You crazy Brit.

Quite a number of scientifically literate reviewers have mentioned this. To claim that universal morality could only have come from God is to claim that no current theory for the natural development of morality, and no _possible_ theory for the natural development of morality, could explain what we see. I like the way Sam Harris put it link

“According to Collins, the moral law applies exclusively to human beings:

Though other animals may at times appear to show glimmerings of a moral sense, they are certainly not widespread, and in many instances other species’ behavior seems to be in dramatic contrast to any sense of universal rightness.

One wonders if the author has ever read a newspaper. The behavior of humans offers no such “dramatic contrast.” How badly must human beings behave to put this “sense of universal rightness” in doubt? And just how widespread must “glimmerings” of morality be among other animals before Collins—who, after all, knows a thing or two about genes—begins to wonder whether our moral sense has evolutionary precursors in the natural world? What if mice showed greater distress at the suffering of familiar mice than unfamiliar ones? (They do.) What if monkeys will starve themselves to prevent their cage-mates from receiving painful shocks? (They will.) What if chimps have a demonstrable sense of fairness when receiving food rewards? (They have.) Wouldn’t these be precisely the sorts of findings one would expect if our morality were the product of evolution?”

On the outside looking in, it appears the negative reviewer has not read Mere Christianity. Lewis covers this idea in Book 1 Ch. 2. The recent ideas in evolutionary biology only try to lay claim to the inexplicable like charity, love, & purpose. These ideals had been left to religion until recently, when Hitchens and crew have made a grab for them, thus the ‘new’ atheism. Thanks for the reveiw I am looking forward part 2.

Also, as much as I appreciate science in general, I don’t think it takes a genius to realize that not all of life’s questions can be answered by science.

As an atheist, I am still waiting.

thainamu
The new atheists only claim they do not believe in God and cite specific reasons why.
None of the new atheists would claim there is no possibility for the existance of God. They all admit the existance of God is possible, only just that the evidence for it is about equal to that of the existance of the flying spaghetti monster and Zeus. It is defacto, weak, implicit, or agnostic atheism, not strong atheism.

Sure it’s evidence. It isn’t incontrovertible proof, but it is evidence.

the evidence for [God] is about equal to that of the existance of the flying spaghetti monster

Yeah, that’s not what Flying Spaghetti Monster is all about. FSM is about ridiculing Creationists who advocate teaching the controversy. It’s meant to make Creationists look silly by trapping them into agreeing that FSM should be taught in schools. The whole point of FSM is that it’s utterly ridiculous, not that it’s on the same level as the God of the Bible. There is significantly more evidence for the God of scripture than there is for FSM. To start with, there is a Bible (written thousands of years ago and still preserved today) that teaches us about God, while FSM was invented in 2005 as a propaganda tool to ridicule some Creationists.

Close. It’s meant to expose them as hypocrites when they do NOT agree that FSM should be taught in schools. (Because we all know that Intelligent Design has nothing to do with any speicific designer, such as the Christian God; wink wink nudge nudge)

BTW, I hear the portion of Collins’ book which attacks Intelligent Design is pretty good.

If you think that part is good, you should hear what he says about atheists.

(I’ll get to his take on ID in parts 2 and 3.)