A fascinating article. I am glad you saw it worth your investment. I do wish you had included an adult developmental perspective, ala Ken Wilber's recent Integral Spirituality (Integral Books 2006). Once you flatland all the perspectives (faith and science) and eliminate any human interior depth (meaning, contemplative truths, higher states of awareness, etc.) all that is left are those adamant scientists, empirical to the end, and the nonrational mythic true believers. And at this point the comparison is, as you portrayed, silly and embarrassing.
If you consider conformist, mythic belief as a natural stage of human development, that for many is transcended somewhere around age 9-15 years and is superseded by the rational reflexive stage, and that this is healthy development, then the rabid denial of mythic belief eases into a more sophisticated understanding that it has its place in the unfolding and growth of all human beings. Some do get stuck in mythic belief for years, some for the rest of their lives. The issue is not that they must move on, for this is a valid station in life, but that they should have healthy conformist beliefs and not the extremist, sickly violent versions often cited. They are not the same, and we as a society can emphasize the healthy and appropriately punish and contain the pathologically extreme and diseased.
When you set up the debate as faith against reason, and then simply choose the (more evolved) reason as the winner, it is a debate so partial and over simplified as to be nearly worthless. The fact that adults are on both sides of these perspectives masks the unequal developmental levels and completely disconnected sets of meaning and methods of truth determination appropriate to each developmental level. I know it is unpopular to even imply that some adults are more highly developed than others, but it is an observable fact. What makes it interesting and sweet, is viewing the whole thing from levels of development above rational empiricism.
Steve SelfDurango, CO
