MrStakhanovite wrote:Hughes wrote:a difference of degree. They are on the same sliding scale.
It's a categorical difference.
Hughes wrote:The result of this faith commitment, are the statements of faith, such as "Evolution is a fact of history."
That is a poor definition of faith.
Statements of faith sound the same.
Evolution is a fact of history....
or
God created the Universe....
Another point I want to make is that materialism doesn't rule out Christianity either, Peter VanInwagen is a Christian and one of the most brilliant advocates of materialism to date.
I hadn't heard of him, thanks. After a few minutes of reading up on him, it appears he claims to be a materialist and a Christian. I'm still curious how he can believe in a spiritual being, yet think that all that exists is only material?
None of the above changes my major point. That all people, scientists or not have a faith commitment of some sort. Or to put it another way, all people at some point have at the beginning of their philosophy, assumptions about the universe that can't be demonstrated using science.