Free Republic

G. K. Chesterton once told a story about "an English yachtsman who slightly miscalculated his course and discovered England under the impression that it was an island in the South Seas." The yachtsman "landed (armed to the teeth and speaking by signs) to plant the British flag on that barbaric temple which turned out to be the pavilion at Brighton." Expecting to have discovered New South Wales, he realized "that it was really old South Wales." Chesterton was talking about the way in which we cast off the truths we learned as children, only later, if we are fortunate, to...

Physicist Stephen M. Barr has fired the latest broadside in the contentious debate over what science tells us about the existence of God. His book Modern Physics and Ancient Faith presents a case that developments in physics and related fields give support to the idea of a cosmic designer and indeed fit well with the Judeo-Christian tradition.I have long followed the science-and-religion debate, and have been quite critical of arguments similar to Barr's. In particular, a 1999 article of mine in Reason magazine looked skeptically at claims that the laws of physics are "fine tuned" for human existence. More recently,...