Critics of religious faith often like to compare it, unfavorably, to science. Science, they say, has cured polio and malaria, sent humans to the moon, created powerful computers and plumbed the secrets of distant stars and galaxies. Religion has done none of these things.
However, this is a profoundly misguided argument. For one thing, it suggests that only such accomplishments as these have value. Most thinking people, though, would disagree. No sonnet has ever built a bridge. No symphony has ever cured a cancer. Acts of charitable self-sacrifice or selfless caring don't solve problems in quantum physics. Are such things therefore useless?
Read Full Article »