Preston
Jenny and Preston carried on their own correspondence. Mostly they just swapped stories about life.
Jenny wrote about working at Pizza Hut, getting ready for Advanced Placement exams, her freshman year
as a psychology major at a university in Missouri, and her sophomore year at a college back in Virginia.
In the late summer of 2004 she saw Bad Religion in concert. "The show was great!" she wrote. "I was
really close to the front. Greg did talk a lot; I was surprised-Ifigured they would just sing and say a few
words, but they were really funny. The bass player messed up, so they all laughed and started the song
over again. Then Greg started on the second verse instead of the first. Then he messed up again, and then
they got it right. They were great in concert. "
Dear Greg:
I'm reading your Ph.D. dissertation and enjoying it immensely. Aside from being informative, it's a good
read. And depending on who's speaking, the interviews are thought-provoking, interesting and
entertaining.
Believing that there is not a god, you have as little evidence for that as you do for believing there is a god.
You have no evidence for either... . You can't answer the questions except by an act of faith, and if it's an
act of faith, its just as much as act of faith as saying there's no god as saying there is a god.
John M. Thoday, geneticist (2003)
But Richard Dawkins coughs up some very deep nonsense. I think he should stick to evolutionary
biology. He clearly has no idea what he's talking about when it comes to "canonical religion." And his bit
about children just accepting what their parents tell them is junk. There's a very real difference between a
child recognizing that it's not wise to swim with crocodiles (to use his example) and a child just
accepting, and continuing to accept, what his parents say about God.
I have no difficulty bringing to mind Christians I know who grew up in irreligious homes, or in thinking
of people who grew up in religious homes but have left the family's faith. You yourself get letters from
kids who are in the process of rejecting their parents' views.
Perhaps, child brains are shaped by genetic natural selection to follow a rule of thumb that says
believe whatever your parents tell you.... The world is a dangerous place.... It's too dangerous to
discover by trial and error. Like, "don't swim in the river because there are crocodiles." You just
have to believe what your parents tell you. If Darwinian selection has programmed your child to
believe whatever your parents tell you, then [that leads to acceptance of the belief] that you have to
sacrifice a goat to the "Great Juju" in the sky.Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist (2003)My wife and I tell our 19-month-old daughter not to eat cat food. She knows it's naughty to do so-that's
why she shuts the door to the room the cat food's in. But she still eats it! And how does "teen rebellion" fit
in? Maybe Dawkins meant something more complicated than what he appears to say-i.e., "Kids buy what
their parents say; that explains the persistence of religion." But as it stands, it's just flat-out bogus. It