More on God
A third argument postulated by theologians is the ’something from nothing’ argument; Dawkins doesn’t say much about the physics of this this in his book, but modern physics certainly has an answer. Put simply, the total energy content of the universe may well be zero - if so, it is entirely possible that the universe arose as a quantum fluctuation (see earlier post).
A more serious problem between religion and science is of course scripture - there is quite strong disagreement between several passages in the Book of Genesis and scientific fact e.g.
Earth is not stationary Sun does not orbit the earth Age of earth is wrong Age of sun is wrong
Timeframe of creation is wrongOne solution is to take a non-literal interpretation of the Bible, as suggestioned by Augustine. However, this raises 2 problems
(i) as hardliners point out, where does the slide stop?
(ii) many Christians insist on a literal interpretation, resuting in statements like
Any theory of origins that is contrary to the early chapters
of Genesis is not true and will not stand the test of time’
…not so reasonable
