Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt evolution is a fact. The evidence for evolution is at least as strong for the evidence for the Holocaust, even allowing for eye witnesses to the Holocaust.

It is the plain truth that we are cousins of chimpanzees, somewhat more distant cousins of monkeys, more distant cousins still of aardvarks and manatees, yet more distant cousins f bananas and turnips… continue the list as long as desired. That didn’t have to be true. It is not self-evidently, tautologically, obviously true, and there was a time when most people, even educated people, thought it wasn’t. It didn’t have to be true, but it is. We now this because a rising flood of evidence supports it.

Evolution is a fact, and this book will demonstrate it. No reputable scientist disputes it, and no unbiased reader will close the book doubting it. (p. 8-9)

I agree with Dawkins that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming for someone who looks at it with an open mind. Though I’m not sure about the “no reputable scientist disputes it” part. Perhaps that should be “no reputable biologist disputes it,” because that is their discipline — a biologist who denies evolution is like a computer scientist who denies operating systems.

I’m sure there are Christian scientists (the career, not the cult) who dispute evolution, but that doesn’t mean they are not reputable physicists or geologists. It just means they’re brainwashed into believing the Bible over reality.

Dawkins also says, “no unbiased reader will close the book doubting [evolution].” But how can a reader be unbiased? Does such a specimen even exist?

The cooing of pigeons brought memory into the procession. Dessie remembered how her father had said, sitting at the head of the table, “I told Rabbit I was going to raise some pigeons and—do you know?—he said, ‘No white pigeons.’ ‘Why not white?’ I asked him, and he said, ‘They’re the rare worst of bad luck. You take a flight of white pigeons and they’ll bring sadness and death. Get gray ones.’ ‘I like white ones.’ ‘Get gray ones,’ he told me. And as the sky covers me, I’ll get white ones.”

And [his wife] Liza said patiently, “Why do you be forever testing, Samuel? Gray ones taste just as good and they’re bigger.”

“I’ll let no flimsy fairy tale push me,” Samuel said.

And Liza said with her dreadful simplicity, “You’re already pushed by your own contentiousness. You’re a mule of contention, a very mule!”

“Someone’s got to do these things,” he said sullenly. “Else Fate would not ever get nose-thumbed and mankind would still be clinging to the top branches of a tree.”

And of course he got white pigeons and waited truculently for sadness and death until he’d proved his point.

And yet, as Dessie realizes, “Sadness and death… you just have to wait around long enough and it will come” — white pigeons or gray ones.

If a couple has been married for more than five years, any persistent disharmony in their marriage relationship is usually attributable to the husband’s lack of understanding and applying genuine love. (Gary Smalley, If He Only Knew, 73)

It seems that stems from the perspective that the husband is the “leader.” In fact, Smalley acknowledges that the husband is biblically “responsible for the disharmony in [their] home.”

Do you agree or disagree that it’s usually the husband’s fault when there’s persistent disharmony after 5 years?

Educated women have fewer children, are wealthier and are less likely to accept fundamentalist extremism. If we want a safer world, we should consider the utility of spending dollars on educating young people as an alternative to troops and weapons.

—Lawrence M. Krauss, “How Women Can Save the Planet“

The most logical answer to why God won’t heal amputees is that either God doesn’t care or doesn’t exist. This would also explain the lack of miraculous healings for people with Lou Gehrig’s diseases, long-term quadriplegics, untreated AIDS patients and those with Parkinson’s disease, mental retardation, Down syndrome, and a host of other maladies.

Christian apologists offer different explanations to try to make sense of why bad things happen to good people. Among their explanations for why people who have lost limbs are never made whole by God (also detailed on the “Why Does God Hate Amputees?” website): healings for amputees aren’t part of God’s plan; the lord answers prayers by saying “No”; God needs to remain hidden, and regenerating a limb would display the Lord’s miraculous powers too openly; God has a special purpose for amputees—just the way they are; and God answers the prayers of amputees by having scientists develop artificial limbs.

These explanations remind me of my parents’ answers when I started to question whether Santa Claus was real. How does he get down our chimney when he’s so fat? He can squeeze himself down to fit. How can he deliver presents to every child in the whole entire world in one night? He moves faster than we can imagine. How big does his bag need to get to carry all the presents? It’s a magic, bottomless bag. How can he eat cookies and milk in so many homes? He just does. My parents’ valiant but ultimately weak explanations held off the truth for a year, but eventually, like all children, I had to face the truth.

—William Lobdell, Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America—and Found Unexpected Peace (2009), p. 210-211

I decided it wise to collect some evidence that showed me Christians were measurably different from others…. [But] it was discouragingly easy—though incredibly surprising—to find out that Christians, as a group, acted no differently than anyone else, including atheists. Sometimes they performed a little better; other times a little worse. But the Body of Christ didn’t stand out as morally superior.

—William Lobdell, Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America—and Found Unexpected Peace (2009), p. 204

You may say to yourself, “How can we recognize a word that the Lord has not spoken?” ²²If a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord but the thing does not take place or prove true, it is a word that the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; do not be frightened by it. (Deut 18:20-21)

And what should be done with those false prophets? The answer happens to be in the verse right before the verse I just quoted:

Any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak—that prophet shall die. (Deut 18:20; see also Deut 13:1-5 where false prophets are commanded to be executed)

So it’s only appropriate that Benny Hinn is a false prophet, even according to his own holy book, and should be killed:

In 1990, Pastor Benny Hinn prophesized on TBN: “The Lord also tells me to tell you in the mid ‘90s, about ’94 to ’95, no later than that, God will destroy the homosexual community of America. [The audience applauded.] But He will not destroy it with what many minds have thought [He would use], He will destroy it with fire. And many will turn and be saved, and many will rebel and be destroyed.” (William Lobdell, Losing My Religion, p. 192)

In November 1997, [Fr. John Conley] came home early one evening to his parish, only to find his pastor wrestling in the dark with a young boy. Conley, a federal prosecutor before becoming a priest, believed he had witnessed an act of sexual abuse. According to depositions and other legal documents, he reported the incident to San Francisco archdiocesan officials and told them he was going to file a report with civil authorities, as required by law. Conley said one official asked him, “Now, are you sure you want to do this?”

The archdiocese backed the priest suspected by Conley of molesting the boy, and Conley was soon removed from active ministry (church officials said his demotion was unrelated to his whistle-blowing). Eventually, the accused priest admitted that he had sexually abused several boys, and Conley filed a whistle-blower lawsuit against the Archdiocese of San Francisco, winning a large settlement in 2002. William Levada, now a top official at the Vatican, was then the archbishop of San Francisco.

In his deposition, an angry Conley said he asked the vicar of clergy to relay a message to the archbishop: “The message was to tell the archbishop to grow some balls and start acting like a man.”

—William Lobdell, Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America—and Found Unexpected Peace (2009), p. 164-5

The Roman Catholic Church’s College of Cardinals, after intense prayer and guided by the Holy Spirit, has selected popes for nearly a millennium. Some Holy Fathers have turned out to be saints; others became murderers (Pope John XII), torturers (Pope Urban VI) and adulterers (too many to name).

Less reliance on faith and more, for example, on a democratized search for a pope might have kept the more notorious ones from office. And certainly a more practical belief that God had not ordained every pope to lead the church would have led to the quick firing of the most corrupt ones.

—William Lobdell, Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America—and Found Unexpected Peace (2009), p. 161-2

In a packed sanctuary that held hundreds, Father Mike, as he was known, stood before the congregation he had led for a dozen years. Reading from a statement, he told them that 19 years ago he had “transgressed the personal boundaries of an adolescent.” (Only later would it emerge that the diocese knew he, in fact, had been accused of sexual misconduct with several other children.)

With the diocese’s zero-tolerance policy now in place, he said he was being forced to step down. The tone of his statement made him sound like a martyr—someone who had been kicked out of ministry for a single mistake, a simple boundary violation—nearly two decades ago. As he read his short statement, the parishioners sat in stunned silence. Some women fished in their purses for tissues to wipe away their tears. As Father Mike walked out of the church, the congregation rose and gave him a standing ovation….

When the applause started, my first reaction was disbelief. A standing ovation? Though the language softened the act, I had just heard this priest admit that he had molested a minor. Diocesan officials had kept the information secret from the parishioners of San Francisco Solano, who until now would never have thought twice about leaving their children in the pastor’s charge.

As a parent, my response was outrage and disgust. Imagine that a beloved schoolteacher who had taught your children had admitted to once sexually molesting a child but the school district never called the police, kicked him out or bothered to tell the parents. Would you rally around the teacher? Or would you be angry that a predator was left in a position of great trust with easy access to children—without your knowledge? I’d guess that the school superintendent would be forced to resign under pressure from parents—and face criminal charges for aiding and abetting a criminal.

—William Lobdell, Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America-and Found Unexpected Peace (2009), p. 152-3

Only in a church would a child molesting priest get a standing ovation.

Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.

But that quote works both ways. I know of no evidence for any of the miracles which the Christian faith is built on, just as I know of no evidence for the miracles claimed for Judaism, Islam, or Mormonism. To me, that puts them all in the “false” category.

I think C.S. Lewis was right in the sense that it’s no longer important to my life. But Christianity is important to other people and has had a large influence in history — which to me makes it important. The same goes for Islam — yes, it’s false, but that doesn’t mean it has no importance.

What do you think? Are religions of no importance because they are false?

We made a test run [of attending church] at our local parish, but it ended badly when Father Jerome Karcher (son of Carl’s Jr. founder Carl Karcher), with a kind smile on his face, explained to [my wife] Greer that she was an adulterer because she hadn’t gotten married in the church.

“You don’t really believe that,” Greer said, laughing.

“Oh, absolutely,” Father Jerome assured her. “Jesus said it.”

We didn’t go back.

—William Lobdell, Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America—and Found Unexpected Peace (2009), p. 54

Anyone have similar stories?

I shall be using the name “history-deniers” for those people who deny evolution: who believe the world’s age is measured in thousands of years rather than thousands of millions of years, and who believe humans walked with dinosaurs. (7)

I wonder if that term hurts Dawkins’ goal more than it helps it.

If creationists called us “history-deniers” because we denied what they believe to be the clear attestation of history (i.e., that there was a global flood & the earth is only 6,000 years old), we would laugh and possibly be offended. And won’t they have the same reaction?

Do you think labeling creationists with that term makes them more likely to consider what Dawkins has to say about evolution, or less?

Update: Some have questioned whether this book is aimed at creationists. According to Dawkins, it is: “The history-deniers themselves are among those that I am trying to reach in this book.” (8)

Today only 35 percent of the oil in the average oil field is recovered, meaning that about two thirds of the oil in known fields remains underground. That resource is rarely mentioned in the debate on the future of oil.

—Leonardo Maugeri, “Squeezing More Oil From the Ground” (Scientific American, Oct 2009)

I don’t know about forever, but I’d be up for it for at least a few hundred years. How about you?