An interesting long article by Ian McEwan in Saturday’s Guardian about the state of the planet vis-a-vis the way beliefs in the doomsday scenario now seem scarier with the rise of religious extremists. He laments the fact that a recent questionnaire in America revealed that only 12 per cent believe that life on earth has evolved through natural selection without the intervention of supernatural agency. He says:
“To the secular mind, the polling figures have a pleasantly shocking, titillating quality – one might think of them as a form of atheist’s pornography.” A glimmer of hope is that the poll results are unreliable, he asks the question: “From the respondent’s point of view, what is to be gained by categorically denying the existence of God to a complete stranger with a clipboard?“
The piece ends with these wise words:
“The believers should know in their hearts by now that, even if they are right and there actually is a benign and watchful personal God, he is, as all the daily tragedies, all the dead children attest, a reluctant intervener. The rest of us, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, know that it is highly improbable that there is anyone up there at all. Either way, in this case it hardly matters who is wrong – there will be no one to save us but ourselves“.
