Science Vs. Religion? Not always

[Fist and Faith]

I find this particularly interesting. Evolution does not include any atheistic statement and he is implying that those who believe are atheists. He certainly isn't the first christian that believes in evolution.

I didn't take it that way. (BTW, the quotes are from a site belonging to another person entirely, not Collins, although he says pretty much the same things.) I took it that she is addressing many different people of many different beliefs, many of whom will not see the possibility that one can believe in God and evolution, and trying to explain how one can. She is implying - actually, outright saying - that those who believe in evolution are not atheists by default.

This is a little troubling. He is willing to accept logic and fact in his everyday life but dismiss those same things to believe in something that he likes. In any other aspect of life that shows a real lack of integrity. He decided to scientifically assess evolution then why not scientifically assess the origins of Christianity or the miracles he speaks of? For a seemingly credible scientist to accept ancient theological writing is really no different than accepting a flat earth or unicorns.

That, of course, could be argued. However, my question is, Why does it matter? This guy was the head of one of the greatest scientific achievements in history. He did it according to every rule of science that you would insist upon. He does not consider evolution to be evidence of a creator. What is troubling?

As I've long said, some people perceive things that they can prove exist, even though I cannot perceive them. And I perceive my own free will every moment of consciousness, even though I cannot prove it to Loremaster and Nathan. ( guys ), although I cannot prove it to them. I don't see how the fact that Collins feels something that I do not, and is unable to disregard it, should, in light of his stringent adherence to the scientific method, be a problem for anyone in the science fields.

[Kinslaughterer]

That, of course, could be argued. However, my question is, Why does it matter? This guy was the head of one of the greatest scientific achievements in history. He did it according to every rule of science that you would insist upon. He does not consider evolution to be evidence of a creator. What is troubling?

As I've long said, some people perceive things that they can prove exist, even though I cannot perceive them. And I perceive my own free will every moment of consciousness, even though I cannot prove it to Loremaster and Nathan. ( guys ), although I cannot prove it to them.

Why does it matter? Why does anything matter, Fist? Try Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion for some of big reasons why it matters. It's troubling that clearly intelligent people can throw out the fact based world around them to choose to believe they like. Isn't that scary. He probably isn't going to do anything to harm anyone necessarily but its a fundamental contradicition. Its like saying I want hard evidence for everything in my life except for the thing many consider to be the most important.

As far as your preception of free will that is something you imagine not necessarily something that exists. Reality is not subjective. Having a subjective reality means all manner of horrors and injustice are possible. Perhaps I could precieve the superiority of the white race or come to the determination that Allah would like me to blow up the local market.

It's not the idea of believing in something that is unprovable, its the idea of being intellectually dishonest by saying that since I believe it must be valid. Ultimately it has nothing to do with christianity or religion per se. Often belief is harmless but often it is equally harmful. It wasn't very long ago that millions of people were killed by belief.

I don't see how the fact that Collins feels something that I do not, and is unable to disregard it, should, in light of his stringent adherence to the scientific method, be a problem for anyone in the science fields

In his specific case, Collins is a Chrisitian. He is a scientist working on genetics. He has witnessed the massive variability present within humanity both phenotypically and genotypically. But he also accepts miracles, the ultimate damnation of much of humanity for behavior that was frequently determined by those genetics he studies, and he's willing to subvert his own logic, fact seeking mind for something he likes.

For instance, take the feeling of deja vu. My brother in law suffered a severe brain injury as a child. For all intents and purposes he is normal today except that he often experiences deja vu. His brain scans reveal that his deja vu is caused by his brain damage and the misfiring of certain synapses creating the false memories. He is aware that these pseudo-memories aren't real but if he wasn't aware he'd preceive them as real. His preception of this things as real would cause him to find a meaning behind it as we all generally do. Is it a past life? Was his memory erased like in Total Recall? I occasionally have deja vu and I'd swear that was a real memory. I'm willing to accept that its not real even though I preceive it to be.

[Fist and Faith]

It's troubling that clearly intelligent people can throw out the fact based world around them to choose to believe they like. Isn't that scary.

This is the same as the anti-homosexual crowd saying people "choose" to be gay. I can't say how Collins feels about it, but I can't choose to believe or disbelieve based on what I "like." There are certain religious beliefs that I would love to believe. I would rather believe them than continue to not believe them. But I don't have a switch I can throw to make me believe it. I would not be surprised if many believers are as unable to not believe what they feel as surely as you and I feel the wind on our faces.

He probably isn't going to do anything to harm anyone necessarily but its a fundamental contradicition.

It is not a contradiction to him. Nor is his system of beliefs a contradiction to me. He was able to map the Human Genome, and I am able to learn about it, all in spite of this contradiction that your staunch opposition would indicate is unworkable.

It's not the idea of believing in something that is unprovable, its the idea of being intellectually dishonest by saying that since I believe it must be valid. Ultimately it has nothing to do with christianity or religion per se. Often belief is harmless but often it is equally harmful. It wasn't very long ago that millions of people were killed by belief.

It doesn't take any sort of religious beliefs to get some people to do horrifying things. And no religion is safe from that type of person. All religions have been twisted to suit such ends, and atheists have killed without any attempt to justify it through some religion.

Perhaps everybody should judged by their actions. Here's a guy who did something that I would have assumed you would think was incredible beyond nearly everything else that people have ever done. And, he is telling the world that you can be a good scientist (Or is there the slightest hint that he did anything in a way that is not according to the very highest scientific standards?) and a believer. He may make some of your theist counterparts (meaning theists who do not believe anyone can be a true believer and a good scientist) understand that. But, because he also happens to believe in God, your only concern is in casting doubt on his intellect. Is it that everyone who has religious faith will one day cheat or lie for that reason? In any case, you could make some of those counterparts reject the HGP entirely. If you, a person with what I've always seen as considerable scientific knowledge, say Collins is intellectually dishonest, is the New Earth or Intelligent Design adherent going to abandon their faith; or are they going to assume you are right, and Collins can't know what he's talking about?

In short, what do you gain by knocking him down? As far as science goes, your intellectual honesty is not harmed by him. And his scientific contributions are, afaik, unblemished. Why attempt to discredit him? Is it not possible that this scientist will never do anything dishonest to further his own religious views, and, even if he never accomplishes anything approaching the HGP, he will have done an amazing service to human knowledge?


Well, you and I have gone through all this before, eh? I will never stop preaching for understanding of broader possibilities within human beings, and you will never stop preaching for a separation of scientists and believers. However, I guess I'll stop for the moment. No point in running in more circles. But if there's anything specific that you'd like me to address, just say the word. If you think we can accomplish anything, I'm game!

And I'll look for Dawkins next time I'm at B&N. But the reviews on amazon.com are not promising. They all say he is opposed to certain types of belief. (Theists who "[look] to science for justification of their religious convictions..." "I am hostile to fundamentalist religion..." "not only does he openly criticize both Christianity and Islam, he also has some words to say about their followers, as they both cling heavily to their faiths and tend to behave in ways intolerant of anyone whose beliefs differ from theirs." "His basic argument is that the collective irrational belief in 'The God Hypothesis' is not only wrong ('intellectual high treason'), but pernicious in its resulting intolerance, oppression, bigotry, arrogance, child abuse, homophobia, abortion-clinic bombings, cruelties to women, war, suicide bombers, and educational systems that teach ignorance when it comes to math and science." etc) I am also opposed to those things, as is Collins.

[Kinslaughterer]

This is the same as the anti-homosexual crowd saying people "choose" to be gay. I can't say how Collins feels about it, but I can't choose to believe or disbelieve based on what I "like." There are certain religious beliefs that I would love to believe. I would rather believe them than continue to not believe them. But I don't have a switch I can throw to make me believe it. I would not be surprised if many believers are as unable to not believe what they feel as surely as you and I feel the wind on our faces.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean here, but the idea that because you want very much to believe something certainly does not validate it.

It is not a contradiction to him. Nor is his system of beliefs a contradiction to me. He was able to map the Human Genome, and I am able to learn about it, all in spite of this contradiction that your staunch opposition would indicate is unworkable

This is why science works so well. Anyone can do it and do it properly. You're really misunderstanding me here. Believing in something else doesn't limit you're ability to practice the scientific method. However his ability to believe the key tenants of specifically chrisitianity means he's willing to accept as true a whole host of both philosophical and scientific arguments that he could address but since he'd rather believe than not he chooses to ignore those ideas.

It doesn't take any sort of religious beliefs to get some people to do horrifying things. And no religion is safe from that type of person. All religions have been twisted to suit such ends, and atheists have killed without any attempt to justify it through some religion.

No, I agree that's why I said this:

It's not the idea of believing in something that is unprovable, its the idea of being intellectually dishonest by saying that since I believe it must be valid. Ultimately it has nothing to do with christianity or religion per se. Often belief is harmless but often it is equally harmful. It wasn't very long ago that millions of people were killed by belief.

Perhaps everybody should judged by their actions. Here's a guy who did something that I would have assumed you would think was incredible beyond nearly everything else that people have ever done. And, he is telling the world that you can be a good scientist (Or is there the slightest hint that he did anything in a way that is not according to the very highest scientific standards?) and a believer. He may make some of your theist counterparts (meaning theists who do not believe anyone can be a true believer and a good scientist) understand that. But, because he also happens to believe in God, your only concern is in casting doubt on his intellect. Is it that everyone who has religious faith will one day cheat or lie for that reason? In any case, you could make some of those counterparts reject the HGP entirely. If you, a person with what I've always seen as considerable scientific knowledge, say Collins is intellectually dishonest, is the New Earth or Intelligent Design adherent going to abandon their faith; or are they going to assume you are right, and Collins can't know what he's talking about?

You're totally misunderstanding me here. I am in no way questioning his the Genome Project or his intellect. What I am questioning is his ability to honestly assess what explains in his book about his belief. Many people will see this as a reason to believe. A scientist who doesn't represent the scientific community has chosen to believe in something that he felt was missing in his life. That's fantastic but why include it in the book? To try and bring the fundamentalist toward evolution? He does state that the universe is "so finely tuned" that it is amazing. I don't want to even get into what's wrong with that but consider:

As believers, you are right to hold fast to the concept of God as Creator; you are right to hold fast to the truths of the Bible; you are right to hold fast to the conclusion that science offers no answers to the most pressing questions of human existence; and you are right to hold fast to the certainty that the claims of atheistic materialism must be steadfastly resisted….

God, who is not limited to space and time, created the universe and established natural laws that govern it. Seeking to populate this otherwise sterile universe with living creatures, God chose the elegant mechanism of evolution to create microbes, plants, and animals of all sorts. Most remarkably, God intentionally chose the same mechanism to give rise to special creatures who would have intelligence, a knowledge of right and wrong, free will, and a desire to seek fellowship with Him. He also knew these creatures would ultimately choose to disobey the Moral Law.

Don't you see a problem with this? Or perhaps how he came to believe in the first place?

On a beautiful fall day, as I was hiking in the Cascade Mountains … the majesty and beauty of God’s creation overwhelmed my resistance. As I rounded a corner and saw a beautiful and unexpected frozen waterfall, hundreds of feet high, I knew the search was over. The next morning, I knelt in the dewy grass as the sun rose and surrendered to Jesus Christ.

So gleams the double edged sword of science...To do it you don't even have to have a scientific mind. If we are going to get into emotional pleas for belief I'm sure I can come up with an equally emotional situation that would suggest otherwise.

He later makes the philosophical argument that human morality proves the divinity of god and alturism can't be explained in evolution and that animals possess no such thing. Whoa we are getting in to some very slippery slopes here...
I guess he never bothered to research that idea? Mice can precieve pain in other mice and even moreso in mice they are familar with. Chimps will choose starvation rather than accept food when it shocks another chimp. They'll even share when they feel that the distribution is unequal.

He later states:

And if that were so, what kind of God would this be? Would this be a deist God, who invented physics and mathematics and started the universe in motion about 14 billion years ago, then wandered off to deal with other, more important matters, as Einstein thought? No, this God, if I was perceiving him at all, must be a theist God, who desires some kind of relationship with those special creatures called human beings, and has therefore instilled this special glimpse of Himself into each one of us. This might be the God of Abraham, but it was certainly not the God of Einstein…. Judging by the incredibly high standards of the Moral Law … this was a God who was holy and righteous. He would have to be the embodiment of goodness…. Faith in God now seemed more rational than disbelief.

This, my friend, is intellectual dishonesty at the highest level. You can't use you're science credentials to push your religious agenda and that's exactly what he's doing. The very last thing I will ever do is use this argument..."Fist, I'm smart. Smarter than most people. Therefore you should believe what I believe." Its well known that I'm not a believer and I've made lots of arguments and cited evidence in why I feel the way I do. But to say "I'm mapping the Genome...and I believe in God, therefore it must be right."

Well, you and I have gone through all this before, eh? I will never stop preaching for understanding of broader possibilities within human beings, and you will never stop preaching for a separation of scientists and believers. However, I guess I'll stop for the moment. No point in running in more circles. But if there's anything specific that you'd like me to address, just say the word. If you think we can accomplish anything, I'm game!

I'm not advocating against broader possibilities but you must understand that as you reach the completely unknowable and abstract you dwell only in the imagination and not in reality. Its like asking is the guy hearing voices really crazy? With my brother in law's case science has shown him that it is the result of brain damage. He can choose to preceive it anyway he likes and assign all the meaning he wants to it. The problem comes when he decides to convince me that it is real as well.

And I'll look for Dawkins next time I'm at B&N. But the reviews on amazon.com are not promising. They all say he is opposed to certain types of belief. (Theists who "[look] to science for justification of their religious convictions..." "I am hostile to fundamentalist religion..." "not only does he openly criticize both Christianity and Islam, he also has some words to say about their followers, as they both cling heavily to their faiths and tend to behave in ways intolerant of anyone whose beliefs differ from theirs." "His basic argument is that the collective irrational belief in 'The God Hypothesis' is not only wrong ('intellectual high treason'), but pernicious in its resulting intolerance, oppression, bigotry, arrogance, child abuse, homophobia, abortion-clinic bombings, cruelties to women, war, suicide bombers, and educational systems that teach ignorance when it comes to math and science." etc) I am also opposed to those things, as is Collins.

As with any book, read it and ignore the reviews. I'm sure a long line of Creationists, Fundamentalists etc. have reviewed it and obviously most believers will refuse to accept it but an opened minded kind of guy like you could give it an honest read.

[Avatar]

Nice to see something happening in here. Typically, it would be when I'm feeling too befuddled to take part. Keep going folks...I'll join in when my brain starts working again.

--A

[[Syl]]

Because the Bible Tells Me So?

During Private Museum Tours, Denver Children Learn About Creationism

Standing in the lobby of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, Bill Jack and Rusty Carter pointed to the enormous teeth on the reproduced skeleton of a Tyrannosaurs Rex, and told a group of children and their parents that the fearsome T-Rex was really a vegetarian.

They said the T-Rex was vegetarian because at the time of the Creation, there was no such thing as death, so a T-Rex could not have eaten meat. There was no death until Adam and Eve ate forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge, they continued, and God's revenge was to curse the world with death.

[rusmeister]

I don't think anybody at all is surprised to hear that there are religious people who seem completely devoid of reason. I think the shocking discovery for the atheist is the existence of Christians that are (very) intelligent and rational, and that these qualities extend to their faith.

[[Syl]]

Which atheist? Many of my best friends are Christian, and I don't make stupid friends.

The point (if I could be said to have such) isn't "Look how stupid Christians are." No, it's the same as it would be if, for example, I posted an article about atheists holding seminars on the healing power of prayer.

[Lord Mhoram]

“Explaining Religion”, as the project is known, is the largest-ever scientific study of the subject. It began last September, will run for three years, and involves scholars from 14 universities and a range of disciplines from psychology to economics. And it is merely the latest manifestation of a growing tendency for science to poke its nose into the God business.

Religion cries out for a biological explanation. It is a ubiquitous phenomenon—arguably one of the species markers of Homo sapiens—but a puzzling one. It has none of the obvious benefits of that other marker of humanity, language. Nevertheless, it consumes huge amounts of resources. Moreover, unlike language, it is the subject of violent disagreements. Science has, however, made significant progress in understanding the biology of language, from where it is processed in the brain to exactly how it communicates meaning. Time, therefore, to put religion under the microscope as well.

Link

[Prebe]

The point (if I could be said to have such) isn't "Look how stupid Christians are." No, it's the same as it would be if, for example, I posted an article about atheists holding seminars on the healing power of prayer.

The interesting (or scarry) thing is how many people (according to polls which can of course be ignored) actually believe it.

LM: Interesting. I wonder how (or if) the results of the research will be applied.

[rusmeister]

“Explaining Religion”, as the project is known, is the largest-ever scientific study of the subject. It began last September, will run for three years, and involves scholars from 14 universities and a range of disciplines from psychology to economics. And it is merely the latest manifestation of a growing tendency for science to poke its nose into the God business.

Religion cries out for a biological explanation. It is a ubiquitous phenomenon—arguably one of the species markers of Homo sapiens—but a puzzling one. It has none of the obvious benefits of that other marker of humanity, language. Nevertheless, it consumes huge amounts of resources. Moreover, unlike language, it is the subject of violent disagreements. Science has, however, made significant progress in understanding the biology of language, from where it is processed in the brain to exactly how it communicates meaning. Time, therefore, to put religion under the microscope as well.

Link

The thing about this that strikes me as absurd - the attempt to explain externally, via empirical observation, something that is uniquely internal to man's nature. The sense of good and evil, right and wrong, fairness and unfairness, are not explainable by observation and experiment, and (usually by explanations of the type "This behavior evolved for the good of society and thus passed natural selection" or whatever) require a leap of faith no less spectacular than that of accepting a belief in a Creator.

From inside of Christianity I can say that tremendous importance is ascribed to language as well, as all speech is seen as a form of sub-creation (ref:Tolkien) of the Word of God (Jesus Christ, the Son of God) and its misuse is actually serious business.

Science can explain how things work until the cows come home, but it's never going to explain why.

My religion doesn't cry out for a biological explanation. It does offer an explanation for biology, though.

[Loredoctor]

Science can explain how things work until the cows come home, but it's never going to explain why.

A literal interpretation of your statement leads me to dispute it strongly. Science explains the 'why' of things all the time: why certain organelles operate in the way they do, eg.

A philosophical interpretation leads me to answer that you are operating under an erroneous assumption that there is a 'why'. If the universe came about because of events and laws, then it seems rather foolish to argue that 'why' is important. And given that Christianity or other religions are no nearer the 'truth' of the universe and its creation I doubt that they can explain 'why'.

But it appears that you are using tautological reasoning.

My religion doesn't cry out for a biological explanation. It does offer an explanation for biology, though.

Which is tantamount to a theory - a theory that cannot, as far as I know, be tested. In that regard, it is no more or less valid than any other religion.

[rusmeister]

Science can explain how things work until the cows come home, but it's never going to explain why.

A literal interpretation of your statement leads me to dispute it strongly. Science explains the 'why' of things all the time: why certain organelles operate in the way they do, eg.

A philosophical interpretation leads me to answer that you are operating under an erroneous assumption that there is a 'why'. If the universe came about because of events and laws, then it seems rather foolish to argue that 'why' is important. And given that Christianity or other religions are no nearer the 'truth' of the universe and its creation I doubt that they can explain 'why'.

But it appears that you are using tautological reasoning.

My religion doesn't cry out for a biological explanation. It does offer an explanation for biology, though.

Which is tantamount to a theory - a theory that cannot, as far as I know, be tested. In that regard, it is no more or less valid than any other religion.

You can speak of various 'interpretations', but if you are asking for authorial intent, then I would put it in your terms in the philosphical sense.

In certain senses I agree with you. We all operate under certain assumptions. My complaint is that a great many of us are not consciously aware of them, and that, as Chesterton points out in the 1st chapter of "The Everlasting Man" www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/everlasting_man.html (I posted this on another thread here), a special and unreasonable bias is held against Christianity that is not held against against other major religions in western culture.

Your own conclusions are based on assumptions that can equally be called erroneous. If the Christian explanation IS correct, then it is incredibly important to understand the whys, the nature of man and of sin. And your assumption that "Christianity is no nearer to the truth" is equally based on dogma not more supported by reason than Christianity is.

I agree that it is an 'untestable theory' in scientific terms; although I believe that it is possible for it to be tested on human, internal, spiritual terms. While reason cannot completely unriddle the question all by itself, it can certainly take us a good distance. And on that basis we can agree or disagree as to who is right or wrong. Those that are wrong are further from cosmic (universal) truth.

[Loredoctor]

Thankyou for your interesting reply.

[Prebe]

My religion doesn't cry out for a biological explanation. It does offer an explanation for biology, though.

Italicized: Yes it does. Just like any other psycological phenomenon does. And the moment we stop trying to explain/analyse is the moment when we stop learning new things.

Bolded: Would you care to explain biology then? As a biologist I'd be more than interested.

And please don't try anything along these lines.

And yet it looks like that the othodox church has yet to reach a consensus on the creation/evolution question

[Zarathustra]

Because the Bible Tells Me So?

During Private Museum Tours, Denver Children Learn About Creationism

Standing in the lobby of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, Bill Jack and Rusty Carter pointed to the enormous teeth on the reproduced skeleton of a Tyrannosaurs Rex, and told a group of children and their parents that the fearsome T-Rex was really a vegetarian.

They said the T-Rex was vegetarian because at the time of the Creation, there was no such thing as death, so a T-Rex could not have eaten meat. There was no death until Adam and Eve ate forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge, they continued, and God's revenge was to curse the world with death.

Don't they know plants die when you tear them out of the ground and eat them?

[Prebe]

Don't they know plants die when you tear them out of the ground and eat them?

A minor detail! Things with an indeterminate patern of growth could be eaten even if alive perhaps? I wonder if insectivors existed. And if so, were they counted as predators? After all, they only eat creepy-crawly things that are not real animals.

Btw. the teeth and digestive systems of lions and other predators are so obviously unsuitet to plants that one must assume that gain of function adaptations have evolved in predators after the fall, such as the extremely acidic gut, canine teeth etc.

Or perhaps the plants in eden were without ligning - or any significant cell walls - which would have allowed the otherwise inept predators to digest it. However, this theory makes it difficult to imagine how the Tree of Life could have remained erect.

The mindbogling number of GAIN OF FUNCTION mutations that must have taken place in all of the predatory species after the fall, contradicts the view of biblical evolutionists. Which is that gain of function mutations are not possible.

[Zarathustra]

Btw. the teeth and digestive systems of lions and other predators are so obviously unsuitet to plants that one must assume that gain of function adaptations have evolved in predators after the fall, such as the extremely acidic gut, canine teeth etc.

Or perhaps the plants in eden were without ligning - or any significant cell walls - which would have allowed the otherwise inept predators to digest it. However, this theory makes it difficult to imagine how the Tree of Life could have remained erect.

The mindbogling number of GAIN OF FUNCTION mutations that must have taken place in all of the predatory species after the fall, contradicts the view of biblical evolutionists. Which is that gain of function mutations are not possible.

Wow, good point. I never thought of that.

[Prebe]

Wow, good point. I never thought of that.

Nor, I wager, did the majority of theistic evolutionists

[rusmeister]

My religion doesn't cry out for a biological explanation. It does offer an explanation for biology, though.

Italicized: Yes it does. Just like any other psycological phenomenon does. And the moment we stop trying to explain/analyse is the moment when we stop learning new things.

Bolded: Would you care to explain biology then? As a biologist I'd be more than interested.

And please don't try anything along these lines.

And yet it looks like that the othodox church has yet to reach a consensus on the creation/evolution question

You need to distinguish between an explanation FOR biology and an explanation OF biology. For the latter, ask a Christian biologist. (Actually, my BIL is one).

One thing that may surprise you a little is that, given that Orthodox Christianity distinguishes between doctrine and topics that have wiggle room, questions like theistic evolution vs a much more rapid form are not doctrine, and we are free to believe what makes more sense to us. IOW, we don't NEED to have a consensus on this question. There is no official Orthodox stand on which understanding of creation is most accurate. I have my own opinion, it likely disagrees with yours, but it's not important and I won't debate it here.

I don't expect to convince you, but I hope that at least some people here will recognize that a person can simultaneously be a Christian and a rational thinker. I recognize that of atheists; but I get a strong sense here that a lot of people don't do me and other Christians here the same courtesy, instead preferring to seek out irrational whackos and tell themselves that THIS is what that Christianity stuff is about (especially if their past is scarred with some extreme form of it). We had the necessary vocabulary, patience and interest to read Thomas Covenant, and yet, we stubbornly haven't become atheist, as we feel that faith and reason are compatible, and my thesis here is that Christianity IS treated unfairly (viewed with special and unreasonable bias) vis-a-vis other religions.

It's easy to defeat straw men that we create ourselves.