Sir John Templeton is an interesting guy: http://www.templeton.org/about_us/who_we_are/sir_john_templeton/ The above is a good question. Templeton's site has a great (imo and very concise) set of discussions about faith (from top level scientists) on Templeton's site answering that question: http://www.templeton.org/belief/ A good read and lot of good discussion points for anyone interested...
Another pointless argument. Science is a process of establishing physical facts and proof, evidence, where religion is the science of (its proclaimed a science, theology, no i dont think its a science either, so dont bust my balls on it) debating what could or may have been or happened or might, and could have been or happened or may, without so much as a shred of legitimate scientific (or even logic, that branch of science that doesnt involve theology) proofs.
"Does science make belief in God obsolete? " no superstious beliefs will always be with us. they seem to be hardwired into humans. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080513122249.m3ds3b6j&show_article=1 Albert Einstein described belief in God as "childish superstition" and said Jews were not the chosen people, in a letter to be sold in London this week, an auctioneer said Tuesday. The father of relativity, whose previously known views on religion have been more ambivalent and fuelled much discussion, made the comments in response to a philosopher in 1954. As a Jew himself, Einstein said he had a great affinity with Jewish people but said they "have no different quality for me than all other people". "The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.
"The predominant theme in all these considerations is not so much science as it is theological pseudoscience. The Templeton Foundation claims to be apolitical and not to promote religion. However, it is obvious that this Foundation does indeed promote theology, and does so among scientists in particular." http://atheisme.ca/articles/dr/taylor_templeton_en.html "The Templeton Foundation is a strange beast indeed. On the one hand, it is not officially committed to any particular religion, it does not support hack religious theories like intelligent design, it funds lots of fundamental theoretical physics that is not otherwise readily funded, and it doesn't explicitly interfere with or influence the scientific results of the various projects it funds. On the other hand, the foundation's primary goal is to support science that in turn supports religion, to use science as a tool to promote a religious agenda. It's as if rather than fighting against science the way some religious factions - like creationists - do, they figure, we'll just buy science and use it for our own ends. Consider this: when Sir John Templeton established the Templeton Prize in 1972 he stipulated that the monetary value should always be higher than that of the Nobel Prize -his way of saying that theology is more important than any other intellectual enterprise. Still, Sir John always seemed to be more of an eccentric billionaire than a dangerous force. Now, however, his son Jack has taken over the foundation, and as Alexander Saxton pointed out in a Free Inquiry article, Jack is a gung-ho Evangelical Christian. In light of all this, some scientists feel it undermines their integrity to accept Templeton money. Others think, why not just take their money and put it to good scientific use?" http://richarddawkins.net/article,2354,n,n
Templeton has spent his whole life and a lot of money trying to find some scientific proof that there is a god. so far no luck.in fact just the opposite: The Templeton Foundation, a christian organization, in 2006, set out to prove that prayer works, with a massive study that ended up costing over 2.4 million dollars. http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/vie... http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/prayer.html#S... 1,802 patients at 6 different hospitals were organized into the study. They'd all received heart bypass surgery so that there would be as much similarity as possible. Patients were organized into three groups: 1) Patients who weren't prayed for and were told they might or might not be, but were. 2) Patients who were prayed for, and were told they might or might not be, but weren't. 3) Patients who were prayed for, and knew it. It was a double-blind study, as real science demands. The patients didn't know who the prayers were, or where they were, or in most cases even that they were being prayed for. On the other side were 3 churches in 3 different states that didn't know each other. They were given the first name and last initial and the condition of the patient they were to pray for. Prayer started the night before surgery, and continued for 14 days thereafter. As an extra control, congregation members were given the instruction to include the phrase "a successful surgery with no complications" in their prayers. Here are the results: http://www.ahjonline.com/article/PIIS00028703... Not only did the prayer have NO POSITIVE EFFECT AT ALL, it actually had a negative effect on the patients who knew for certain they were being prayed for. The conclusion of the researchers was a psychosomatic effect due to 'performance anxiety'. They made themselves sicker from the pressure of the experiment.
Of course dawkins, knowing that the generation of life from non-life is in the realm of scientific impossibility, thinks that aliens from the cosmos "planted" life on earth. And this does not constitute faith, no, he has an abundance of scientific proof to back up this hypothesis. LOL
Only an asshole would deliberately attribute a comment to Dawkins that he NEVER, EVER made. But, then, that's all you theists got, right? Misinformation, disinformation and falsehoods. "God" would be so proud. How interesting that you feel you must resort to lies and deception to justify and validate your "spirituality." In fact, if you actually read anything that Dawkins actually wrote, rather than relying on remarks attributed to him by self-serving theists, then you would know that he believes that the generation of "life from non-life" (your words) is indeed within the realm of scientific possibility. He actually goes on to explain it in layman's terms in The God Delusion. Now go read a Psalm, why don't you, you lying piece of shit.
What I have found is that there is science and there is "science" and there is Big Science nowadays that is as ruthless as Big Tobacco or Pharma really..... I love watching the videos from drdino.com... he was a high school science teacher in a Christian school and he goes and actually checks things out for himself. He can put holes in evolution, "science", and Big Science you can drive a truck through, it is highly entertaining. I don't consider a person educated until they have watched his videos really, Chuck Misslers also......