Jerry Coyne Faith Vs Fact Summary

Gabe Alkire

Mrs. Kliewer

British Lit. Honors

April 23, 2018

Improvement of religious reputation

Religion, particularly Christianity, for many years, especially in the last century, has faced maltreatment in world of science, education, and society. As new ideas and ways of thought have developed for thousands of years, opinions change, and views about certain subjects, that were certain to never change, change eventually as if it were never there at all. Atheist thinkers may be the cause to the dilemma of religion, or the arrogance of say scientists who believe they know all since they declared one law about the created universe. Looking at this from a larger perspective, there may be countless variables to the discrimination of religion including

Fact”, goes into much depth on how religion is incompatible with science. His writings are too much to get into depth now, but for the case of this paper, I will give a brief run down of his argument. Coyne completely believes that religion and science cannot work together, due to things such as the evolution of man including morality, the world being more probable in creation, and how having faith in science is different than having faith in God (Schloss). He goes to say that since we are creatures from the process of evolution, our morality also increases since good things happen when we are good. Coyne says that the perfect world is not as unlikely as it seems, saying that given the chance the universe would eventually get it right. And finally says that the faith that believers have is different than the faith of scientists in their facts (Schloss). Coyne does pose interesting arguments in favor of separation of religion and science but fails to recognize the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (things in the world move to disorder and not to order), the lack of evidence for multiple universe creation attempts, and how having faith in evidence can be different for both faith and

Annie Gaylor is the co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. I infer that she is an unbeliever who wants a separation of and diminishing of religion within our society. Which comes out to be true in her article on the website Religion and Politics, where the title of her entry was “The Dangers of Religious Instruction in Public Schools”. Gaylor’s article revolves around the idea that we teach about religion and not actually instructing it. There is truth to this, but I will explain. She goes on to say that kids who try to fight against religion are seen as outcasts, and how the diverseness builds barriers between students. Jessica Ahlquist, a highschool student in the state of Rhode Island, won a court case to ban prayer, after which she needed to be escorted to school and have a private tutor due to threats (Gaylor). I do agree that there should be freedom in whether one wants to take a religious course or not, but there should be an official religious instruction class in schools that is solely optional to take. Forcing students to pray is not a practice that I adhere, but there should be no discrimination of religious practices such as a teacher praying in the classroom, as we do not discriminate against those who teach about evolution. There must be an official course within school that allows religious instruction, preferably Christian education, but it must