There was surprise when Prof Dawkins acknowledged that he was less than 100 per cent certain of his conviction that there is no creator.

Prof Dawkins said that he was “6.9 out of seven” sure of his beliefs, referencing the seven point scale of belief that he sets out in his bookThe God Delusion.

The philosopher Sir Anthony Kenny, who chaired the discussion, interjected: “Why don’t you call yourself an agnostic?” Prof Dawkins answered that he did.

An incredulous Sir Anthony replied: “You are described as the world’s most famous atheist,” to which Prof Dawkins retorted, “Well not by me!” to much laughter among the audience.

The two men were taking part in a public “dialogue” at Oxford University at the end of a week which has seen bitter debate about the role of religion in public life in Britain.

I don’t think this story is as much of a big deal as it is being made out to be. Very few atheists would take the position of a 100 percent certainty that there is no God. Though I think it is an error to describe anybody who has high certainty that there is no God as an agnostic. For them they have weighed the evidence and not found that nothing is known or can be known of the existence of the God, but that enough is known to positively accept that there is no God. An agnostic sits on the fence and sees the balance of what can be known as inconclusive for either side.

No word yet if he will rename his book the “The God Delusion” to the “The 6.9 out of 7 there is no God Delusion.” Though I find it quite interesting that he considers this a significant scale. Especially since so many of the numbers involving chance evolution are quite large involving double exponents. For example a 0.98571428571429 chance there is a God by his scale is whopping compared to a purely natural chance of life evolving as it has.  The 0.98571428571429 chance is quite reasonable compared to the old millions of monkeys typing out the works of Shakespeare eventually.

Prof Dawkins told him: “What I can’t understand is why you can’t see the extraordinary beauty of the idea that life started from nothing – that is such a staggering, elegant, beautiful thing, why would you want to clutter it up with something so messy as a God?”

On the subject of evolution my thought is that “However God brought about the human race is fine with me. I just know he was involved.”

A biologist like Dawkins focuses on life evolving out of nothing, but conveniently leaves out that the universe could not evolve out of nothing. The need for “reality” involving space and time requiring an “unconditioned reality” outside of space and time is covered quite excellently in Fr. Robert Spitzer’s New Proofs for the Existence of God: Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philosophy.  Fr. Spitzer also recently did a very nice job on two hours of Catholic Answers Live and I quite enjoyed his responding to an atheist who called in on the impossibility of omnipotence.

Another area why I think this is overblown is that while the majority of believers also have a high certainty of God, they do not have absolute certainty.  Blessed John Henry Newman in his book “An Essay In Aid Of A Grammar Of Assent” really delves into the subject of certainty and knowledge.  There is essentially no one who does not have doubt on the subject.

…both the believer and the unbeliever share, each in his own way, doubt and belief, if they do not hide from themselves and from the truth of their being. Neither can quite escape either doubt or belief; for the one, faith is present against doubt; for the other, through doubt and in the form of doubt. It is the basic pattern of man’s destiny only to be allowed to find the finality of his existence in this unceasing rivalry between doubt and belief, temptation and certainty. Perhaps in precisely this way doubt, which saves both sides from being shut up in their own worlds, could become the avenue of communication. It prevents both sides from enjoying complete self-satisfaction; it opens up the believer to the doubter and the doubter to the believer; for one, it is this share in the fate of the unbeliever; for the other, the form in which belief remains nevertheless a challenge to him. – then-Cardinal Josef Ratzinger “Introduction to Christianity“

* Photo Credit

His Eminence Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, President, and His Excellency Most Reverend William E. Lori, Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, released a statement on the HHS mandate, dated February 21, 2012, to the bishops of the United States.

You can read the text of the letter over at Insight Scoop.

The letter really says what needs to be said, makes all the right distinctions, and rightly invokes the supreme gravity of the situation concerning the free exercise of religion.

Much remains to be done. We cannot rest when faced with so grave a threat to the religious liberty for which our parents and grandparents fought. In this moment in history we must work diligently to preserve religious liberty and to remove all threats to the practice of our faith in the public square. This is our heritage as Americans. President Obama should rescind the mandate, or at the very least, provide full and effective measures to protect religious liberty and conscience

As I understand it the mandate itself is part of Obamacare and not something the President can rescind. The narrow interpretation of how the mandate was applied is directly in his purview. Though ultimately it is Obamacare itself that must be repealed, especially the mandate. Even if the President backs down and the HHS interprets the exemption in a more traditional way it still would not protect private employers who object but are not under the category of a religious institution. The mandate was tyrannical even before the HHS ruling.

Inn some good news involving conscience protection.

Today, religious liberty gained a resounding victory. A federal court in Tacoma, Washington, struck down a Washington law that requires pharmacists to dispense the morning-after pill even when doing so would violate their religious beliefs. The court held that the law violates the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion.

“Today’s decision sends a very clear message: No individual can be forced out of her profession solely because of her religious beliefs,” said Luke Goodrich, Deputy National Litigation Director at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. The Becket Fund, together with the Seattle-based law firm of Ellis, Li & McKinstry, represents the plaintiffs in the case. “If the state allows pharmacies to refer patients elsewhere for economic, business, and convenience reasons, it has to allow them to refer for reasons of conscience,” added Mr. Goodrich.

Superman, superman, wish I could fly like superman
Superman, superman, want to be like superman
I want to be like superman
Superman, superman, wish I could fly like superman
— The Kinks

Growing up with Superman D.C. Comic books before the advent of any Superman movies there was always the fondness for the incorruptible hero with super powers. Though my atheistic world view was with me even as a young man, I was always attracted to virtue. Though mainly in the virtue of others and not following through with virtue in my own life. Dreaming of having super powers to be able to stop evil, yet not willing to stop the evil in my own life. For me there was always the dichotomy of admiring virtue, but not pursuing if for my self other than brief periods of stoic attempts. Villains with similar powers to Superman did not make me wish for their powers, it was really those powers with virtue that really made me want them.

That is not the object of her work. On the contrary her ideal is to supernaturalize men, to make them like to God. It is of the essence of the Church’s character that she should press on towards that which is better and pursue the best and highest that is to be found in heaven and on earth, that she should move in the unsearchable depths of the divine mystery and therefore love the heroic, the incomprehensible and inconceivable, the wide spaces of infinity. That which was uniquely realized in Christ when the Triune God united a human nature with His divine nature in the unity of His person, that mystery of the raising of man to God is constantly repeated by grace in the life of the individual Christian. Fr. Karl Adam “The Spirit of Catholicism”

That paragraph in the book got me thinking on the word “super” whose origin is from Latin meaning above or beyond. To be supernaturalized men is to live a life of grace. To be docile to the work of the Holy Spirit. To work to limit and remove the obstacles to grace. To let sanctifying grace the vital principle of the supernatural life to build upon nature.

I now realize what drew me to the saints was the same thing that drew me to Superman. That life of virtue beyond human means. Superman drew his powers from what was an alien sun to him. The saints drew what could be loosely termed their power from not an alien sun, but a Son that was not alien to human nature – but united to it from the Incarnation. I admired Superman as a hero for his virtue. The saints demonstrated heroic virtue. Superman has super hearing and can hear the cries of anybody in alarm on the planet and goes to rescue them. The saints also hear the prayers of those crying out in alarm and like “golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints” to rescue them by interceding for us with God. The true rescue is not necessarily to be saved from physical death (for the time being), but from moral death. “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?” (Luke 9:25)

Superman has his one weakness with Kryptonite and the various forms of it that have been multiplied ins Superman story lines. For us the only thing that can destroy the life of grace within our souls is our own will. Our Kryptonite is sin and takes two forms as venial and mortal. Repeated exposure to Venial Kryptonite opens us up to the deadly rays of Mortal Kryptonite. Our Super Villain is are own will (but not in some dualist and cartoonist way with an Angel and Demons sitting on our shoulder), but “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” (1 Co 10:13–21)

But there is one great difference between Superman and the Saints. I will never fly like Superman and be faster than a speeding bullet. Be more powerful than a locomotive or able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. But I can be a saint. I can overcome my inner “Lex Luther” and with the help of the life of grace in the life of the Church. I wanted to live the life of virtue as an atheist, but the natural virtues are not enough. Thankfully I don’t have to depend on my own abilities sorely lacking as they are “I can do all things in him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13)  Thus I look forward to Lent not for what I avoid, but for what I will gain. So please pray for me as I pray for you.