In the unlikely event that you haven't already seen the tweet above, I had to share it. Joel Osteen is an evangelical fundamentalist pastor who presides over one of the largest Protestant churches in the U.S. He and his wife, Victoria, are all over TV and the Internet. To paraphrase Ron Burgundy, he's kind of a big deal.
Pastor Osteen has been spouting nonsense on Twitter for some time, but this tweet really stands out. I wonder which of the many gods humans have worshiped throughout the centuries he's referring to here? "Choose faith in spite of the facts" seems to be the mantra of choice for far too many religious believers. Just look at the number of people who re-tweeted this bit of wisdom!
Faith is not a valid way of knowing the world around us. It is what many people use to justify the few beliefs they are determined to hold regardless of how little evidence there is to support them. It is a cop-out that amounts to insisting, "I believe something because I desperately want it to be true." And when one willingly elevates faith above facts, we all lose.
