ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Ross Douthat’s argument boils down to the idea that because science is groovy, and the Christian God is the King Of Groovy, the Christian God must be the original inventor of scientific principles.
In the next part of chapter 1 of Douthat’s book Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious, the author claims that evolution through natural selection proves that an ancient religion is true, even though that ancient religion never had anything to say about evolution through natural selection.
Douthat also says that the cosmological constant proves that his favorite supernatural spirit specifically chose the mathematical principles that underlie the universe. Ross Douthat argues that his Christian god couldn’t have made the universe any other way. Perceptive readers will notice that this argument underlies the religious faith that the Christian god is all-powerful.
If the Douthat’s god can do anything he wants, he could make any cosmological constant work. Alas, the fine tuning pretzel cracks and falls apart into moldy crumbs to be pecked apart by pigeons.
Douthat is beginning to rely heavily on the unstated premise that if science has failed to explain everything, religion must be the superior choice, because religion claims to explain everything. So, whenever scientists encounter a natural obstacle to knowledge, Douthat jumps in and shouts, “Aha! You see? God must be real!”
He might as well argue that because we have yet to unearth all of Egypt’s artifacts, ancient Egyptian civilization must have been created by supernatural kangaroos.
