A Personal God?

Victor Hugo, the national poet of France who lived most of the 19th century, have according to Richard Dawkins said:

"Every village has a torch--the teacher, and someone who extinguishes it--the priest"

One senses a problem between the poet and the Catholic Church. Today in Sweden the teacher has the upper hand but as I have indicated there might be a new problem that turns flame into ember for clandestine purposes. It seems these people think they are gods, not priests, a new polytheism.

Dawkins also gives an interesting piece of information. Only 7% of the members of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences in the USA claim they believe in a personal God. And this is in a country where 50% of the population goes to church each Sunday. Dawkins tries to make the point, smart people are atheists. He goes on to quote Bertrand Russell:

"The majority of successful intellectual people don't believe in Christianity, but they don't admit this officially, because they are afraid of losing their daily bread."

As seen by the numbers from the NAS of the USA times have moved on since Russell. For a scientist, as myself, it boils down to the probability for certain miracles as described by a literary text called the Bible, but I know there is a non-personal God. Dawkins calls my Spinoza-inspired pantheism an atheism with a make-up but I don't agree. I know he is wrong.

Dawkins then talks about unsophisticated Christians, which I think is wrong. Non-scientists that are believers are not necessarily unsophisticated. They are just created in a fashion where they put faith over science and live perfectly happy as such. At the same time they accept paying taxes for scientists to do what they do. People are differently made and it is intolerant to call a creationist a sick person. It is a problem but we have to get along.