The God gene & human pride

David Limbaugh finds the spin about the recent "discovery" of a "God gene"--an apparent genetic pre-disposition for belief in God or the supernatural--to be a prideful support of atheism. I agree with his assertion.

Many in the scientific community have wasted otherwise useful research hours focused on supporting a naturalistic view of the world rather than empirically looking at facts which may contradict their own atheistic pre-disposition. Thus we have been inundated with evolutionist babble without any evidence of intermediate forms while useful documentation on the structure and function of this earth and our universe is skewed by pre-conceived notions about its origins.

Notwithstanding these problems, many respected thinkers who have steadfastly held atheistic beliefs are changing their outlook, as Limbaugh asserts:

I wonder what these smug critics would tell Britisher Anthony Flew, one of the world's leading proponents of atheism, who has now abandoned his disbelief in God. Flew observed, quite rightly, that the latest biological research "has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce [life], that intelligence must have been involved."

When anticipating the inevitable shock of some of his co-atheists to his transformation, Flew said, "My whole life has been guided by the principle of Plato's Socrates: Follow the evidence, wherever it leads."

That's precisely the point. Contrary to the position of many atheists, especially those who believe that Christians are reality-challenged and science-averse, theism – particularly Christianity – is supported by reliable evidence.

All this in a morass of talk to the contrary. And a stubborn hatred of the Divine hinders meaningful discourse with those who revere spiritual truth as inspired by God Himself and not genetically controlled impulses. And from this animosity for religious belief springs an arrogant smugness, as Limbaugh asserts:

[P]erhaps it is pride that leads the anti-theistic among us to reduce everything to deterministic molecules and DNA because such things are within their eventual grasp and control. To acknowledge that there may just be certain things beyond their eventual comprehension and, thus, control could be tantamount to recognizing that there is something--Someone--greater. Such blasphemy cannot stand.

This reminds me of Descartes' statement in his Discourse On Method where he asserted that through the natural sciences we could become "as it were, masters and possesors of Nature." This man-centered, man-exclusive goal is the ultimate end of cogito ergo sum--"I think, therefore I am." Once Nature is possessed, the inevitable questions remain "for what purpose; to what end." This is the dilema of the Stoic and it leads to a sort of moral and psychological depression.

And thus the battle continues with those obstinately bound to dispassionate naturalism--except for the likes of Mr. Flew. And at the end of the day, the stuff of this world truly does cry out that God exists, and we are not Him.