This from the Wall Street Journal on June 26, 2009:

By Laurence Krauss, a cosmologist, is director of the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University. His most recent book is "Hiding in the Mirror" (Viking, 2005).

"Messrs. Harris and Dawkins are simply being honest when they point out the inconsistency of belief in an activist god with modern science.

"J.B.S. Haldane, an evolutionary biologist and a founder of population genetics, understood that science is by necessity an atheistic discipline. As Haldane so aptly described it, one cannot proceed with the process of scientific discovery if one assumes a "god, angel, or devil" will interfere with one's experiments. God is, of necessity, irrelevant in science.

"Faced with the remarkable success of science to explain the workings of the physical world, many, indeed probably most, scientists understandably react as Haldane did. Namely, they extrapolate the atheism of science to a more general atheism.

"While such a leap may not be unimpeachable it is certainly rational, as Mr. McGinn pointed out at the World Science Festival. Though the scientific process may be compatible with the vague idea of some relaxed deity who merely established the universe and let it proceed from there, it is in fact rationally incompatible with the detailed tenets of most of the world's organized religions. As Sam Harris recently wrote in a letter responding to the Nature editorial that called him an "atheist absolutist," a "reconciliation between science and Christianity would mean squaring physics, chemistry, biology, and a basic understanding of probabilistic reasoning with a raft of patently ridiculous, Iron Age convictions."

"When I confronted my two Catholic colleagues on the panel with the apparent miracle of the virgin birth and asked how they could reconcile this with basic biology, I was ultimately told that perhaps this biblical claim merely meant to emphasize what an important event the birth was. Neither came to the explicit defense of what is undeniably one of the central tenets of Catholic theology.

"Science is only truly consistent with an atheistic worldview with regards to the claimed miracles of the gods of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Moreover, the true believers in each of these faiths are atheists regarding the specific sacred tenets of all other faiths. Christianity rejects the proposition that the Quran contains the infallible words of the creator of the universe. Muslims and Jews reject the divinity of Jesus.

"So while scientific rationality does not require atheism, it is by no means irrational to use it as the basis for arguing against the existence of God, and thus to conclude that claimed miracles like the virgin birth are incompatible with our scientific understanding of nature.

"Finally, it is worth pointing out that these issues are not purely academic. The current crisis in Iran has laid bare the striking inconsistency between a world built on reason and a world built on religious dogma.

"Perhaps the most important contribution an honest assessment of the incompatibility between science and religious doctrine can provide is to make it starkly clear that in human affairs -- as well as in the rest of the physical world -- reason is the better guide."

How does one respond to a position like this?

One response is that reason itself is a reflection of God's presence and guiding hand. Where could the "reasonable" come from?

Another is that science as a methodology is limited to evaluating material causes, and thus never gets to God because God is outside nature and his workings are utterly beyond our comprehension. Humility about human reason's ability to comprehend God seems eminently reasonable.

Yet another is that science is just one example of man's concerns, to which he applies his reason, if he can. Other, more important concerns about birth and death, right and wrong, justice and injustice, suffering and mercy, and all of the immensely important imponderables, are not amenable to determination by science, because they are not material. Perhaps they may not be penetrated by human reason at all. Yet these concerns are the most important we face as humans.

In this regard, I read this recently by Edwin O'Connor, a Catholic novelist, in The Edge of Sadness (p 128 - 129). (The narrator is a Catholic priest, and in this passage talks about the death of his father. The novel was published in 1961.)

"And so my father died. All through his illness I had said my Mass for him each morning; every day and every night I had prayed that he might be allowed either the miracle of recovery or the blessing of a happy death. These prayers were not answered. My father did not recover, and he died witless and in pain. Any why this should have been I have no idea at all. He was a very good man who had lived a very good life -- yet he died a very cruel death. This is the hardest sort of thing to accept; for some, it's impossible. Because here is the old, baffling problem which has always been with us and will be until the end of time: the problem of reconciling pain and suffering with an omnipotent and merciful God. There are all sorts of answers suggested to this problem, most of which are as old as the problem itself; some oare foolish, others are as reasonable as the mind of man could possibly devise. But here it seems to me we deal with something reason cannot reach, and with that part of man which reason does not touch, for when someone stands fixed and helpless before another's suffering -- especially in those cases when those who suffer are plainly innocent of any guilt -- then the cool like of reason may not be of much help. A syllogism does not support a mother who has seen her baby burned. And here, I think, faith comes in. I myself believe there is no such thing as purposeless pain or suffering, though I must confess that for much of it I can see no purpose at all. But the point is that if one accepts God, one accepts Him totally, accepts what He does and what He permits. One accepts it, but one does not necessarily understand it. Surely it's a question of vision, for as we are, we can see, but only to the corner; we cannot begin to see the whole design. . . "

Kraus' view of science seems imperialistic in that he places science in the driver's seat and places "faith" in the realm of darkness and superstition. It sounds like scientism, which holds that science is the only way that reality can be grasped rationally. But we know that science can build bombs but not keep them from being used. Only a different kind of wisdom can solve the human dilemmas we face.

I also find no basis for Kraus' claim that all "religious dogma" is essentially the same, and that Christian beliefs are essentially no different than the extreme Islamic beliefs of the Iranian state's mullahs. It should be obvious to all except the most prejudiced that religious beliefs are not identical. We may think our beliefs are right, but reason also tells us that opposing views cannot both be right. Both can be wrong, and one can be right.

If it only were so easy as Kraus suggests.