OK, since I started the Galileo thing, I’ll get us back on track:
Randi’s essay is quite silly, really. The gist of his argument is “I refuse to believe in whatever cannot be proved materialistically; God cannot be proved materialistically; therefore, there is no God.” Well, few serious-minded religious people turn to materialistic proofs for God’s existence. They just don’t accept Randi’s initial premise that only that which can be demonstrated materially must be valid. They see the world as being larger than what their five senses can perceive, encompassing the spiritual as well as the physical. They sense the divine even though they can’t prove it.
As one decent playwright put it, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
No, Mr. Randi, we can’t prove God exists; under ordinary scientific means, that proposition fails. The real question is, does materialism mark the outer limits of human knowledge? Does subjective human experience count for anything? If not, there’s nothing further to discuss. Religious conversation is nothing if not the conversation of shared spiritual experience, and if religious discussion doesn’t stir those flames within you, well, that’s that.
Much of the rest of Randi’s essay is petty and mean-spirited. I note he saddles the church with all of the terrible atrocities committed in God’s name, but wilfully ignores the art and culture inspired by religious thought on grounds that the patrons of those works paid for them for PR or other practical reasons. Well, my goodness, if we’re going to discount the good side of religion because there are other motivating factors, doesn’t fairness also dictate that we discount the role of religion in atrocities, given that the primary motivating factor behind them is usually political power rather than genuine religious feeling?
He also, of course, ignores the positive role of religion in many other ways.
The church for centuries has been a bastion of knowledge; most older institutions of higher learning (including Harvard and Yale) were founded by religious institutions. During the Dark Ages, monastic orders preserved much knowledge that otherwise would have been lost. And much of our progress in mathematics and geometery owes itself to early Islamic scholars figuring out ways to precisely calculate the direction of Mecca. I wonder if Randi has ever heard of the Jesuits?
The church has founded innumerable hospitals around the world – open your telephone book to see how many start with the word “Saint.” Its charitable works are legion. Religion fosters community – as DeTocqueville noted, one of the first things a new American settlement set out to do was build a church. And while religion has been used to justify some fairly nasty things, it’s just as often been on the right side of history; the early abolition movement was largely led from New England pulpits, and the civil rights movement found its most powerful voices in black congregations.
Randi notes that believes in “puppy-dogs and a child’s sparkling eyes” and a few other glurge type items, but chalks that up to “hard-wiring in [the] brain, along with […] experience and association.” My, what a cold and sterile way of looking at the world.