Earlier this month Britain’s Channel 4 aired The Root of All Evil? a two-part exploration of religious faith hosted and narrated by Richard Dawkins. Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and ‘the world’s most famous out-of-the-closet living atheist’ (Salon, annoying ad viewing required) is not known as a lover of religion, but come on, finding a Christian pastor who is too ignorant to know he’s being insulted when Dawkins suggests his sermon was akin to a Nuremberg rally hardly counts as a thorough investigation of religion. (Need I even mention that the Baha’i Faith doesn’t even appear on thier list of “the main world religions.”Weak.)
Dawkins’ main arguments seem to revolve around his assertion that religion just doesn’t stand up to serious scientific scrutiny. But Abdu’l-Bahá pointed out that:

Every religion which is not in accordance with established science is superstition. Religion must be reasonable. If it does not square with reason, it is superstition and without foundation. It is like a mirage, which deceives man by leading him to think it is a body of water. God has endowed man with reason that he may perceive what is true. If we insist that such and such a subject is not to be reasoned out and tested according to the established logical modes of the intellect, what is the use of the reason which God has given man?

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Promulgation of Universal Peace (Wilmette: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1922. 2nd edition 1982, p. 231.

Anytime you’d like to sit down and chat Mr. Dawkins, we’d be happy to answer your questions.

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