Regrettably I haven't written here recently, but I hope to do so more often now that my schedule is clearing up!

Yesterday I went to listen to Francis Collins speak. Mr. Collins is the head of the Human Genome Project, and he came to OSU (and COSI) to talk about faith and science. He is a Christian, and talked about how, as such an esteemed scientist, he was still able to find God without separating his scientific beliefs from his faith.

His discussion was very interesting because it presented a familiar question in an unfamiliar context: why do people resist looking at the facts? This question was interesting because it was asked at both people of faith and people who do not believe in a god. He challenged unbelievers in the audience by presenting some very compelling arguments for the existence of God. He asked why atheists form their beliefs without first examining the evidence. There were numerous arguments, all very interesting; you can find out where to read more about them at the end of this entry.

He also challenged some believers by explaining his view of theistic evolution, or as he calls it, BioLogos. This part made me ask myself: why are Christians, myself included, told to view evolution as such a heretical idea? The Bible never explicitly and exclusively supports the 'scientific' explanation presented by Creationism. And our view of it is not critical to what really matters: what becomes of us.

He told us about his talk with Richard Dawkins, the famous angry atheist, who afterwards admitted that it was possible that god could exist, but he would be so vast and incomprehensible for any of our limited human theology. Collins replied, "You got it! That's exactly what I'm talking about." He also showed us a video of his humorous interview by Stephen Colbert. "Are you going to be the only Christian in Hell?", Colbert sternly joked.

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It was cool to be able to see such esteemed people right here on campus. There are a lot of events like these and I hope to be able to take advantage of OSU's ability to get so many awesome people to talk at our university. If you want to read more about Collins idea of BioLogos, and his arguments for God, he wrote a best-selling book called The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.