Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence. ~ Richard Dawkins
A friend of mine recently used this quote with a magnificent photo of him swimming with sharks. I read the quote several times as it had been a while since I had seen something from Prof. Dawkins, the great champion of atheism and evolutionary science. Many thoughts went through my head, but they always circled back around to sadness. Sadness for Prof. Dawkins and sadness for my friend.
Prof. Dawkins’ definition of faith is a gross generalization and one that his own thoughts and theories on life are equally guilty of. My faith in God, as a Christian, is no more of an excuse or evasion of reason than his studies of evolution. My faith in God is based on my own thoughtful evaluation of the Bible, history, and my own experiences; those who subscribe to the theory of evolution are placing their faith in the theory that Darwin created. And if faith is an excuse to “evade the need to think and evaluate evidence”, can not the argument be made that faith in evolution or Atheism is a cop-out and excuse to evade the possibility of God?
Hebrews 11:1 (NKJV) tells us “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Just as evolutionists theorize that Dolphins had evolved onto land, but then went back to the water… they are placing their belief, or faith, in a theory to excuse our need for God.
If my faith is a cop-out… I’m sorry… yours is too.
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