There was another one of those conservative Christian tempests in a teapot last week. It was caused by Elizabeth Edwards’ last facebook post which seemed to conservatives to deny the existence of God:

“You all know that I have been sustained throughout my life by three saving graces–my family, my friends, and a faith in the power of resilience and hope,” she said in a statement on her Facebook page. “These graces have carried me through difficult times and they have brought more joy to the good times than I ever could have imagined.”

One conservative wrote:

Clearly Elizabeth Edwards wants to put her faith in something, be it hope or strength or anything. But not God. I wonder if it’s just bitterness … At her death bed and giving what most folks are calling a final goodbye, Elizabeth Edwards couldn’t find it somewhere down deep to ask for His blessings as she prepares for the hereafter? I guess that nihilism I’ve been discussing reaches up higher into the hard-left precincts than I thought.

For a more thoughtful perspective, read this article from Politics Daily.

For a longer perspective, here’s Michael Shermer on Einstein’s God. He concludes the essay with a quotation from a letter Einstein wrote in 1949:

I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being.

The call for humility is even more necessary, and less heeded, than it was sixty years ago.