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At 16:31 10/01/2007, Dr. Mac Sudduth wrote:
>This is a very old problem.  St Thomas Aquinas sought to reconcile science
>with religion by dividing it into two realms that could not contradict
>each other (reason and revelation).  To Aquinas God was a matter of faith
>and not of proof.  Moreover,  he thought to be able to scientifically
>prove God would destroy the beauty and value of faith.

Unfortunately such good sense went out of the window in 1802 when 
William Paley http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Paley published 
'Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of 
the Deity'. His famous presentation of the 'argument from design' 
invited the reader to imagine finding a watch lying in a field...

"...The inference, we think, is inevitable, that the watch must have 
had a maker; that there must have existed, at some time, and at some 
place or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the 
purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its 
construction, and designed its use..."

http://www.faithnet.org.uk/AS%20Subjects/Philosophyofreligion/paleyswatch.htm

Even though wise theologians of the past had cautioned against 
'proving' God, most church leaders found such apparently irrefutable 
proof too much to resist. Even the young Darwin, then training at 
Cambridge to become a vicar, embraced the clarity of Paley's reasoning.

The Intelligent Design argument was in full swing when it dawned on 
Darwin that his own revolutionary discovery totally invalidated it. 
The backlash started when he went public.

A century later Richard Dawkins published an anti-creationist book on 
Darwinism with one of the cleverest, punchiest titles of all time: 
'The Blind Watchmaker'.

It is often overlooked that what the 'militant creationists' and 
'intelligent designers' misguidedly cherish, and what 'The Blind 
Watchmaker' so heavily stamps on, is only 'Paley's Watch', briefly 
new-fangled and shiny, but now lying out in the field tarnished and broken.

Augustine was older and wiser than Paley when he wrote:

We must be on our guard against giving interpretations that are hazardous
or opposed to science, and so exposing the Word of God to the ridicule of
unbelievers.
Saint Augustine of Hippo AD 354-430 (Genesis in the Literal Sense)


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Give people facts and you feed their minds for an hour.
Awaken curiosity and they feed their own minds for a lifetime.
*
Ian Russell 

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