A Stitch in Haste

A blogger cites favorably to this attempt to blur the line between atheism and religion:

Dawkins describes religious belief as due entirely to faith and almost entirely inherited from one's parents, scientific belief as due to rational and skeptical investigation. In doing that, he is implicitly comparing the average religious believer with the professional scientist -- indeed, with the upper end of professional scientists. The average believer in evolution or relativity or whatever is no more able to provide a convincing account of the evidence and arguments for his position than the average religious believer -- both of them hold their beliefs not because of rational investigation but because the people around them told them those things were true.

This is, of course, utter nonsense.

Just because I may not know, or want to know, every nuance of, e.g., evolutionary theory, does not mean that I can't go out and learn it. Just because I might not be up-to-date on the latest string theory argument or counterargument doesn't mean that I have abandoned my core metaphysical or epistemological views.

The whole point of "faith" is that certain core truths are forever beyond human comprehension. That is, by definition, the exact opposite of science.

There is no analogy whatsoever between "I can't know God's plan" and "I never actually read Darwin."

More:

And religious leaders, at least some of them, offer arguments for their positions which are based on more than just faith, whether or not those arguments are correct -- offer the evidence of miracles, rational arguments such as those of Aquinas, and the like. It's true that there is more rehashing of old arguments and less new argumentation in religion than in science -- but then, religion is an older project than science, so presumably more of the relevant arguments have already been made.

That is far too generous to theists, most of whom are stuck on the embarrassing logical misdemeanor of "Atheists cannot disprove the existence of god."

The fact that people were debating how many angels could dance on the head of a pin long before people were debating whether light is a wave or a particle is hardly a pro-religion data point.

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Incidentally, that "A" in the right sidebar is my open declaration that I am an atheist. (Hat tip: Freespace.) The OutCampaign uses the expression "come out of the closet." I'm understandably a bit ambivalent about that; it's too confusing, especially from a gay blogger.