Well, not really an admirer—more like an antagonist. But I say that in a good way.
Matt Slick runs the CARM (Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry) web site. He interviewed me on his radio show about a dozen times in 2007. We reconnected recently, and he responded to my Science Answers the Big Questions post.
His reply is here.
Unfortunately, there’s not much to respond to. Matt seems mostly concerned about sloppy thinking, making sure we put materialistic thinking into the “science” bin and philosophical thinking into the “philosophy” bin, making sure words are used correctly, and so on. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but I didn’t find anything interesting enough to respond to.
But let me sharpen one point. I said that science answers the Big Questions of Life. It would probably be better to say that what science tells us about reality means that wedon’t need religion’s answers. Science’s natural answers show that looking for a transcendental purpose or an ultimate mind are unnecessary.
“What does God’s existence have to do with reducing lightning-strike damage on steeples?”
Read your history, Matt:
http://evolvefish.com/freewrite/franklgt.htm
Nice! Churches indeeded debated whether God would take offense at lightning rods. Of course, you could wonder very finite beings like us could offend an all-powerful god even if we wanted to (kinda like punching Superman, isn’t it?).
But by the same logic, you could wonder why chuches need roofs.