The God Delusion
by Richard Dawkins
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Book Reviews of The God Delusion
Book Review: Elementary at best. Absolutely pathetic at worst.
Summary: 1 Stars
Atheism is a subject that I haven't spent a lot of time researching until lately. This is due to the fact that Atheism has been fairly rare in my neck of the woods ("The Bible Belt") until the so-called "New Atheism" books became national best sellers. Because Atheism never appealed to me as a rational account for reality, I never really saw the need to investigate further. But as soon as my friends abandoned their faith in God and the Bible, I felt it necessary to find out why. Lo and behold, many of them did so because of books like "The God Delusion." And because I care about my friends, and want to be equipped to "give an answer" for my beliefs (1 Peter 3:15), I felt obliged to not only be familiar with atheistic reasoning, but to see if it can account for reality. "The God Delusion" was atheism's first attempt at this.
In this book, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, spends 10 chapters convincing his readers that "The God Hypothesis" not only has poor explanatory power, but hinders our rational, scientific, and moral minds. Though the author is a gifted writer, I was most disappointed that there was virtually no argument for atheism for the first 75 pages. In light of this, one sentence in the first chapter really got "The God Delusion" off on a bad start for me:
"It is possible that religious readers will be offended by what I have to say, and will find in these pages insufficient respect for their own particular beliefs (if not the beliefs that others treasure). It would be a shame if such offense prevented them from reading on, so I want to sort it out here, at the outset." (p. 20)
In other words, Richard Dawkins was about to get offensive. Now, I'm all about being up front with your beliefs, and even stepping on the toes of those who disagree with you. But one thing I strongly despise is disrespect. And for one who provides not one argument for atheism in the first 75 pages, disrespect and offense is not very appealing to a reader such as myself. Fortunately, I'm not closed-minded, so I kept reading in accordance with Dawkins' plea.
Nothing in the first chapter really rubbed me the wrong way. Some of the points that Dawkins developed was the "religious" nature of the atheist and used Einstein as an example. Dawkins sought to dispel the commonly held myth that he believed in God, as if the theists could claim him as one of their own. In doing so, Dawkins could justify his own "religious" nature, yet be fully atheistic in the process. Perhaps the following quote illustrates:
"If by `God' one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying...it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity." (p. 19, where Dawkins quotes Carl Sagan)
The last point in the chapter deals with some things that I have long realized; the political correctness in "respecting" Muslims and other easily offended religious groups. Without getting nit-picky with Dawkins, I found myself agreeing with much of what he said, and he rightly pointed out the many double standards involved in so-called "political correctness."
Chapter 2, "The God Hypothesis," didn't get off to a good start in the following being the first sentence:
"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."
This isn't to say that Dawkins doesn't have the write to say what he wants about YHWH, but this certainly sets the tone for the bias that is prevalent throughout the book. However, I think the downfall is Dawkins' hope of converting as many people as possible to atheism. And unfortunately, for Dawkins, he isn't going to get a lot of converts from people like myself; those who have actually done a little bit of research in the area of theistic evidences. Instead, Dawkins' target audience seems to be those who are in a "confused" state; perhaps they've grown up religious, but were never taught to question anything. Whatever the case, Dawkins' bluntness doesn't give him any more credibility in converting the honest researcher who isn't after emotional appeals.
While there is much to mention with regards to Chapter 2, I wanted to use this review to address some of the arguments Dawkins presents for his atheism. In Chapter 3, the author seeks to refute some of the long-held "proofs" for God's existence. Honestly, I was expecting much more from Dawkins. Never did I see any evidence that Dawkins has spent any time researching the modern, refined evidences for God. Instead, he refers back to the thirteenth century Thomas Aquinas, as if this was the best that theism had to offer. The reason this bothered me is because if Dawkins really wanted to convince his readers that there is no God, then why not appeal to the best that the other side has to say? Apparently, high standards don't apply to Dawkins.
First, the author "deals" with a few variations of the Cosmological Argument. In my opinion, Dawkins attempt was elementary. Had Dawkins bothered to read anything by modern theistic philosophers, he would be aware that Aquinas' arguments have actually undergone some significant development since the thirteenth century. It would be like me writing a refutation of evolution today but referencing Origin of Species and leaving out the plethora of evolutionary literature that has been written since. Surely, Dawkins would be appalled, and rightly so. He would hold me to the highest standard in dealing with the best that the other side has to say. Unfortunately, Dawkins didn't think too much about double-standards when writing his book.
It is quite insulting to see how little Dawkins actually devoted to the Cosmological Argument. From what I could count, only four paragraphs were devoted. In "refuting" the argument, Dawkins appeals to the constant drumbeat of the theist's "assumption that God himself is immune to the regress." (p. 77) This is repeated throughout in dealing with the various theistic arguments. However, if Dawkins had bothered to read, for instance, William Craig's treatise of the Kalam Cosmological Argument, he would have been aware that the regress doesn't apply to God, as it only applies to things which have a beginning:
I. Everything that had a beginning, had a cause.
II. The Universe had a beginning
III. Therefore, the Universe had a cause.
If there is a problem with an "infinite regress" for an eternal being, I submit that Dawkins has a much bigger problem in postulating that everything came from nothing. But to my knowledge, Dawkins did not deal with his own problems in atheism. Perhaps Dawkins doesn't see it as a problem that, given his view, things can spring into existence from nothing! Would Dawkins' not agree that from nothing, nothing comes? Apparently not, because for him, from nothing everything came!
For this reason, I have no reason to conclude otherwise that Dawkins is a poor philosopher as well as a poor researcher. Perhaps Dawkins is a great biological researcher? But the author has shown absolutely not evidence of being able to apply the same standards to his field to that of other fields to which he has no expertise.
There is almost no use in dealing with the other 4 "theistic proofs" as they are just as poorly dealt with. Perhaps one of the most insulting is his dealings with the Ontological Argument. Anyone who has taken a look at the philosophical arguments put forth with regards to this controversial issue would be appalled at how unfamiliar the author is with the arguments. In fact, if Dawkins had written this section as a philosophy paper in an introductory course, he would have failed. Whether you find the Ontological Argument to be good or not, atheist or theist, you can't help but cringe at how this man passes for an intellectual. And I don't mean this to be insulting. Dawkins has truly failed in fairly dealing with these theistic arguments.
One theistic evidence that was missing from "The God Delusion" was the Transcendental Argument for God's Existence, commonly referred to as TAG. But after reading Dawkins' poor treatise of the arguments, I'm actually glad that he didn't try to tackle it. I can't imagine how poorly he would misrepresent it. But again, I don't think Dawkins gives a rip about representing one's views fairly and could care less in targeting people like me as his audience. Instead, Dawkins is after the theists who never bothered, or will ever bother, to read the scholarly, source material for these arguments.
Chapter 4 is interestingly titled, "Why There Almost Certainly is No God." However, don't be fooled: the author is showing no evidence of an open mind. This chapter is basically dealing with the design argument. Dawkins' refutation basically boils down to, "who designed the designer?" as if theists didn't think this would be a potential objection. But never mind that. Dawkins doesn't expect his readers to read theistic works for themselves, for if they did, they'd see how elementary his arguments really are.
I found it very interesting that of all works which could be referenced, "Life--how did it Get Here?" (Published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society) was referenced. Dawkins is absolutely right that this is a popular work with eleven million published copies. But what Dawkins forgets to mention is that the vast majority of these books are owned by Jehovah's Witnesses themselves. Furthermore, a snowball in a blast furnace has a better chance than a Jehovah's Witness actually taking the time to evaluate the arguments presented in "The God Delusion." But never mind that. Dawkins isn't concerned with presenting the best that the other side has to offer. Instead, he refers to one of the most closed-minded religions in the world in presenting arguments against evolution. After all, why appeal to the hundreds of books and articles that have been written by Ph.D scientists in refuting evolution when you could refer to a book published by the Watchtower?
To be fair, Dawkins does reference Michael Behe in his dealings with irreducible complexity. But, as stated before, the author's attempt to refute is pathetic. "Without a word of justification, explanation or amplification, Behe simply proclaims the bacterial flagellar motor to be irreducibly complex." (p. 131) Rather than go into the complex arguments involved with the bacterial flagellum, I ask that you read Darwin's Black Box for yourself and see if Behe argues his point "without a word of justification." Those who do so will find Dawkins' statement to be utterly dishonest, even if one disagrees with Behe.
In attempting to deal with the flagellar motor, Dawkins borrows Miller's argument in appealing to the TTSS pump as evidence that the motor could function as something else before actually becoming a motor. Thus, the author concludes, "evidently, crucial components of the flagellar motor were already in place and working before the flagellar motor involved." (p. 132) I ask that the reader look at the responses offered by Behe and others to see if Dawkins actually dealt with the arguments fairly, as the issues would be too complex to discuss in this book review.
Dawkins then deals with some of the other theistic proofs, such as the "fine-tuning" argument, but falls into the same trap of not bothering to look at the counter-refutations or modern developments. Instead, the author presents the same tired argument of,
"A God capable of calculating the Goldilocks values for the six numbers would have to be at least as improbable as the finely tuned combination of numbers itself." (p. 143)
However, Dawkins completely misses the boat with his objection, which actually doesn't explain anything. This is in light of his example of the man who is sentenced to death by a firing squad, but they all miss. In reacting, the man exclaims, "Well, obviously they all missed, or I wouldn't be here thinking about it." (p. 144) This is a classic case of circular reasoning.
I. The universe is set up with specific parameters.
II. Life is here.
III. Therefore, it happened by chance. Otherwise we wouldn't be here.
The problem with Dawkins is that he neglects the specified and purposeful tuning of the universe. Its not just the mere fact that its improbable. After all, the structures to which a bucket of toothpicks forms after being dumped on the floor is extremely improbable. But finding toothpicks arranged on the floor to read the first page in "The God Delusion" would not just merely be an improbable event, as if it happened by chance. Instead, it would display specification, function, and purpose. This is the lens to which we view all things that are functionally and purposefully specified. But when it comes to the natural world, we have to advocate unproven and unnecessary "multiverse theories."
Chapter 5 deals with the roots of religion; where it comes from and why we have it. Certainly, I have my disagreements with Dawkins on this issue. However, the issue doesn't really matter if, in fact, Christianity is true. That is, you can speculate all you want to and come up with innumerable convincing theories. But if something is actually true, then it doesn't really matter to me how you think it might have originated. And this is a big problem I have with Dawkins' book; there is far more content that assumes the case is closed than actual arguments against theistic proofs. The number of pages devoted to Dawkins' opinions on religions is far too numerous in comparison to the shallow level to which he has dealt with the theistic arguments.
I was very disappointed with chapter 6, where Dawkins attempts to answer the question, "why be good?" And the reason I was disappointed is because the question is not, "why be good?" Instead, the question should be, "if there is no God, then what is the basis for good and evil?" In other words, you can come up with all the evolutionary explanations you want to as to "why" we should be "good." But the problem is, what if your "good" is not the same as my "good?" The "why" becomes completely irrelevant.
Chapter 7 is an attempt to disprove the Bible as any sort of "good book." But the argument assumes too much; namely, that Dawkins has an objective basis for judging the Bible. Even if the Bible were the most cruel and sadistic book in existence; if it is true, then its morality is true. Dawkins fails to realize this and simply argues on the basis that he is the objective beholder of true morality. But what he forgets is if atheism is true, then morality is up for grabs. In other words, what's wrong for you might be right for me. Later in the chapter, Dawkins sought to list his "10 commandments," as if they were somehow authoritative and binding upon all men. Sure, you might find a lot of people who think that its moral to obey, "in all things strive to cause no harm (Commandment #2)." But if you talk to the countless thousands who are in prisons worldwide for causing unjustified harm to others, they might just be there because they disagreed with the "second commandment." So here, Dawkins assumes what he is trying to prove; that these "commandments" are somehow the yardstick of morality.
Chapters 8 and 9 could probably be lumped together, as they are the epitome of Dawkins' hostility towards religion. In fact, the title of chapter 8 is, "What's wrong with religion? Why be so hostile?" Most of the arguments Dawkins makes are primarily based on "religion's" moral ills. Thus, because "religion" does things to hurt people and disobeys Dawkins' "ten commandments," he sees fit to be hostile. And with moral objectivity aside, I don't blame Dawkins for his hostility. In other words, Dawkins thinks that his morality is right, and so he acts accordingly. I do the same thing, since I believe that my morality is right. But what is Dawkins really arguing here? Everything that is "so wrong with religion" is only wrong because the neurons firing in his brain causes him to think that it is wrong. This says nothing about moral objectivity. Its all assumption, and does nothing for someone like me who believes that God, not Richard Dawkins, is the beholder of morality.
Overall, I was very disappointed with "The God Delusion." Had Dawkins spent more time in actual argument than expressing his hostility, I might have provided a better review. But it wasn't Dawkins' objective to actually convince people like me; those who are familiar with the arguments and are willing to look stuff up. Instead, Dawkins is targeting people who are on the edge of doubt; those who aren't going to look up the facts or counter-refutations by theistic apologists. And sadly, these people are embracing Dawkins' brand of radical atheism.
The only way this book can be at all profitable is to be familiar with the so-called "new atheists" and how they might present their arguments. However, in my opinion, your time would be much more well spent in reading arguments by the more sophisticated, less-hostile atheists who actually engage the best arguments from the other side. "The God Delusion" is a complete waste of paper and would have much better use in a recycling bin.
*All page numbers are from the hardcover 2006 edition.
Book Review: Poor philosophy and science
Summary: 1 Stars
When Professor Phillip Johnson--who would become the strategist for the Intelligent Design movement--was on sabbatical from teaching law in the late 1980s, he read two books about Darwinism. One was Richard Dawkins's best-selling The Blind Watchmaker, a defense of Darwin. The other was Michael Denton's Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. Johnson, whose expertise is in legal evidential reasoning, was surprised to learn that the case for Darwinism was weaker than he had imagined; in fact, it was so weak that he wrote Darwin on Trial. Johnson assessed Darwinism very seriously and concluded that it was supported more by a commitment to philosophical materialism (which had become a reigning ideology) than by empirical evidence.
One wishes that Richard Dawkins, the prestigious professor from Oxford and best-selling author, would take theism as seriously as Phillip Johnson took Darwinism While Dawkins has been called "Darwin's Rotreiller," he has refused to publicly debate proponents of Intelligent Design. However, he has written The God Delusion, which is a well-written, acerbic, and unconvincing case against the existence of God in general and against Christianity in particular (with potshots taken at other religions). He is one of a breed of atheists (which include Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens) that takes theism to be beneath contempt. For example, Dawkins concludes his book by arguing that raising children religiously is a form of child abuse.
Dawkins routinely uses "sledgehammer rhetoric." The case against the opponent is put in the strongest possible terms and the opponent is belittled as having nothing but irrationality to offer. However, while Dawkins wields the sledgehammer in order to strike a series of lethal blows, the hammerhead seldom hits the target. Instead, it twirls in circles, creating quite a lot of agitated air, but little cogent argumentation.
There is much to critique in this large book, and I cannot address everything; but first, there are a few things to commend. Dawkins makes hay of the idea that a reverential attitude toward the universe--as evidenced by the iconic Einstein--reconciles modern science and monotheistic religion. However, Einstein was not a theist, but (at best) a pantheist of the Spinoza variety. Nature is the deity, but one that is not a personal creator, designer, and revelator; it would not intervene in nature since it is nature, viewed from a certain angle. Dawkins is also right to chastise theists who claim that God has not left any scientifically detectible evidence for his existence and that one must take it on blind faith. Dawkins overstates the case when he claims that religion is a scientific hypothesis: Christian truth claims can be verified through means other than science (such as philosophy, religious experience, history, and so on). However, he is correct to expect that if an omnipotent and omnipresent being went to the trouble of creating the cosmos, he should have left some evidence of himself in it. This is what the Bible itself claims (see Psalm 19:1-4; Romans 1:18-21). Dawkins rightly ridicules those who accept the Darwinian explanation for biology (which was created as a designer substitute) and claim that God used this godless method to create the world. Dawkins quips that if this is the method God employed, God left himself very little to do.
My agreement with Dawkins pretty much ends there, besides my agreement with some of this criticism of the unchristian conduct of some professing Christians. Most of the book argues against God and Christianity, with chapter four, "Why There is Almost Certainly No God," stating the case most strongly. Having dispensed with the deity, Dawkins then explains why so many people are religious when there is no God and goes on to explicate the evils he thinks uniquely emanate from religion. Here Dawkins invokes evolutionary psychology and a number of other highly speculative explanations. But if Dawkins's case against God and Christianity fails, the attempt to explain away Christian belief on godless Darwinian grounds can be dismissed as begging the question. He also tries to explain morality apart from religion--while never giving the moral argument for God more than a passing glance --and argues that atheism is the best hope for humanity. Rather than addressing his explanation for religion and his positive program, I will focus on his critique of the case for God.
Dawkins targets a variety of arguments for God's existence, but the gun keeps misfiring or missing the right targets. Amazingly, he never addresses the kalam cosmological argument, one of the most powerful and most discussed theistic arguments of the last thirty years. Nor does he mention the much-discussed theistic interpretation of Big Bang cosmology. Pascal's wager is summarily dismissed and badly botched. He rather begins with an argument he thinks he can safely mock: the ontological argument. This is a deductive argument based on the very idea of God as a superlative being. This argument is impossible to summarize simply and fairly, and Dawkins's doesn't really bother to do so. There are two main forms of the argument, both of which have received extensive philosophical attention in the last fifty years, both pro and con. Dawkins claims that it is absurd to infer the existence of God from a theological concept, since we should have empirical evidence for important claims. Yet this statement, if taken to be a universal principle, is self-refuting, since the statement itself is not backed by empirical claims, but is a mere assertion. Furthermore, there are intellectually rigorous versions of the ontological argument formulated by Alvin Plantinga and Norman Malcolm that escape Dawkins's facile and fatuous dismissal.
While the ontological argument is little known outside of academic circles, the argument from design is a staple of popular and academic apologetics. The structure of the argument is that certain features of nature are better explained on the basis of being designed than of being the product of mindless chance and necessity (or unintelligent causes). The argument can appeal to large-scale features of the universe revealed by astrophysics (the fine-tuning argument) or smaller portions found in biology. Dawkins's attack against design is two-fold. First, purely natural forces best explain apparent design at all levels. Second, even if an appeal to a designer were warranted, this would explain nothing, since the designer (being vastly complex) itself would have to be designed, thus triggering an infinite regress in which nothing gets explained.
Dawkins dismisses the arguments of the Intelligent Design movement (ID) as "lazy" and based on ignorance. He maintains that invoking a designing intelligence to explain something like the sophisticated bacterial flagellum (an outboard motor that propels bacteria through the cell) is a science stopper, since ID proponents simply cry "God did it," thus ending scientific explanation. But Dawkins's critique of Michael Behe's argument based on the flagellum and other biological systems misses the mark. Behe argues that the flagellum is "irreducibly complex." This means that all the approximately forty proteins parts need to be in place for the motor to work at all. A partially functioning motor does no good for the bacterium and would not be conserved by natural selection, which only conserves biological functions that benefit the organism's propensity to survive. Behe calls this "the mousetrap principle," because all the parts of a mousetrap are required for catching mice. The flagellum (and many other biological functions) fails to fit Darwin's demand that evolution be slow and gradual. Behe argues that in light of recent discoveries about the cell, Darwin's theory on this level has broken down, and that an appeal to an intelligent cause, a designer, is scientifically warranted given the empirical evidence.
Dawkins simply affirms that there must be a materialistic explanation for the flagellum, since this is how science--or his materialistic view of science--is done. But this begs the question as to whether there could be detectable empirical evidence of design in nature. Dawkins says, "No," and relies on a post-dated check for some materialistic explanation to be found. Just give us time. He does note that another biological system--the Type III Secretor System--contains ten of the flagellum's forty parts and announces that this refutes Behe, since this less complex system had to have been an ancestor to the flagellum. This is called the co-option theory, and it is woefully inadequate, since it leaves thirty parts of the flagellum unexplained, as well as the detailed DNA assembly instructions which are required for the flagellum to be put together properly in the correct sequence. Dawkins also errs by saying that Behe's theory claims that none of the approximately forty necessary parts of the flagellum can be found in other working systems. Since ten are found in another system, Behe is refuted. But Behe never made the claim that other parts could not be found in other organisms. Rather, he said that all forty parts of the bacterial flagellum are required for its motor function and that this function could not be built up by Darwinism's "slight, successive variation."
Behe's inference to design as the best explanation for the flagellum is not "lazy" or a "science stopper." Nor is it based on ignorance. Rather, it is based on vastly increased knowledge of the workings within the cell that has come about in the last several decades. Further, Behe is open to plausible materialistic pathways (appealing only to unintelligent causes) that would lead to the flagellum's function. But none have been forthcoming, aside from the "just-so" stories required to keep philosophical materialism afloat in biology. As ID theorist William Dembski argues, the design inference is a "can-do" principle. We know that intelligent designers produce irreducibly complex systems (such as mouse traps and things far more complex). But the only recourse for Darwinists is to summon unintelligent and mindless nature to explain the flagellum. So, any materialistic explanation--not matter how far fetched or evidence-challenged--beats every design inference (in principle). This is not a fair way to do science.
Moreover, design thinkers are cautious in saying "God did it." They rather claim that materialism is scientifically inadequate to explain aspects of life. They leave the identity of the designer fairly open. The ID conclusion is certainly "friendly toward theism," as ID theorist Stephen Meyer puts it, but it does not attempt give a total apologetic for Christianity.
Then who designed the designer? Dawkins repeatedly plays this as his trump card. If nature is complex, the designer of nature must be more complex. If so, the designer must be explained by a designer outside of itself, and so on, ad infinitum. But Dawkins's trump card is a really a Joker. First, ID attempts to explain certain finite, material, and contingent states in nature through a design inference. It does not make the grand claim that everything that is complex needs a designer. Second, if God is the designer, God is not a finite, material, or contingent being by definition. Rather, God is self-existent (Acts 17:25). Third, Dawkins chides theists that if God is the ultimate designer then God is unexplained. But explanations have to end somewhere. For theists, they end in God, who is conceived as a superlative and thus self-existent being. Dawkins thinks that for that for God to explain anything he must be simple, and that this is absurd, since God does so many complicated things such as create life, listen to prayers, and so on. While many theists have argued that God is simple, Dawkins misses the point. The issue is whether God, as a superlative being, is self-existent (unlike matter). For materialists, unthinking matter, chance and fortuitous natural laws must explain everything yet remain themselves unexplained.
Fourth, Dawkins presupposes a matter-first, bottom-up view of what explanations must be. He rules out by materialist fiat a mind-first, top-down (designing intelligence) view. Thus, materialism disallows a proper investigation of the evidence at hand. ID theorists, on the other hand, have more tools in their tool box: they can appeal to both material causes and intelligent causes in explaining nature.
Space forbids analysis of Dawkins's cavalier treatment of the fine-tuning argument for God, and his dismissal of the fantastic improbabilities of the first life evolving on earth through mere natural forces. Suffice it to say that Dawkins never states his opponent's views adequately and offers in their place any possible materialistic explanation, no matter how far fetched.
The tone does not change when Dawkins addresses the Bible. On his view, the Bible can be little more than a collection of pious fictions, since its principle character--God--does not exist. Dawkins's approach is that any biblical text with a historical problem must be a palpable falsehood. Moreover, any miracle story is false, since there is no God to perform such feats. In other words, the Bible is guilty until proven innocent. But it is never proven innocent, since God does not exist. It is a neat system of dismissal, but one lacking in academic integrity. A good study Bible and sources by conservative biblical scholars can easily answer most of Dawkins's overheated objections. For example, he dismisses the historicity of the Gospel accounts of Jesus' early life because they differ in various ways, such as genealogies. Rather than realizing that they were written by different authors with different audiences, he infers that they are contradictory and are the result of theological agendas that invented pious fictions. But these kinds of issues have been noted by Christian thinkers for centuries and plausible solutions are available, if one is concerned to study the issue carefully.
Dawkins confesses that the purpose of The God Delusion is to convert people to atheism. The book--along with several similar ones--seems to be giving ammunition to atheists and converting some from agnosticism to atheism. Nevertheless, it poses no serious threat to a well-informed and philosophically credible Christian faith. Unhappily, however, not enough Christians have the apologetic background to withstand his attacks. This is not the fault of Christianity, but of intellectually lazy Christians. May this book serve to jolt unprepared Christians out of their ignorance and inspire them to defend the Christian truth with zeal and knowledge (Jude 3).
Book Review: Meet the New Atheism, Same as the Old Atheism
Summary: 2 Stars
Richard Dawkins believes in the resurrection. He believes in it so much, that he is leading a crusade to convince others of it, and, like the revivalists of old, he has hit the circuit looking for converts. The resurrection Dawkins believes in is not the Resurrection (the one with a capital 'R'), but another kind altogether. His faith is not faith in God, but faith in science--or rather, Science. It is not the Resurrection of Christ he is preaching, but the resurrection of a movement.
With his new book, The God Delusion, Dawkins places himself at the head of what one journalist has called the "New Atheism." His book is one of several released over the last year that have attempted to reverse the rise of evangelical Christianity, and, to a lesser extent, fundamentalist Islam. He is the first person in the new atheist trinity, which includes Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris, both of whom have written similar anti-religious tracts, and both of whom, like Dawkins, are filled with the spirit, and shouting their message from the street corners.
Before Dawkins begins the business of calling hellfire and brimstone down on the believers, however, he points his finger at those who pretend to be standing on the sidelines in the debate over the truth of religion and the existence of God. He first goes after the agnostics. With the earlier and more eloquent atheist George Bernard Shaw, Dawkins charges agnostics with the sin of being atheists without the courage of their convictions.
Well, most of them anyway. He makes a distinction between the kind of agnostic who temporarily suspends judgement until he has more evidence one way or another, and the kind of agnostic who believes that the question of God's existence is unanswerable. The first are the sheep, the second the goats. The first he can abide, but for the second he has little but disdain. It is this second school of thought that Dawkins refers to when he talks about the "poverty of agnosticism." It is here where Dawkins parts company with many of his allies in the scientific establishment, and it is here where Dawkins distinguishes himself from the great atheistic philosophies of the 20th century, returning instead to the 19th.
Although the title of "New" has been placed on his brand of atheism, Dawkins is an atheist of the old school. He is preachy, condescending, and a bit of a scold. Apparently impatient with philosophical subtleties, he seems to have shirked off the more sophisticated criticisms of early 2oth century philosophy. Beginning with Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein, skeptical philosophers began to argue that religion was neither true nor false, but simply meaningless. This view received its most articulate treatment in A. J. Ayer's 1928 book, Language, Truth, and Logic. The first chapter of Ayer's book, "The End of Metaphysics," remains one of the few persuasive attacks on religious belief, although Ayer himself later gave up on much of the views expressed in the book. This view has dominated higher level discussions of religious truth questions ever since.
Dawkin's approach, however, harkens back to days of Robert Ingersoll, Joseph McCabe, and Joseph Lewis. He is not quite their equal in severity and lack of a sense of humor, but he rivals them in fervor. Like these stern atheists of old, Dawkins prefers to face religion head on, and his contempt for less direct approaches is transparent.
Dawkins first takes on Stephen Jay Gould, now conveniently dead (as are many of Dawkin's chosen opponents). Gould, a Harvard paleontologist and popular science writer, believed that religious questions such as the existence of God are simply not scientific questions, and that science cannot therefore adjudicate them. It is a version of the Two Truths doctrine of the medieval Arab philosopher Averroes, who held that there are truths of reason and truths of faith, and that truths in one sphere may be falsehoods in the other.
"[T]o cite old cliches," Dawkins quotes Gould as saying, "science gets the age of rocks, and religion the rock of ages; science studies how the heavens go, religion how to go to heaven." Dawkins will have none of it: "What are these ultimate questions," he asks, "in whose presence religion is an honored guest and science must respectfully slink away?" Dawkins denies that there can be two truths, one for science and one for religion: "... a universe with a creative superintendent would be a very different kind of universe from one without. Why is that not a scientific matter?"
In fact, Dawkins castigates the American scientific establishment for assuming this Two Truths doctrine in their debate with the Intelligent Design movement, denouncing the National Center for Science Education and their ilk as the "Neville Chamberlain School of Evolutionists." On this question, ironically, Dawkins is on the side of the Intelligent Design movement--and Christianity in general. Religious truth claims make a difference in the world, but while Christianity maintains the claims are true, Dawkins pronounces them false.
Dawkins summarizes the argument of his book this way:
Any creative intelligence, of sufficient complexity to design anything, comes into existence only as the end product of an extended process of gradual evolution. Creative intelligences, being evolved, necessarily arrive late in the universe, and therefore cannot be responsible for designing it. God...is a delusion; and, as later chapters show, a pernicious delusion.
There are several problems with his argument that ultimately make The God Delusion a great disappointment. The first is his tendency to avoid proving his own theses in favor of simply assuming them and hoping the reader will find the implications of them as attractive and self-evident as he does. The scientist in him wants to test the predictability of his theory, in this case with speculative theories of how things might have come about solely by virtue of material conditions. He uses this method in his discussion of the origin of religion and of morality, and it falls flat.
His entire discussion of the origin of religion requires you to have previously accepted his naturalistic world view. "Knowing that we are products of Darwinian evolution..." he begins, and then we are off to the races. "The proximate cause of religion might be hyperactivity in a particular node of the brain," he declares. But the ultimate cause, he thinks, lies in his theory that religion is "a byproduct of something else." He then launches into various theories of what religious belief may have been useful for, all of which are pure speculation.
Dawkin's whole discussion of the naturalistic explanation of religion assumes that such an explanation renders the beliefs thus explained illusory. But if a naturalistic explanation for a belief renders it illusory, and all beliefs can be explained naturalistically, then atheism too can be explained naturalistically, and is therefore illusory. He who lives by naturalistic explanations must die by them.
All of Dawkin's explanations seem stifled and contrived by his own ideological materialism. He uses his naturalistic world view as a Procrustean bed into which he tries to fit everything, however much he has to hack and stretch it to fit. And what a small bed it is.
The second problem with Dawkin's book is the condescending tone with which he dismisses the arguments of those with whom he disagrees. One religious argument is "amusing, if rather pathetic," another "a joke," another "silly," and another "a grotesque piece of reasoning." This glib attitude particularly plagues the section of the book dealing with the traditional arguments for Christianity.
St. Thomas's cosmological arguments for God's existence--that the universe requires an explanation--"are easily...exposed as vacuous." Anselm's ontological argument for God's existence is "infantile." And William Paley's design argument, he says, Charles Darwin "blows out of the water."
And where simple pejoratives won't do, and arguments actually employed, Dawkins fails to impress. In response to C. S. Lewis's trilemma--that Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or God Himself--Dawkins simply posits the possibility that Jesus was honestly mistaken, despite the fact that anyone familiar with the force of this argument knows that is certainly not a possibility. And besides, "historically it is complete nonsense." Dawkins asserts that there is no good historical evidence that Jesus thought he was divine, but his response to the wealth of evidence that he did is nowhere to be found. He questions the historical existence of Jesus, a belief that has few adherents outside its friendly home in liberal theological seminaries.
In the end, Dawkins admits that Jesus probably existed, but that the Biblical documents are unreliable, his only argument being that "reputable" Biblical scholars (undoubtedly defined as those with whom Dawkins agrees) question them.
Somehow it all seems too easy.
Even if you didn't recognize the lack of philosophical sophistication in Dawkin's attempted refutations, you notice immediately that Dawkins has trouble even conceiving how anyone could ever have been convinced by these arguments. This is not only an intellectual weakness in Dawkin's approach, but a rhetorical one. Somehow, you are more persuaded by the detractors of a position who appreciate the strength of their opponents positions than those, like Dawkins, who don't. You feel as if the person hasn't really confronted the power of the arguments against his own position, and you therefore wonder how it would affect his opinion if he did.
In too many cases in the book Dawkins is justified in his dismissiveness toward the arguments he takes on, but only because he has cherry picked the weakest arguments for theism. And this is the third great deficiency of the book.
Outside of a few places in the second section of the book, Dawkins boxes at shadows that seem a poor imitation of historic theism. A close inspection of the index reveals how little familiarity Dawkins has with modern Christian apologetics. He mentions only a small handful of great modern Christian thinkers. There is even a passing mention of G. K. Chesterton. But none of these are carefully considered.
He admits Lewis into his book briefly (and, as we said, dismissively), but where is J. Gresham Machan, Cornelius Van Til, and John Warwick Montgomery, or, more contemporaneously, Alvin Plantinga, J. P. Moreland, and Francis Beckwith? They are glaringly absent. Instead, Dawkins prefers to take on the likes of Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts, Jesse Helms, and Fred Phelps, the fundamentalist minister of Westboro Baptist Church who pickets funerals with signs saying that "fags" are "going to Hell". These names constitute a sort of religious bum-of-the-month club that allows Dawkins to avoid fighting the real contenders.
How convenient.
In his debate with the atheist philosopher C.E.M. Joad (who later became a Christian) in the first part of the 20th century, Catholic writer Arnold Lunn pointed out that a position must be judged on the basis of the strongest arguments for it, not the weakest ones you can find.
The God Delusion has received the usual plaudits from the expected sources. But criticism has come from places well outside the religious community. Two of the most stinging critiques have come from the philosopher Thomas Nagel, and literary critic Terry Eagleton. And indeed everything that Dawkin's attempts in The God Delusion has been done better in some other book. A reader interested in a naturalistic explanation of religion and a critical view of the historicity of Christianity will find it stated more convincingly in H. L. Mencken's Treatise on the Gods. Those who are looking for a philosophically sophisticated attack on theism would be better off with Ayer's Language, Truth, and Logic. And, ironically, a much better argument against design in nature from an evolutionary perspective is Dawkin's own Blind Watchmaker.
And speaking of Mencken, atheism's last great popularizer, Dawkins seems clearly to be trying to emulate him, but to little affect. Mencken's attacks on religion were informed with a real wit that Dawkins sorely lacks. Mencken also had a poetic sense of the world that seems missing in Dawkins. Without the aesthetic appeal of Mencken, Dawkin's condescension sounds more akin to the more pedestrian likes of Madelaine Murray O'Hair. It wouldn't sound entirely out of place in this book to hear Dawkins utter an O'Hair line such as, "Jesus wasn't worthly to lick my boots."
Mencken was the last of the old school atheists, who openly declared their opinion that religion was absurd, and spared no effort in running it down. Mencken considered religious adherents to be boobs, largely because he considered most everyone to be boobs. Dawkins, however, is more selective in his disdain, choosing to scorn only the believers.
This refusal to take religious views seriously prevents Dawkins from convincingly dealing with them, and it is this consideration that prevents us from judging atheism on the basis of Dawkin's book. If we did, we would only be engaging in the very behavior that mars Dawkin's book itself: judging a position by something less than the best arguments for it.
Book Review: An Atheist Manifesto
Summary: 3 Stars
The fact that there are already more than 1500 reviews of this book testifies to its importance and timeliness. An overview of the reviews also points to an interesting sociologic phenomenon. Reviews written by readers who agree with Dawkins' thesis tend to get a "helpful" comment, while equally well written reviews who point out fallacies in Dawkins' argument tend more commonly to be regarded as "not helpful." This seems to point to a need to have the atheistic point of view validated by a respectable scientist.
This is also the stated purpose of Dawkins book. He wants to "raise the consciousness" of atheists because, atheism "is something to be proud of, standing tall to face far horizons, for atheism nearly always indicates a healthy independence of mind and, indeed, a healthy mind." While I agree, that one need not be ashamed of atheism but regarding it as a source of pride seems equally unwarranted because we are talking about opinions rather than facts and, in addition, pride is not necessarily a healthy emotion.
The book can be regarded as the equivalent of the 1848 Communist Manifesto which was likewise designed to shore up a minority view in the hope that the ideas expressed therein would inevitably triumph because they were so logical and self-evident. When one exchanges the words "oppression by the bourgeois class" for "religious oppression" one will find considerable similarities between these two documents. This is especially true for the assumption that abolition of classes in the Marx and Engels manifesto, and abolition of religion in the case of Dawkins, will usher in the messianic age of pace, harmony and good will among the majority if not all human beings. But past history does not bear this out. The French Revolution, which abolished religion, led to the reign of terror and so did Lenin's 1917 revolution. Let us also not forget that National Socialism was guided by reason and logic, as soon as one bought into the basic premise of what has been called "social Darwinism" and one was "racially pure Aryan." Dawkins does not mention these precedents and may regard them as aberrations, but religious people can then point out that the excesses which have occurred under organized religions were likewise deviations from the norm rather than the norm itself.
Dawkins is correct in stating that religious dogmas are incompatible with scientific facts and that the probability for the existence of a creator God who personally influences our daily lives is small. I agree with Dawkins on this point and it was the reason why I wrote The Jesus Conundrum-A Search for Truth beyond Dogma, as well as related articles on my website. Nevertheless, it should also be pointed out that when it comes to the existence or non-existence of God we are dealing with opinions rather than theories or hypothesis which can be experimentally verified.
Although Dawkins has discussed some objections to a purely scientific approach to life there is an additional reason why science does not lend itself to a proof for the existence of God. First of all, instead of "science" in the abstract we should talk about the scientific method. It relies on measurements which in turn result from phenomena which have been visually apprehended and put into language. Even if the language consists originally of mathematical formulas they have to be retranslated into ordinary language so that others can evaluate it. These are significant limitations and they exclude the workings of the inner mind. If one wants to, one can analyze Shakespeare's works scientifically and we will be stuck with word counts, sentence structure etc., but that aspect which makes Shakespeare - Shakespeare, the feelings and thoughts which his words arouse in us will be entirely lost. I submit that a similar situation pertains in relation to our feelings about God.
As a scientist I have no problem accepting current scientific results and the idea of natural selection, but as a human being I also think about the why and wherefore. "To be steeped in natural selection, immersed in it, swim about in it," may work for Dawkins but not for me. The difference is that Dawkins seems to live mentally in a digital universe where there are zeros and ones, yes or no, true or false; while mine is populated by yes-buts, qualifications which allow for an "as well as" approach, and attempts at synthesis of the best ideas rather than mere total rejection of one for another.
These are, of course, personal aspects but to believe that human beings have reached the status of Homo sapiens is wishful thinking as the events of the past and current century prove. To achieve that status we still have a long way to go and digital thinking, in the manner of Dawkins, will not get us there. The true-false, good-evil, right-wrong dichotomies, of the religious as well as secular variety, have gotten us into the wars we are currently engaged in and are likely to bring about further catastrophes. Dawkins decries moderation and tolerance but unless we come to a meeting of minds by mutual concessions we will continue to kill each other regardless of the name the killing is ostensibly done for. We don't need "secular humanism" which is opposed to "religious humanism;" let us instead create a "Humane society," not just for animals but people.
The amazon program seems to have a problem at this time and this is why I have to append my response to Mr. E. Bordon's comment here:
Thank you for your comments which deal with fundamental problems the human race has struggled with for the past 2500 years and I have dealt with them in various Hot Issues of my website www.thinktruth.com. I have also tried to answer Pilate's question, "What is Truth?" in the last chapter of The Jesus Conundrum-Searching for Truth beyond Dogma and shall, therefore, be brief. You have raised the question of pride and I agree that certain religious communities also show an extraordinary pride in their belonging to an elect group. But that doesn't make it right, and fighting fire with fire leaves the landscape desolate. There was good reason why the Catholic Church as well as Buddhism, has declared pride a sin in the first instance, and as a human defilement in the second. There is a difference beween "a god" who has a specific name, associated with some specific properties, and the concept of "God" as spirit which cannot be named and whose properties are unknown; although one hopes that they are predominantly benign. This "God" resides in the innermost depths of the human being and as such is a subjective experience which cannot be objectified. Even talking about it cannot do justice because words are already symbols and inadequate ones to boot. The mistake which is made by "professional atheists" (defined as: individuals who feel the necessity to destroy the religious faith of others) is that they do not want to realize that the human being does not live only in the physical universe, which can be apprehended through science, but also lives in an inner world of thoughts and emotions which take over as soon as one closes the eyes or "daydreams." Yet they are the mainsprings of speech, reason and conduct. Since they are subjective and intensely personal they are not accessible to scientific methodology. As an example one can take a sonnet by Shakespeare. One can scientifically study it in terms of rhyme, length of sentences, word usage etc. But why does it profoundly affect one person and is a "so what" for another? One can readily analogize this to the concept of God and why an agreement on God's existence or non-existence will never be reached by the majority of humanity. While God is a "delusion" for Dawkins and an "illusion" for Freud, God is the essence of one's being for others. Absolute truth is not obtainable by human beings and what we regard as truth at a given time may become either patently false, or more commonly partially true at another. Even in science we are not dealing with unadulterated objective truth. A given scientific fact is ascertained with a specific methodology and is true within that limitation. But, to make it useful, this fact has to be "interpreted" and this is the point where subjectivity can overpower science and lead to "scientism." That glaciers have considerably shrunk in size during the 20th century is a measurable fact which anyone can convince oneself of. The argument is not over the shrinking, but its cause which continues to be endlessly debated by reputable scientists. Tolerance is indeed a worthwhile goal but it should be practiced in one's conduct and labeling other human beings who cannot share someone else's belief system, even if bolstered by scientific results (which are irrelevant for the question at hand), as deluded does not help matters. As I said earlier, atheists and agnostics should be granted equal respect to those of "religious people," as befits their status as human beings, and when either group oversteps the boundaries of decency it should be taken to task. As mentioned the questions you raise are indeed fundamental to our outlook on life and I shall devote the June installment of the Hot Issues under the title "Digital Thinking" to further discussion. If you have other questions in the meantime I will try to answer them here. Thank you for your comments which deal with fundamental problems the human race has struggled with for the past 2500 years and I have dealt with them in various Hot Issues of my website www.thinktruth.com. I have also tried to answer Pilate's question, "What is Truth?" in the last chapter of The Jesus Conundrum-Searching for Truth beyond Dogma and shall, therefore, be brief. You have raised the question of pride and I agree that certain religious communities also show an extraordinary pride in their belonging to an elect group. But that doesn't make it right, and fighting fire with fire leaves the landscape desolate. There was good reason why the Catholic Church as well as Buddhism, has declared pride a sin in the first instance, and as a human defilement in the second. There is a difference beween "a god" who has a specific name, associated with some specific properties, and the concept of "God" as a spirit which cannot be named and whose properties are unknown; although one hopes that they are predominantly benign. This "God" resides in the innermost depths of the human being and as such is a subjective experience which cannot be objectified. Even talking about it cannot do justice because words are already symbols and inadequate ones to boot. The mistake which is made by "professional atheists" (defined as: individuals who feel the necessity to destroy the religious faith of others) is that they do not want to realize that the human being does not live only in the physical universe, which can be apprehended through science, but also lives in an inner world of thoughts and emotions which take over as soon as one closes the eyes or "daydreams." Yet they are the mainsprings of speech, reason and conduct. Since they are subjective and intensely personal they are not accessible to scientific methodology. As an example take a sonnet by Shakespeare. You can scientifically study it in terms of rhyme, length of sentences, word usage etc. But why does it profoundly affect one person and is a "so what" for another? One can readily analogize this to the concept of God and why an agreement on God's existence or non-existence will never be reached by the majority of humanity. While God is a "delusion" for Dawkins and an "illusion" for Freud, God is the essence of one's being for others. Absolute truth is not obtainable by human beings and what we regard as truth at a given time may become either patently false, or more commonly partially true at another. Even in science we are not dealing with unadulterated objective truth. A given scientific fact is ascertained with a specific methodology and is true within that limitation. But, to make it useful, this fact has to be "interpreted" and this is the point where subjectivity can overpower science and lead to "scientism." That glaciers have considerably shrunk in size during the 20th century is a measurable fact which anyone can convince oneself of. The argument is not over the shrinking, but its cause which continues to be endlessly debated by reputable scientists. Tolerance is indeed a worthwhile goal but it should be practiced in one's conduct and labeling other human beings who cannot share someone else's belief system, even if bolstered by scientific results (which are irrelevant for the question at hand), as deluded does not help matters. As I said earlier, atheists and agnostics should be granted equal respect to those of "religious people," as befits their status as human beings, and when either group oversteps the boundaries of decency it should be taken to task. As mentioned the questions you raise are indeed fundamental to our outlook on life and I shall devote the June installment of the Hot Issues under the Title "Digital Thinking" to further discussion. If you have other questions in the meantime I will try to answer them here.
Book Review: GOOD ARGUMENTS BUT ONE MAJOR CONTRADICTION
Summary: 5 Stars
The irrationality in religious arguments for the existence of God.
In this book and his related conferences around the world Richard Dawkins rightly demonstrates the irrationality in the arguments put forward for the existence of god. He also correctly analyzes the distorted thinking in major religions of the world and in Creationist dogma under the guise of "Intelligent Design" and how religions have been harming societies of the world throughout history. He refutes many religious allegations that claim to prove the existence of god one by one by showing the distorted and inconsistent thinking in them. For example, the religious reasoning that if science can not explain a natural event this is proof that the natural event is designed and caused by God and therefore God exists is ludicrous. The fact that something is not yet explained by science is no proof of the existence of God. Many natural events that have scientific explanations today could not be explained scientifically centuries ago. Dawkins gives the example that thousands of years ago humans could not explain the sunrise and concluded therefore that it was an event caused by a diety. Science does not claim to be able to explain everything. However, even if science can never explain a certain natural event this does not lead to the logical conclusion that God did it and that God exists.
Somethings can not be proved nor disproved scientifically. For something to constitute a scientific hypothesis it must be falsifiable either by observation and / or experimentation. I recommend that the reader refer to Karl Popper's books on the philosophy of science for details, although the subjectivity of observations has been brought as a counter argument by some people. When somebody makes a claim and says you can not disprove it by science that does not make the claim automatically true. Dawkins quotes the great philosopher Bertrand Russel on that : if somebody were to claim that a teapot was in orbit around the sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter this claim could not be proved nor disproved scientifically because at present we don't have telescopes powerful enough to show such a small object so far away from Earth. However, the fact that science can not disprove it does not make the claim true. Dawkins states that similarly the existence of goblins, genies etc. could be, in fact are claimed and their existence can not be disproved scientifically. Using this as an argument that they must therefore exist is illogical and irrational. By the same reasoning, claiming that God exists because science can not prove its non - existence is also ridiculous. If we want to conclude that God exists this must be based on some strong evidence, not necessarily scientific evidence, but some evidence nevertheless. Religion states that creation as explained in the Holy books is evidence. Dawkins demonstrates that holy scripture is not evidence ; it is not based on any rational reasoning. Religious reasoning goes : " it is so because the Bible / Kuran say so. You can not question the Holy books because they are scripture downloaded from God. "
Dawkins reminds us that scientific reasoning is based on developing scientific hypothesis that can be tested against evidence. Science never claims to have found the ultimate truth, scientific explanations have been developing and changing for the past 400 years. By contrast, all the major religions claim to have the ultimate truth already. They are divine and written in the Bible, the Kuran etc. There is no need to test them because they are divine truths. And if science claims the contary regarding creation etc. it is science that is wrong, because the holy books are divine scripture and God can not be wrong. Dawkins reminds us that religion is based on faith resulting from indoctrination at childhood.
Is God a scientific hypothesis or not ?
I agree with all of Richard Dawkins' comments so far. But two of his statements in two different parts of his book / lectures seriously contradict one another. On the one hand he says that God should be a scientific hypothesis subject to proof or disproof like any scientific hypothesis. On the other hand he says that science can not disprove God. By themselves these statements are OK. But taken together they are mutually exclusive ; they can not both be true. If God is a scientific hypothesis we can not say science can not disprove God ; science may not yet have proved or disproved God. But as a scientific hypothesis it should eventually prove or disprove God. If on the other hand the statement that science can not disprove God is true then we can not say that God is or should be a scientifc hypothesis. Because something that can not be proved nor disproved scientifically, like the teapot in orbit around the sun, is not a scientific hypothesis. It seems that Richard Dawkins overlooked this contradiction in these two statements of his. He did not make these statements one after the other ; they are quite separate in his book / lecture. Put the two statements together and the contradiction is obvious. I think Mr. Dawkins needs to make up his mind about this; can the existence / non- existence of God be a scientific hypothesis or not ? If yes, then he should not say elsewhere in his book / lecture that science can not disprove God. He can say science has not yet disproved nor proved the existence of God. By contrast if he concludes that science can not disprove God then he should drop his other statement that God should be a scientific hypothesis. Both statements can be considered and discussed and perhaps accepted separately, but not together. It is obvious that Dawkins has been analyzing the subject of Religion and God for many years, has traveled the world, discussed with clergy of various religions etc. and is very knowledgeble about it on top of his expertise on biology. I am amazed that with so much knowledge he can fall into such a logical error.
Proof / disproof does not have to be scientific.
Whether God should be a scientific hypothesis or not is a discussable issue. However, I wish to add that not everything need be a scientific hypothesis to be fasifiable and / or provable. For example a brilliant detective like Sherlock Holmes can prove who committed a murder by analyzing various evidence and making logical inferences that at the end prove the murder. The method used by the detective is not science no matter how analytical or brilliant it maybe. Yet the proposition of who committed the murder is falsifiable and provable.
Likewise many analytical and logical thinking methods that lead to proofs / disproofs are not science. For example mathematics, logic, historical analysis etc. are not science. Mathematics is a tool used by science. Many theorems can be proved / disproved mathematically. Some scientifc propositions maybe analyzed and helped to be proved mathematically but mathematical propositions themselves, although provable mathematically, are not falsifiable by observation and therefore not science. If as a reader of this review you find it hard to accept that math is not a science I recommend that you read some material on what science is and is not. Math is a very valuable analytical tool of science, but is not science itself.
My main point is that if it is concluded that God is a scientific hypothesis its existence / non-existence will eventually be proved or disproved, however long it may take. But it does not need to be a scientific hypothesis to be falsifiable or provable. On the other hand, if it is determined that God can not be a scientific hypothesis this does not mean that existence or non- existence of God can not be proved / disproved. It only means that the God proposition, although unscientific, has not yet been proved nor disproved but may be proved / disproved in the future by some other rational method that is not scientific. Or it may never be proved / disproved. What is certain is that irrational religious arguments have not proved the existence of God and never will. Any proof / disproof will come from some kind of rational method of reasoning.
Are there any benefits of a religious life ?
Among other subjects he mentions in his book Richard Dawkins says that religious ceremonies such as weddings in churches and the like should still be part of our culture and we should still learn about the Bible and other holy books like we learn about any work of literature. But that we should do these without indoctrination and dogma. When we study the Iliad and similar works as part of humankind's literature we don't necessarily believe in them. The study of Holy books should be no different.
Do we need religion to have moral lives ?
Dawkins also explains with examples that even though religious faith may sometimes provide psychological comfort, that does not make the religious claims true. The allegation that we must be religious to have moral and ethical lives is false. A person can be good without believing in God. Among religious people there are many good ones and many immoral ones. Some of the ethical teachings in the Holy books are good morality but many of them ( Dawkins gives many examples ) are immoral to common sense and downright detrimental to society.
Who is the audience ?
This book and Dawkins' lectures are very much needed in the contemporary world where religious polarization is on the rise. However, religious people will not read his book nor listen to his lectures. Even if they do they will not change their minds. Because minds that have been shaped by religious indoctrination since childhood can not be changed by logical arguments and presentation of scientific evidence. Were Galileo and Copernicus able to change the minds of the clergy by presenting scientific evidence of their theories ? Dawkins says that he received some messages from readers that they stopped believing in God and religion after having read his book. But I doubt that they were fundamental advocates of religion in the first place. This book is likely to ( in Dawkins terminology ) " raise the conciousness " of people who are moderately ( non - fanatic ) religious or non - religious. It has no chance of convincing the religious fanatic. Not because it is not a good book, but because dogmatic belief of any kind is not open to evidence of alternative opinions. In fact, we can see on Dawkins' videos on the internet how he has been insulted by religious leaders around the world when he went to discuss with them. I am sure Dawkins does not intend to convert them, perhaps he wants to expose their intolerance to the general public.
What can we do ?
I am writing this review from a country that has been a secular republic since its establishment in 1923 but has always been under threat of religious fundamentalism. In fact, access to Richard Dawkins' website is blocked by court decision from this country, no doubt as a result of religious fanatic initiative.
I think the challenge facing the secular people in various countries in the world is keeping secular education alive and ensuring that children are brought up with secular - not necessarily atheist - methods of thinking.
In his concluding remarks, Dawkins does not recommend parents to indoctrinate their children to become atheists, although he is an atheist himself. He says don't indoctrinate your children with religion and don't label them as catholic, protestant, moslem or jewish children. They ARE NOT catholic, protestant, moslem or jewish children. They are children of catholic, protestant,moslem or jewish parents. Labelling children as young as 4 years of age with religion is as ridiculous as labelling them as socialist, marxist, capitalist, keynesian, monetarist etc. Therefore Dawkins advises parents to let the children decide themselves when they become adults what they think of religion and of the holy books. Do not indoctrinate them to believe the Bible, the Kuran or atheism at a young age. This is very good advice, but unfortunately only a minority of the populations in many countries have the capability to provide a secular education for their children. I hope that secular education will become more widespread leaving the choice to be an aetheist or religious to the individual without indoctrinating him / her to be either. However, I am not too optimistic that this will ever be possible on a wide scale.
Is Richard Dawkins taking security measures to protect himself ?
I see on his videos on the internet that he goes around the world to discuss with leaders of militant Islam, with fundamentalist Christians and although he appears to be courteous on the videos he says that he is an atheist and is often insulted. His views are too extreme for religious people to tolerate and I am worried that he maybe attacked one day. It does not appear on the videos that he is taking any security measures.