"The Language of Ignorance"

Sam Harris has another piece up at TruthDig called "The Language of Ignorance". It's a response to Francis Collins' book, The Language of God. Collins was head of the Human Genome Project and his book tries to reconcile 21st-century science and evangelical Christianity. He describes how he found God while hiking in the Cascade Mountains to which Harris replies:

If the beauty of nature can mean that Jesus really is the son of God, then anything can mean anything. Let us say that I saw the same waterfall, and its three streams reminded me of Romulus, Remus and the She-wolf, the mythical founders of Rome. How reasonable would it be for me to know, from that moment forward, that Italy would one day win the World Cup? This epiphany, while perfectly psychotic, would actually put me on firmer ground than Collins—because Italy did win the World Cup. Collins’ alpine conversion would be a ludicrous non sequitur even if Jesus does return to Earth trailing clouds of glory.

Another one of my favorite bits comes when Collins describes atheism as "blind faith" and Harris retorts:

Is disbelief in Zeus or Thor also a form of “blind faith”? Must we really “disprove” the existence of every imaginary friend? The burden of producing evidence falls on those making extravagant claims about miracles and invisible realities. What is more, there is an enormous difference between acquiring a picture of the world through dispassionate, scientific study and acquiring it through patent emotionality and wishful thinking—and only then looking to see if it can survive contact with science.

I love the line "Must we really 'disprove' the existence of every imaginary friend?" Thor, Zeus, Yahweh - same thing.

Ooh! I think Freethought Radio is coming on.