January 31, 2012

Christopher Hitchens’ leap of faith

On how little science actually knows about the universe

In his commentary on Christopher Hitchens’ death, John Ransom makes the interesting point that the problem with people like Hitchens is that they make skepticism an end in itself rather than as the means to something. “I believe that the things you do in life to bolster faithfulness; the things you do in life to support belief in anything or even something are much more important, either way, than the things you stand against.” He further points out that our “own self-consciousness…makes belief in a sterile universe without a Creator, an unknowable act of faith” (Townhall.Com, Dec. 17, 2011).

Ransom’s point is hard to ignore. As Michio Kaku pointed out in the Wall Street Journal (Dec. 16, 2011, p. A17), the Standard Model can only account for 4% of the matter and energy of the universe, “the rest being mysterious dark matter and dark energy.” As Noebel points out, the terms “dark matter” and “dark energy,” of course, are euphemisms for “I don’t know.” “If the world’s brightest minds know nothing about 96% of the universe,” says Noebel, “then atheists’ claims that the make decisions based only on ‘science’ and ‘reason’ show how very little they know.” Talk about a leap of faith.

• Posted at 12:00 pm by Jeff Myers
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