From the Pub Philosopher, writing about his wife’s religious observance, and more:

Having a history degree, she also knows that the world could not have been made in 4004 BC and she has studied enough science to know that much of what is written in the Bible cannot possibly be true. But, just as she likes to take the decorations down on Twelfth Night, she also likes to go to church, sing hymns and read the Bible. As with many other perfectly sane and intelligent people, the mix of an attachment to tradition and a vague feeling that human reason may not be able to quite explain everything, keeps her observing these rituals. Many of us are reluctant to jettison our attachment to old beliefs completely. After all, you can never be sure, can you? Which is why I can’t accept the predictions by some scientists that religion will disappear within a few decades…This shows a belief in rationality that is, in itself, verging on a leap of religious faith. There has been enough information around for at least the past fifty years to kill religion stone dead. Much of this knowledge has been widely disseminated. Most people with even a basic education understand enough science to know that much of what is written in the scriptures cannot be the literal truth. People have been getting information through television and the internet for many years now, even in the less developed parts of the world, without it having much impact on their religious belief. It is difficult to see what difference a scientific theory of everything will make. If people were going to be persuaded away from religion by science it would have happened by now. Many people have drifted away from regular worship, either because science has blown a hole in religious certainty or because there are more things to do now on a Sunday, but that decline has come and gone. The hard core of church regulars, and the larger group that goes occasionally or drifts back at Christmas and Easter, are not going to be put off my more scientific discovery. They are choosing to worship for other reasons. We are drawn to religion by our feelings rather than our thoughts. The sense that, for all our clever inventions, there may still be things that humans will never know and the desire to hedge our bets just in case keeps many of us from declaring ourselves to be atheists. Combine that with the traditions and rituals of religion, which appeal to the senses not to the intellect, and you have something that defies the challenge from science.If science was going to kill religion it would have done it by now. For intellectuals such as Denett and Dawkins to claim that technology and a scientific theory of everything will destroy religion shows a kind of faith-based arrogance that we once thought only afflicted the religious.

Beautifully put. And very English.