Sir, – To develop the headline on Kathy Sheridan’s opinion piece (“Ebola: how faith, hope and science play their part”, October 29th) regarding the treatment of Ebola – faith, hope, and science play their part, but the greatest of these is science. If Texan nurse Nina Pham had been asked to choose as treatment either prayer or having the antibody treatment that she received, which might she have chosen? Our actions are in line with the Dawkins view, however much some protest. We choose to have our children vaccinated rather than relying on faith and hope, for example.
Is it fair to say that we trust the science but we include prayer on the basis that it can’t do any harm and it might help, and then we give it lots of credit when we recover? Perhaps that’s what annoys Prof Dawkins. Instead of further futile pro- and anti-Dawkins articles, I suggest that you devote some space to a deep analysis by leading psychologists and/or philosophers, and not excluding scientists, of the origins of the religious impulse in humans.
It would be good to read opinions on whether this impulse, which seeks for a benign power that looks after us, is a leftover from infancy when simple survival depends on having such a benign power to hand, or if it is based on the development of rational thought in later life, or a bit of both, or maybe neither. – Yours, etc,
MARTIN HENRY,
Drumcondra, Dublin 9.
A chara, – I must congratulate Kathy Sheridan on leaping to the defence of the downtrodden theists in the US. If only more Americans and their political leaders took up Ms Sheridan’s battle cry and professed their faith or mentioned God when they spoke publicly, then perhaps the theists in that country could free themselves from the oppression of the atheist mainstream. – Is mise,
BARRA Mac NIOCAILL,
Kilcock,
Co Kildare.
Sir, – It is possible to acknowledge and admire the courage and generosity of Nina Pham who risked her life to help Ebola victims and at the same time marvel at her ability to thank God for her recovery without her seeming to be taking into account the divine involvement in the creation of the problem in the first place. Kathy Sheridan trivialises the faith/reason dichotomy with her notion of “coolness” as being behind the increase in open atheism so apparent today.
Prof Dawkins seems to strike some as arrogant but I, for one, have never known him ask for anything but evidence. He has stated that he will be convinced by scientific evidence whether that evidence confirms or contradicts previously held opinion. This is not an attitude I would have thought comparable to Redemptorist preachers. – Yours, etc,
DERMOT McCABE,
Dublin 7.