That concludes the God and Evolution Series

Comments (7)

1. John, Thank You for the series 🙂

2. Bravely done, thanks.

3. Thank you for writing this. I can’t wait for the next series (and the book?)

   1. Just for that, you get a signed copy. Remind me…

4. Oooh oooh really looking forward to evolution and morality! 🙂

5. The majority of believers in the world either think God created the universe or shaped it from some prior substance. Consequently, when a scientific explanation reduces some previously divine work to natural phenomena, religious sensibilities are raised. Only the so-called “Abrahamic” religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam and their offshoots – are truly creationist in the sense that they believe God created the universe out of nothing, or as it is expressed in theological Latin, creatio ex nihilo, but all religions have a role for God or the gods making some things, especially humans.

6. Greetings, Mr. Wilkins—

   It was quite a treat for me to stumble across your most excellent blog while you were still ruminating through the God and Evolution series. I have been a full-fledged atheist for almost five years now, and when conversion came upon me (after nearly 50 yrs of fundamentalist xtian superstition and fear-filled observance) it was such a pristine, fact-filled transformation, so flawlessly logical that it seemed like the sky had opened, like the square peg had found its way into the square hole. I only endured a mere two weeks or so of postpartum distress before the beauty and perfection of Reality and Fact swept away all fundie brain-washing and indoctrination along with my flailing inbred doubts. I do indeed enjoy reading the thoughts of others on Evolution (whether they be from fellow atheists or not) since it is still a relatively new concept for me, and it fills me with warm, fuzzy comfort that nearly all proponents of Evolutionary principals tend basically to agree, ultimately, about the Grand Scheme of Things even if they may elbow each other a bit over the insubstantial details.

   I wanted to pass on a slight correction (if I read correctly) regarding your reference to a “Jewish philosopher of the 12th century…” named “Moses Mainonides. I suspect you meant to invoke “Moses Maimonides,” an influential sort of Jewish St. Augustine who is still revered by orthodox Jews and whose addled teachings (again, like St. Augustine’s) continue to form pillars of dogma accepted as emanating from divine revelation. This guy is also the “sage” who, when questioned about why circumcision was required of Jewish males unless their deity had made some mistake in the design of the penis, retorted that circumcision is not for the purpose of correcting a physical flaw but to prevent a moral one. He went on to matter-of-factly declare that the act of having one’s foreskin sliced off detracts from the pleasure males feel during coitus and so pleases God, as well as turning a man’s thoughts to Him while engaged in copulation. This Mr. Maimonides is credited by many of the literate and scholarly here in America with putting into the heads of our vast sampling of fundamentalist and evangelical xtians (the “fun-gelicals,” as I call them) that the male organ is inherently nasty and susceptible to disease (which modern science has subsequently disproved). Hence the prevalent proclivity among generations of U.S. parents to have their baby boys “cut” at birth. The “hygienic necessity” scenario was actually concocted so that xtians could feel less unsettled about mutilating their infants for prophylactic reasons without having to admit to being affected by a Jewish rabbi’s pronouncements from the 12th century.

   A minor item, I realize, but one which I thought you might like to made aware of in case it ever becomes necessary for you to refer to this character again.

   I look forward to following your blog!

   Donald S.

Comments are closed.