Yglesias Award Nominee

"Everything we know tells us that mankind developed by small gradations from earlier forms.  With modern genomics we can even set approximate dates for the various changes.  At which point in this everlasting series of changes were we kissed by God?  Or:  How would we go about seeking an answer to that question?  And if, at some point in the series, God did indeed say:  "This is my favorite creature, this one I will bless with special gifts"—if that actually happened, why might not it un-happen?  If God can bestow His favor at some point in our phylogenetic development, why might He not withdraw it at some further point, for His own mysterious purposes?  How do we know this hasn't already happened?  How, in fact, do you detect this specialness—this having been favored by God?  What would be the difference between a human being, or the human race, thus favored, and one not thus favored?  How would I tell which was which?

My main point about biology in my original piece was just that up until about 150 years ago practically everyone believed what Wesley believes—that we are a uniquely blessed and gifted creature.  All the big religions of the world are built around that notion.  It is now clear that we are not, after all, special in the way we thought.  And that weakens faith.  That's all.  As I said in my piece, the creationists are perfectly correct to hate and fear modern biology.  Probably all religious people should hate and fear it.  If its discoveries pass the very strict evidentiary tests required by science, though, then to reject it is just obscurantist," - John Derbyshire, NRO.

The alternative, of course, is to integrate what we thought we knew of God into what we now know is empirically true about the planet. I explore how a revitalized Christianity should embrace Darwin in my book.