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Richard Dawkins writes that “Even moderate religion is a menace, because it leads us to respect and cherish the idea that certain fantastic propositions can be believed without evidence”.

The problem for Dawkins is that he imports his atheism into his argument. He is an atheist, and clearly believes there is no evidence for the existence of God. Note what he does not say. Dawkins does not say there is no proof for God, nor that God can be disproved. It is impossible, I believe, to construct a logical proof for God’s existence or non existence, and all such attempts at proofs are fallacies. Dawkins knows this, but he is frustrated that people persist in holding to their belief – their faith in God – a fantastic proposition – in spite of what he sees as a lack of evidence.

So he rages against religion that encourages people to believe without evidence, without considering that it is entirely possible that some people believe because of the evidence.

Christians claim they have met the risen Lord, and that he answers prayer. Dawkins no doubt looks for naturalistic explanations of religious experience, and he would argue that answered prayer is just coincidence, and that Christians are more likely to forget instances of non answered prayer than answered prayer.

Now many readers of this piece will agree with Dawkins (or a Dawkinslike person – I don’t wish to put words in Dawkin’s mouth) on the above explanations, but notice that even if you take that line, you are arguing against evidence of the work of God in a believer’s heart.

So Dawkins is wrong to say that Christians believe something fantastic in spite of the evidence. There are evidences of God all around us, and through history. We may disagree on where the evidence takes us, what it means, and how to interpret it – but let us have no more nonsense that there is no such evidence. There is plenty.

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