To God or not to God; A Liberal Interpretation

So Doc Collins beat me to the punch with his quote, mine would only be slightly different...

"I am a scientist and a believer, and I find no conflict between those world views."

Mine would read "I am a liberal and a believer, and I find an acceptable conflict between those worlds."

It is no secret that I have a belief in Christianity, nor is any secret that I have sinned many times, I voted for George as Governor and President, Jeb for Governor, and yes even for Poor George the 1st as president way back when, but hey, God forgives...can you?

I found it fascinating to listen to Francis Collins, mapper of the Human Genome as he talked about his faith and his work.

"As the director of the Human Genome Project, I have led a consortium of scientists to read out the 3.1 billion letters of the human genome, our own DNA instruction book. As a believer, I see DNA, the information molecule of all living things, as God's language, and the elegance and complexity of our own bodies and the rest of nature as a reflection of God's plan."

Dr. Collins went on to juxtaposition his theolgical views with his "logical" views in a way that is rarely seen by men of great scientific wisdom, let alone we lowly liberalites. Make no mistake, I am not here to make converts or save souls, rather I am speaking about expanding one's inner liberal mind, if you will, to accept that "organized religion" and a "religious belief" have very, very little to do with each other.

Make no bones about it, the single worst blow for Islaam was Osama bin Laden, and the single worst blow for Christianity has been George W. Bush.

George the Extreme. George the drug addict. George the alcoholic. George the party man frat boy. George the arrogant. George the fool. And on the 40th year he arose from the blind and was born again. And he ascended unto the right hand of Dad, and did happily send young men to their deaths in foriegn heathenistic lands, and Dad saw and it was good.

A particularly interesting view from Collins' statement was

"Actually, I find no conflict here, and neither apparently do the 40 percent of working scientists who claim to be believers. Yes, evolution by descent from a common ancestor is clearly true. If there was any lingering doubt about the evidence from the fossil record, the study of DNA provides the strongest possible proof of our relatedness to all other living things.

But why couldn't this be God's plan for creation? True, this is incompatible with an ultra-literal interpretation of Genesis, but long before Darwin, there were many thoughtful interpreters like St. Augustine, who found it impossible to be exactly sure what the meaning of that amazing creation story was supposed to be. So attaching oneself to such literal interpretations in the face of compelling scientific evidence pointing to the ancient age of Earth and the relatedness of living things by evolution seems neither wise nor necessary for the believer."

Now I know that am block quoting an awful lot here, but I feel it is the only way that a few of my more staunch atheist amigos here will actually get to read this statement from a brilliant, "should be atheist", scientist. It is an excellent use of 2 minutes, so go ahead, indulge and read..but buyer be warned, there are truths ahead that may test the dogma of your atheism. I will close with a quote from G.K. Chesterstom, the British author who famously remarked

"Atheism is the most daring of all dogmas, for it is the assertion of a universal negative."