in some kind of a “big bang.” He was quite surprised when the fires of his sarcasm, rather than withering... Read More