So, Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine (and a few other things I don't really care about), in speaking for his god which cannot speak, says:
"... [I]t is time to step out of our evolutionary heritage and our historical traditions and embrace science as the best tool ever devised for explaining how the world works, and to work together to create a social and political world that embraces moral principles and yet allows for natural human diversity to flourish. Religion cannot do the job because it has no systematic methods of explanation of the natural world, and no means of conflict resolution on moral issues when members of competing sects hold absolute beliefs that are mutually exclusive. Flawed as they may be, science and the secular Enlightenment values expressed in Western democracies are our only hope for survival." (http://www.templeton.org/belief/hitchens_miller.html#groopman)
Let's break down what he is really saying here.
"But it is time to step out of our evolutionary heritage and our historical traditions and embrace science as the best tool ever devised for explaining how the world works, and to work together to create a social and political world that embraces moral principles and yet allows for natural human diversity to flourish."
In other words, it is time to stop believing in your explanation of the world, and believe in mine. It is time to stop believing in any explanation of the world that involves an intelligent creator/mover of reality, and rather to believe in one that involves nothing but mindless matter and energy, undirected, in which life is simply a convenient (for who?) yet meaningless happenstance that shall never be remembered or missed.
But let us also remember that when Shermer says "science" here, what he actually means in naturalism. Atheism. Atheistic naturalism, to him, is the "best tool ever devised for explaining how the world works" without God. And this is the key facet. We must explain the world without God - this is the foundational axiom of the belief system (philosophy - religion!?) of Naturalism. It is not as if there is any operation science today that can actually explain the totality and nature of all things, the origin and destiny of time, space, matter and energy. But Shermer's philosophical naturalism is his preferred method of understanding the world. So why does he insist that this is the only explanation? Read on.
"Religion cannot do the job because it has no systematic methods of explanation of the natural world, and no means of conflict resolution on moral issues when members of competing sects hold absolute beliefs that are mutually exclusive."
What is religion? Is it not simply a belief system? There are many things that one could call a religion, and philosophical naturalism or scientism is most definitely a perfect candidate. Who says that every religion needs to systematically explain every facet of the natural world? This is a non-sequitor! This is what we use operational science for. Think of the early pioneers of science like Galileo or Isaac Newton: these were all very convinced theists, and their religious beliefs were the very things that drove their scientific methods, and relied on their scientific methods to explain the details of things that their religious beliefs did not necessarily touch on. Nowhere in the Bible was it ever detailed how the planets and the starts revolved, or how Newtonian physics worked; and yet God gave us a mind to be able to figure these things out! So how is it an objection to tell us that "Religion cannot do the job"? That's not in "religion's" job description! But neither can operational science satisfactorally explain "Who We Are".
As for conflict resolution on moral issues... How exactly does "science" decide a moral issue? Science is purely pragmatic and sees no such thing as "good" or "evil". The scientific method can in no way tell us what we "ought" to do, or whether or not our wife truly loves us. This is the job of our God-given spirits. Such a claim regarding science is laughable.
And finally - to top it all off - Shermer claims that "science" is our only hope for survival. And by this he means Atheism. By this he means that our "only hope for survival" is to create a world without God. Not a world without religion, but a world that does not truly believe in any sort of a God, (except for mindless, non-willed nature). What a wild claim! Has he come to this knowledge by science, or by something else. How does he make such a sweeping claim? How does he say that our only hope for survival is to abandon "our God" and come to "his god". Who has told him such a thing - how can he know this for sure? Clearly Shermer has faith in something other than "science" and he expects you to come to faith in it to. Or we are all doomed. Or so his god has told him.
