I’m very excited about being able to attend this year’s Amazing Meeting in Las Vegas.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, the Amazing Meeting

is a celebration of skeptics and skepticism sponsored by the James Randi Educational Foundation. Thinking people travel the world to share a few days of learning, laughs and life with fellow skeptics and distinguished guest speakers.

Yup - a couple days listening to The Amazing Randi, Michael Shermer, Penn and Teller and others discuss logic, science, pseudoscience, magic, and critical thinking.  (OK - Teller won’t likely discuss anything.) What could possibly be more fun?  Doing this in Las Vegas, that’s what.

So, on the eve of our departure to Vegas, I bring you this letter to the editor that appeared in this morning’s Mobile Press Register.  Now, while I am certainly not above poking fun at some of the minor aspects of life in the Deep South of the US, I am not presenting this as an example of what you may take as some sort of Southern Backward Thinking.  That, my friends, is a myth.  Instead, I believe this letter reflects a level of thought that commonly passes for logical debate and scientific understanding in a broad range of our society.  That it concerns itself with science and religion makes it interesting to me.  I’ll present the letter in its entirety, and then address some specifics after that.

Belief in God not a matter of Intellect

Here is a novel idea.  In a Dec. 27 letter to the editor, titled “A commission can study God’s role,” the writer said, “What the world needs now is another Baker Commission to study if God exists.” The writer must have an exceptionally high opinion of the Baker Commission’s findings.

The writer also makes the bold claim that no living man, woman or child has seen or talked to God.  It would take an exceedingly wise person to speak so emphatically for all 6 billion people on this planet.  Humans can only see a small portion of the spectrum, which proves that just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Thousands speak to God daily.  It’s called prayer.

The assumption that there is no “logical evidence” that God exists is also an error.  Modern cosmology predicts that an expanding universe must have a beginning, and that requires that it have a “beginner.” The creator must exist aside and apart from the universe he created and is not dependent on it for his existence.

These things are true and logical because of the law of cause-and-effect.  Whether you believe this first cause is the God of any of the religions of today is of no consequence.  Because of the obvious design in nature, logically the first cause, or creator, must be of superior intelligence.  Design implies intelligence.

Here’s the truth: No matter how many facts are presented, those who chose to believe will continue to believe and those that choose not to believe will not believe.  This is true because one’s relationship to God is not a condition of the intellect, or what one knows.  It is dependent on the condition of the heart, or what one believes.

RC
Wilmer, Alabama

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