Ewan McDonald, Victoria.

Davdi Skinner, UK

But people like Dawkins (and maybe yourself) simply want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to insist that the world has no inherent meaning, purpose, value or telos, yet we should somehow live as if it does! Sorry, I just am not buying it. It seems far more plausible, coherent, logical and sensible to posit a moral, personal, intelligent creator to account for morality, personality, and rationality, then to try to somehow dig that up from an impersonal, amoral, aimless naturalistic system. I am afraid it takes far more faith to believe in that kind of foolishness than in the biblical account.

But as I say, evolution is not quite the main topic at hand here.

Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

“I think it is disingenuous to argue that the origin of life is irrelevant to evolution. It is no less relevant than the Big Bang is to physics or cosmology. Evolution should be able to explain, in theory at least, all the way back to the very first organism that could replicate itself through biological or chemical processes. And to understand that organism fully, we would simply have to know what came before it. And right now we are nowhere close.” [What neo-creationists get right—an evolutionist shares lessons he’s learned from the Intelligent Design camp, The Scientist, 20 June 2008.]

Also, the origin of life is commonly referred to as “chemical evolution”. For example, the September 1978 issue of Scientific American was specially devoted to evolution, and one major article was ‘Chemical Evolution and the Origin of Life’. This stated:

“J.B.S. Haldane, the British biochemist, seems to have been the first to appreciate that a reducing atmosphere, one with no free oxygen, was a requirement for the evolution of life from non-living organic matter.” [Emphasis added]

Jonathan Sarfati, Brisbane

The example you have given of Senator Stephen Fielding’s pathetic performance on ABC TV’s Q & A against Richard Dawkins, is a call for the Christian community to practice the requirements of Ephesians 4:11-12, where the ministry of the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher is “to equip the saints for the work of ministry.”

In our robust Australian democracy, we have many opportunities for defense of the faith in the public arena. Stephen Fielding showed how he is not equipped for the job of defending the faith in a public context against one of the most articulate atheists in the world. Surely, he should be able to say to the TV producer, “I’m not the best person for such a show, but I’d recommend Jonathan Sarfati or [some other local defender of the faith].”

Thanks for posting the link to the program. I’m embarrassed to be identified as a Christian with what Fielding said. A pastor friend emailed me about this program and said:

“Did you happen to watch Questions & Answers on ABC last night – Richard Dawkins was on the panel so most of the questions were related to his field. But on the panel was Steve Fielding, the Family First Senator who (I presumed) is a born-again believer. He was absolutely abysmal, truly appalling – what an opportunity to take a stand for the Bible, for God and the Gospel. I could hardly sleep last night, going over it – just devastated. It was a ‘field day’ for the atheists. It appeared that a fair percentage of the audience were Uni students, who evidently admire Dawkins. The best guy, and I don’t know if he is a professing Christian, was the Labour politician and Minister for Agriculture.”

Spencer Gear