Franics Collins

[athrock]

I was struck by this passage from his interview with PBS:

"As I began to ask a few questions of those people, I realized something very fundamental: I had made a decision to reject any faith view of the world without ever really knowing what it was that I had rejected. And that worried me. As a scientist, you're not supposed to make decisions without the data. It was pretty clear I hadn't done any data collecting here about what these faiths stood for."

I can't help wondering how many people in this forum are in that same position of having rejected faith without actually knowing what it is that they have rejected. When I read the posts of many forum members, it is obvious that they have little to no real understanding of basic theology and that their views of the Bible are based not upon a careful reading of those 72 books but on mischaracterizations of them by Internet bloggers and other forum members.

The irony pointed out by Collins is that while these folks claim to believe in the principles of the scientific method, they behave in a decidedly unscientific fashion by making their decisions to reject God with flawed or incomplete data.

And why is this the case? Collins explains:

"...if you're going to accept the existence of God, at some level you have to give up control, and you can't just do what you want to because it feels good. And I liked very much being in control. I liked not having to answer to what was holy and vote for what was right. Maybe in some way, I was aware already without having put words to it, of the moral law — and aware that I wasn't living up to it.

So in recognizing my desire to have relationship with God, I also had to come face to face with my own massive imperfections. If God is holy, and if you can see God in some ways as a mirror to yourself, you realize just how far you fall short of anything that you could be really proud of. And that is a terribly distressing kind of experience for anybody who's first coming to that. So I would not say I was an ecstatic convert."

And thus it comes down to an emotion-driven act of the will to avoid the intellectual rationale for faith. The brain knows (or fears) that God is real, but the unbeliever does not want to give up control of his life (falsely believing that what he calls freedom is actually slavery to sin), so he refuses to make the choice to act upon that knowledge. From that point on, life for the unbeliever is a daily struggle of swimming against the tide.

Only the apatheist is free from such internal conflict...free because thoughts such as these never cross his mind. But for the atheist, the one who has declared to himself (if not to others) that there is no God, crossing that line has not brought peace but open warfare.

My wife bought his book on faith but I scarcely looked at it.  

Well, hello! Maybe it warrants a more careful read?  

I had made a decision to reject any faith view of the world without ever really knowing what it was that I had rejected. And that worried me. As a scientist, you're not supposed to make decisions without the data. It was pretty clear I hadn't done any data collecting here about what these faiths stood for.

These are good quotes from Collins.  I've always thought it was wrong headed to assume that a "faith view of the world" was nothing but an empirical mistake.  The subjective life of the mind along with its complexity make that way too facile.  So I'm with him so far.

Great!

But then I think he then goes right off the rails:

"...if you're going to accept the existence of God, at some level you have to give up control and you can't just do what you want to because it feels good. And I liked very much being in control. I liked not having to answer to what was holy and vote for what was right. Maybe in some way, I was aware already without having put words to it, of the moral law — and aware that I wasn't living up to it.

From the concession that a faith based worldview need not be dismissed out of hand, it does not follow that one should abandon control to a hypothetical god.  That is just whack.  One can admit that one has less control than many probably surmise without willfully abandoning any role whatsoever in ones life.  Self abnegation is always a mistake as well as reprehensible.

Well, look at this from another perspective: if there is a God who made all things, who made YOU also (even by means of genetics, etc.), then, you belong to Him, don't you?

I know that this is UK-based forum (with a large non-Brit population), right? So, let's try an analogy based upon a monarchy. What fealty did or do the subjects of the King owe to him? And if it is right for a subject to be loyal to his human lord, how much more should we submit our lives to an eternal, heavenly king?

There are ways to live a life with a faith based worldview, and even hold your head up high in doing so.  But Collin's way isn't one of them.  You meet and hear of so few impeccable theists.  I wish those there are would do more to make themselves known to encourage others.  But they probably feel estranged by the fundamentalists who dominate most traditions.  It would be much more interesting to live in a world with those guys to challenge us than it is to be constantly proselytized to my idiot fundamentalists who have so missed the boat.

Accept that there are no impeccable believers, and the Church is not a haven for the perfect few among us. It is a hospital filled with the sick, the wounded, the deranged, the stinking and rotten. In short, it's pretty much like the world outside its walls with one exception: those patients inside have accepted the forgiveness of the Divine Physician who alone can heal them.

Does that sound too trite? Well, maybe I waxed a little too poetic, but the concept is true nonetheless.