The God Delusion
by Richard Dawkins
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Book Reviews of The God Delusion
Book Review: For Dawkins, a human being is no more than a brute beast
Summary: 1 Stars
For reasons of space, I shall pass over the routine recital, now given in hundreds of the reviews, of most of the points in Dawkins' book The God Delusion, and concentrate my review on one point only, which he deals with on pages 339,340. His position is, unambiguously, that there cannot be any such thing as `human' ethics or morality, and he tells us why: there is no real, meaningful distinction between a human being and a brute beast. I am astonished that this passage is not more frequently commented on.
Dawkins simply ignores the critical issue of human rationality. Flying in the face of all the evidence, he assumes (I insist, he assumes, he does not prove) that Homo sapiens, absolutely like every other form of life on earth, is simply a bundle of cells. He says (p. 340): "The evolutionary point is very simple. The humanness (italicised) of an embryo's cells cannot confer upon it any absolutely discontinuous moral status." I must underline what Dawkins is saying. He is not saying that man is `like' the brute beast in some ways ('Intelligent Design' authors like Antony Latham, Alister McGrath and Michael Behe who attack Dawkins' atheism have no difficulty in accepting common descent, shared cellular similarities with the rest of creation, in varying degrees). He is saying that man is `no more than' a brute beast in any way, is no more than a collection of cells.
Dawkins explicitly rejects the idea that any moral consideration can apply to humans simply as humans. He rejects the idea that there is anything that clearly separates human beings from non-human animals. This follows from his view that limits everything to pure Darwinian evolution of matter from matter. He believes in the evolution of the non-human animal into the human animal, body, mind, 'spirit', 'soul', religion, science, and all. He tells us (p. 339): "Notice now that 'pro-life' doesn't exactly mean pro-life ('life' is italicised) at all. It means pro-human('human' is italicised)-life." Of necessity this must mean that he views all merely brute animal life as equal with human life.
Notice the monstrous conclusion that follows from this. It destroys any possibility that Dawkins' version of Darwinism can be right. "The granting of uniquely special rights to cells of the species 'Homo sapiens' is hard to reconcile with the fact of evolution" (p. 339). I repeat this: "The granting of uniquely special rights to cells of the species 'Homo sapiens' is hard to reconcile with the fact of evolution." I conclude: It is not only hard, it is impossible (which is what Dawkins clearly means us to understand). And therefore, for me, on the grounds of the evidence provided to any observer (even a Darwinian observer) that Homo sapiens and the brute beast are not the same, Dawkins' 'fact of evolution' must be abandoned. I see no alternative to this. Dawkins is utterly indefensible here. But his arrogance blinds him to the absurdity of his own position, for he goes on immediately: "Admittedly, this [irreconcilability between the pro-lifers and the Darwinists] will not worry those many anti-abortionists who don't understand that evolution is a fact!" (Dawkins is responsible for the exclamation mark.) Dawkins has just proved, to my satisfaction, that 'the fact of evolution' cannot be a 'fact' because of the manifest monstrousness of the conclusion that he sees as necessarily following from his position. Surely the idea that a human being is fully and exhaustively defined by its having "cells of the species 'Homo sapiens' ", to use Dawkins' own words, in exactly the same way as any other living organism is fully and exhaustively defined by its having cells of its own species, is an intolerable assumption that, I repeat, will not stand one moment's observation of the world about us. This Dawkinsism must be exploded for the absurdity that it is.
Dawkins takes as proved (but doesn't prove) the existence of 'intermediate species' (Dawkins' words) between man and any brute beast you care to name. So Dawkins asks the question: "Would these [intermediate] creatures 'count as human' or not?" Dawkins replies (p. 340) that only 'absolutists' "must answer the question, in order to apply the moral principle of granting humans unique and special status because they are human" (Dawkins puts the last four words in italics (p.340). Dawkins scorns this 'absolutist' position. He says: "To a consequentialist like me, the question doesn't deserve an answer, for nothing turns on it." Can Dawkins be really aware of what he is saying? He tells us that it doesn't matter if we are humans or brute beasts, "for nothing turns on it". Once again, this must be exploded for the absurdity that it is.
He goes on (p.340): "Even if a clear answer [as to whether a living being is a human or a brute beast] might be attempted for Australopithecus, the gradual continuity that is an inescapable feature of biological evolution [another glib assumption of Dawkins that he doesn't prove] tells us that there must be some intermediate who would lie sufficiently close to the 'borderline' to blur the moral principle and destroy its absoluteness. A better way to say this is that there are no natural borderlines in evolution. The illusion of a borderline is created by the fact that the evolutionary intermediates happen to be extinct. Of course, it could be argued that humans are more capable of, for example, suffering than other species. This could well be true, and we might legitimately give humans special status by virtue of it." (Understand what Dawkins is saying: the only reason that he can find for granting human beings any 'unique and special status' 'because they are human', is that the human may be more conscious of suffering than the brute beast. Dawkins continues: "But evolutionary continuity shows that there is no absolute (in italics) distinction." Yet again, an absurdity to be addressed and condemned.
Understand again what Dawkins is saying: There is no absolute distinction between human beings and brute beasts - or any other of the now-lost 'intermediate species'. He goes on: "Absolutist moral discrimination is devastatingly undermined by the fact of evolution. [I riposte: Exactly the opposite statement is true: 'The fact of evolution is devastatingly undermined by absolutist moral discrimination'.] An uneasy awareness of this fact might, indeed, underlie one of the main motives creationists have for opposing evolution: they fear what they believe to be its moral consequences. They are wrong to do so" [Are they really? Am I then free to judge Dawkins the same way that I judge a brute beast? Does Dawkins accept that it is acceptable for a human being to be a carnivore? Where do I draw the line in my choice of meat meals?] "but", Dawkins goes on, "in any case, it is surely very odd to think that a truth about the real world can be reversed by considerations of what would be morally desirable." Really? This is intolerable reasoning. It is not odd, it is essential, that what is 'morally desirable' must rule the world. Law and order would collapse otherwise. Murder and lying and stealing and adultery are 'truths about the real world'. Morality is a truth of the real world. Without 'morally desirable' judgments, which Dawkins' Darwinism considers to be impossible, the quiet world of scholarship (and even scholarship is impossible as a strict Darwinian evolution from matter) that Dawkins inhabits would collapse into sheer barbarism, '(human) nature red in tooth and claw'. Dawkins' philosophical ramblings here are simply derisory.
Ruse and Wilson, `respected giants in this field' of moral philosophy and science, find it "easy to conceive of an alien intelligent species evolving rules its members consider highly moral but which are repugnant to human beings, such as cannibalism, incest, the love of darkness and decay, parricide and the eating of faeces ... " (quoted in Latham's The Naked Emperor, pp, 154,155). Dawkins' reasoning above forces him to accept such a scenario as unobjectionable morally for us humans now.
Book Review: Dawkins' delusion
Summary: 1 Stars
Be alert people! The high priest of atheism is out to convert you, and he wants your children too.
Richard Dawkins in his book The God Delusion recounts how newly-hatched atheists have come under his wings, even as he struggles to fight away tears prompted by the neophytes' conversion stories (see especially 322-325). Usually the stories involve a perceived or real abuse by a religious figure (including well-meaning, but deluded parents), and the stories end with an encounter with one of Dawkins' holy books propelling the reader into the warm embrace of the author: "What took you so long, my dear?" one can almost hear Dawkins say.
Believers know (only too well, sadly) that faith and religion have been used by people for evil purposes. Dawkins' mind cannot admit any good purpose for religion beyond consolation (more tears here; see p349). In fact, Dawkins thinks that it is reasonable and logical and even caring to prohibit parents from teaching their children the ways of faith. (He quotes approvingly someone named Nicholas Humphrey who advocates the frightening idea that society should systematically "protect" children from the religious influence of parents, 326, an idea that should send chills down any parent's spine). Children are not old enough to choose what they believe, Dawkins says. And yet in the same breath Dawkins comes out with this sentence: "The important point is that it is their [i.e., the children's] privilege to decide what they shall think, and not their parents' privilege to impose it by force majeure" (327). He does not explain how a child who is too young to choose a religion is old enough to choose between scientific materialism and religious belief. However, that all moms and dads should teach their children to think critically is an important parental responsibility. Blessed with such instruction, the grown children will be able to reject the--amazingly--uncritical thought of Dawkins in The God Delusion.
For example, Dawkins lumps all believers together in one gigantic, sad, naïve, deluded mix, although he is able to maintain a special scorn for believers who actually embrace God's gift of science along with the gift of faith. Such a pairing, he says, is impossible, illogical, and completely incredible, unless the believer has sinister motives. Needless to say, there is great diversity among believers of all faiths. Some "believers" never question anything, whereas others think it a duty to deepen the human understanding of reality for their personal welfare and for the common good. His treatment of Scripture is pathetic. One would assume that an educated man would be aware of all the varied approaches to studying the Bible, like form theory and the historical-critical method, among others. But Dawkins' never ventures into the area of critical analysis; he never bothers to consider serious biblical scholars; he simply pronounces that most "sophisticated Christians" do not take the Bible literally (Dawkins is unaware, presumably, of the multivalence of the word "literal") or historically. He dismisses the person of Jesus in the same uncritical way, never once looking seriously at the extra-biblical evidence or arguments pro Jesus. Dawkins does not prove his point; he does not give us contrasting examples; he cites "experts" who are sympathetic to him and then he makes a declaration.
This, by the way, is Dawkins' favorite rhetorical device. He begins with anecdotes about religion (all of them negative, reprehensible, and absurd examples), then he massages the mind of the reader with warm enticements: of course enlightened, sophisticated, intelligent, thinking people understand what I am saying. Then he unleashes the coup de grace that (to his mind) undercuts religion. Dawkins (unwittingly?) places himself in the role of the serpent who tried the same strategy with Eve: compliment the great, god-like intellect of the human person and then wrap him (her) in your coils.
Dawkins is a skillful writer, and he uses rhetoric cunningly. As I was reading, I was trying to anticipate how he would answer the question about the origin of life. He precedes the section on the origin of life with a primer on natural selection, and feigns surprise that theists would accept natural selection as a method used by God. Again, he does not say why an active, omnipotent God could not use natural selection, he simply says it's untrue (and disrespectful to any all-powerful being worthy of the name). As the reader moves closer and closer to the big question about the origin of life, he or she is confronted with an argument Dawkins names the "anthropic principle". One must read the anthropic argument for oneself to be fair to Dawkins (134-150), but I will try to summarize it here. Basically, the fact that we are now living (as well as all other living things) means that at some point the conditions for life on this planet were met. The origin of life is a highly improbable event, Dawkins says, especially given all the millions and millions of stars and planets floating around in space, but we know it did happen because we are here. How did this highly improbable event take place? Luck. This is Dawkins' explanation of the origin of life: it happened by pure luck. DNA came about by luck, and then natural selection kicked in (meaning no more luck or chance). What kicked in for me after reading this was surprise: This is what I plowed through four chapters to read?
I hate to draw the comparison, but Dawkins sounds very much like a religious fanatic. Where did all those planets and stars come from in the first place? He never considers this question, and I assume he wants the reader to accept that matter has always been floating around space just waiting for that lucky moment for life to begin. But isn't saying that pure luck is a better answer (or more scientific) than God as the cause of the origin of life simply a pre-determined result of Dawkins' philosophical presuppositions about reality? Dawkins may wave a hand at Aquinas and Anselm for concluding a First Cause (read God), but the notion that Someone started everything is at least as reasonable, if not more than reasonable, than asserting the happy meeting of matter and luck.
Pardon me, but Pope Benedict XVI has a better assertion to offer. Before he became pope, Benedict published his Introduction to Christianity (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990, English translation) which presents what Christians believe and why. In Part I, chapter IV (151-161), the pope writes about God and the origin of life. As is the case with Dawkins' anthropic principle, the pope's argument must be read to be appreciated fully, but I will try to summarize it here. The pope writes that everything that exists ipso facto participates in being. Human beings know that they are not the cause of their own being. They also know that many things made by human hands were first thought and then made out of existing matter. But where did the matter come from? The pope writes that thought precedes matter. God thought matter into existence.
Dawkins of course would dismiss the pope's idea as a fairy tale. But again it is at least as reasonable as Dawkins' own notion of always-existing matter banging together at one lucky moment and producing life. However, I guess readers should not be surprised that Dawkins presents a seamless and pure argument. He certainly would be foolish to allow other views or arguments (considered fully and critically) to take away from his crystal clear presentation. Dawkins always presents himself as genuinely baffled that people, and especially fellow scientists, could believe in God. And certainly we cannot doubt his sincerity when he concludes (as he does on almost every page) that if people were smart like him, then the world would be free from war and hatred and ignorance (not to mention parental guidance). Still, Dr. Dawkins can have his delusion. As for me, to quote Scripture, I will serve the Lord.
Book Review: William Lane Craig's Rebuttal
Summary: 1 Stars
Below is a quick, concise refutation that philosopher William Lane Craig wrote:
Richard Dawkins has emerged as the enfant terrible of the movement known as the New Atheism. His best-selling book The God Delusion has become the literary centerpiece of that movement. In it Dawkins aims to show that belief in God is a delusion, that is to say, "a false belief or impression," or worse, "a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence."1 On pages 157-8 of his book, Dawkins summarizes what he calls "the central argument of my book." Note it well. If this argument fails, then Dawkins' book is hollow at its core. And, in fact, the argument is embarrassingly weak.
It goes as follows:
1. One of the greatest challenges to the human intellect has been to explain how the complex, improbable appearance of design in the universe arises.
2. The natural temptation is to attribute the appearance of design to actual design itself.
3. The temptation is a false one because the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the designer.
4. The most ingenious and powerful explanation is Darwinian evolution by natural selection.
5. We don't have an equivalent explanation for physics.
6. We should not give up the hope of a better explanation arising in physics, something as powerful as Darwinism is for biology.
Therefore, God almost certainly does not exist.
This argument is jarring because the atheistic conclusion that "Therefore, God almost certainly does not exist" seems to come suddenly out of left field. You don't need to be a philosopher to realize that that conclusion doesn't follow from the six previous statements.
Indeed, if we take these six statements as premises of an argument intended to logically imply the conclusion "Therefore, God almost certainly does not exist," then the argument is patently invalid. No logical rules of inference would permit you to draw this conclusion from the six premises.
A more charitable interpretation would be to take these six statements, not as premises, but as summary statements of six steps in Dawkins' cumulative argument for his conclusion that God does not exist. But even on this charitable construal, the conclusion "Therefore, God almost certainly does not exist" simply doesn't follow from these six steps, even if we concede that each of them is true and justified. The only delusion demonstrated here is Dawkins' conviction that this is "a very serious argument against God's existence."2
So what does follow from the six steps of Dawkins' argument? At most, all that follows is that we should not infer God's existence on the basis of the appearance of design in the universe. But that conclusion is quite compatible with God's existence and even with our justifiably believing in God's existence. Maybe we should believe in God on the basis of the cosmological argument or the ontological argument or the moral argument. Maybe our belief in God isn't based on arguments at all but is grounded in religious experience or in divine revelation. Maybe God wants us to believe in him simply by faith. The point is that rejecting design arguments for God's existence does nothing to prove that God does not exist or even that belief in God is unjustified. Indeed, many Christian theologians have rejected arguments for the existence of God without thereby committing themselves to atheism.
So Dawkins' argument for atheism is a failure even if we concede, for the sake of argument, all its steps. But, in fact, several of these steps are plausibly false in any case. Take just step (3), for example. Dawkins' claim here is that one is not justified in inferring design as the best explanation of the complex order of the universe because then a new problem arises: Who designed the designer?
This objection is flawed on at least two counts.
First, in order to recognize an explanation as the best, one needn't have an explanation of the explanation. This is an elementary point concerning inference to the best explanation as practiced in the philosophy of science. If archaeologists digging in the earth were to discover things looking like arrowheads and hatchet heads and pottery shards, they would be justified in inferring that these artifacts are not the chance result of sedimentation and metamorphosis, but products of some unknown group of people, even though they had no explanation of who these people were or where they came from. Similarly, if astronauts were to come upon a pile of machinery on the back side of the moon, they would be justified in inferring that it was the product of intelligent, extra-terrestrial agents, even if they had no idea whatsoever who these extra-terrestrial agents were or how they got there.
In order to recognize an explanation as the best, one needn't be able to explain the explanation. In fact, so requiring would lead to an infinite regress of explanations, so that nothing could ever be explained and science would be destroyed. So in the case at hand, in order to recognize that intelligent design is the best explanation of the appearance of design in the universe, one needn't be able to explain the designer.
Second, Dawkins thinks that in the case of a divine designer of the universe, the designer is just as complex as the thing to be explained, so that no explanatory advance is made. This objection raises all sorts of questions about the role played by simplicity in assessing competing explanations--for example, how simplicity is to be weighted in comparison with other criteria like explanatory power, explanatory scope, plausibility, and so forth. If a less simple hypothesis exceeds its rivals in explanatory scope and power, for example, then it may well be the preferred explanation, despite the sacrifice in simplicity.
But leave those questions aside. Dawkins' fundamental mistake lies in his assumption that a divine designer is an entity comparable in complexity to the universe. As an unembodied mind, God is a remarkably simple entity. As a non-physical entity, a mind is not composed of parts, and its salient properties, like self-consciousness, rationality, and volition, are essential to it. In contrast to the contingent and variegated universe with all its inexplicable physical quantities and constants (mentioned in the fifth step of Dawkins' argument),3 a divine mind is startlingly simple. Certainly such a mind may have complex ideas (it may be thinking, for example, of the infinitesimal calculus), but the mind itself is a remarkably simple entity. Dawkins has evidently confused a mind's ideas, which may, indeed, be complex, with a mind itself, which is an incredibly simple entity.4 Therefore, postulating a divine mind behind the universe most definitely does represent an advance in simplicity, for whatever that's worth.
Other steps in Dawkins' argument are also problematic; but I think enough has been said to show that his argument does nothing to undermine a design inference based on the universe's complexity, not to speak of its serving as a justification of atheism.
Several years ago my atheist colleague Quentin Smith unceremoniously crowned Stephen Hawking's argument against God in A Brief History of Time as "the worst atheistic argument in the history of Western thought."5 With the advent of The God Delusion the time has come, I think, to relieve Hawking of this weighty crown and to recognize Richard Dawkins' accession to the throne.
Book Review: please don't indoctrinate your children
Summary: 3 Stars
richard dawkins' expressed purpose for writing "the god delusion" was to get closeted atheists and those of wavering faith to come out and wholeheartedly embrace life without god. the book is a hodgepodge of anecdotes, quotes, polemics, reflections on evolution, love letters to science, speculative passages, and an appeal on behalf of children. dawkins' plea for stopping the religious indoctrination of children is the strongest aspect of this book, in my opinion. dawkins' prescription is for children to take comparative religion classes so they understand what is out there before they are forced into one mode of thinking, with potentially dire consequences as history has shown us. however, this book certainly has its weak points as well, which we'll discuss first.
dawkins' main argument is given in chapter 4, boldly entitled "why there almost certainly is no god." the argument is summarized as follows. if a higher being existed which was complex enough to create the universe, then that higher being must've had an even more complex creator, i.e. the creator's creator. this leads to the question of who created the creator's creator, which leads to considering a still more complex creator of the creator's creator, i.e. the creator's creator's creator. and so forth in an infinite regress. without a suitable answer to this issue of increasing complexity, religion is critically crippled as an explanatory tool. this is in contrast to scientific theories which can lead to the very complex from the very simple, easily bypassing the infinite complexity issue altogether. darwinian evolution is of course the mighty example of such a clarifying scientific theory. religion only compounds complexity rather than simplifying, and the question of who created god brings this to light in a spectacular way. done. well then, there almost certainly is no god!...right?
the main problem i have with this argument is dawkins' implicit assumption that god couldn't just be self-creating. as far as i know, all religions assume the answer to the question of who created god (or whatever name one chooses to give to that higher force) by positing that god needs no creator. dawkins posits that god needs a disparate creator in order for this argument to work. that's certainly fine in and of itself, but i don't see that metaphysical assertion as being any more logically sound than the assumptions made by organized religions. who's right? who knows when we're ascribing various properties to god. if you are talking about something physical like turning water into wine, then science will have something to say. however, if you are talking about something extremely metaphysical like the creation of god, then no physical experiment can ever grant you a solid answer. that's simply out of the reach of science.
dawkins also makes the error of blaming religion for the horrible actions of man done in god's name. dawkins doesn't just lists heinous events in history, but actually furthermore claims that the mere existence of religious worship itself, no matter how moderate, is harmful because society's acceptance of faith as an excuse for lack of critical thinking opens the way to extremist views and acts. it is of course logically possible for god to exist and be worthy of devotion, for the core of a religion to be correct, and for most believers to simply be "doing it wrong" all the same. incidentally, most believers probably believe other believers are doing it wrong in some aspect or other. just look at all the flavors of christianity available, to say nothing of the disagreements with other religions! that faith is irrational is without question, but i think dawkins might not fully grasp some nuances of faith. for example, he mostly brushes aside personal experiences that crystallize the faith in an individual as psychological foibles. while i agree that the word "faith" is widely misused by many who probably don't really have it, the true attainment of faith arguably should appear incomprehensible to the outside observer. see for example kierkegaard's excellent philosophical work "fear and trembling" for some enlightening analysis on the nature of faith, in my opinion.
on the other hand, "the god delusion" does have some strong positives in its favor. principal among these is dawkins' repeated impassioned appeal that children no longer be considered christian children or muslim children, but rather the children of christian or muslim parents, respectively. there are many reasons given to not inculcate any particular religion into the minds of the young before they've reached the age of reason. forced belief perverts the meaning of faith and can distort ethics. for example, dawkins cites a study done of young israeli schoolchildren in which the children were given a summary of the battle of jericho and asked whether they totally approved, partially approved, or totally disapproved of the actions of joshua and the israelites. in the battle of jericho, joshua and the israelites were told by god to kill every man, woman, child and animal in the conquered city, take all the precious metals, and then burn down the city. in other words, god is sanctioning genocide and pillage. 66% of the israeli children gave total approval and 26% totally disapproved, with 8% giving partial approval. a control group of israeli children was given the same summary and asked the same question of approval but with the names changed from "joshua" and "the israelites" to "general lin" and "a chinese kingdom 3,000 years ago." this time, only 7% of these children totally approved of god-sanctioned genocide while 75% totally disapproved. most of the young children can actually recognize the terrible nature of genocide except when their religion teaches them otherwise. dawkins rightly suggests letting children take comparative religion classes and letting them choose their faith or lack thereof at a later age after seeing all sides.
dawkins is a trained scientist and his exposition shines in chapters 5 and 6, when he is focusing more on science. in particular, i found the presentation of memetic theory as a paradigm for the development of religions quite fascinating. the discussion on the evolution of childhood gullibility with religious belief being a psychological by-product is also quite intriguing and plausible.
in the end, did dawkins achieve the goal of getting the reader to embrace atheism? i don't know. i can't speak for others, but in my case, no. there were too many weak arguments including dawkins' main argument, in my opinion. however, that's not to say that "the god delusion" wasn't worth reading. hopefully this book will perform the public service of dissuading readers from force-feeding religion to their young impressionable children. this book also collects a lot of interesting anecdotes and quotes. i was quite amused by the following joke proof of god's existence, which i will leave you with:
"the argument from incomplete devastation: a plane crashed killing 143 passengers and crew. but one child survived with only third-degree burns. therefore god exists."
Book Review: Interesting but poorly argued
Summary: 3 Stars
This book rests on two principal arguments. First, Dawkins claims
that the hypothesis of intelligent design, which he calls the "God
hypothesis," is a scientific hypothesis that is refuted by natural
selection, and therefore religion itself is refuted. Second, Dawkins
argues that insofar as religion doesn't depend on the God hypothesis,
it's not a productive way to think and should be abandoned.
Dawkins' #1 argument works well as scientific argument -- yes, natural
selection beats the pants off intelligent design as a scientific
hypothesis supported by evidence -- but it's too obvious to be very
powerful as a weapon against religion. For most religious people, the
argument will seem irrelevant because their commitment to religion
flows from "something else" (faith, love, divine inspiration, etc.)
that just feels so different from scientific method or discourse that
any attempt to refute it with science is a colossal mistake. It's
like trying to prove that Albert Pujols is a better baseball player
than Alex Rodriguez by playing the violin. It seems Dawkins' only
response to this is to switch to the #2 argument: whatever the
"something else" is that religious people rely on instead of science,
it's nonsense. This shows that the #1 argument has little independent
force, and the #2 argument needs to do most of the work.
Unfortunately, Dawkins' #2 argument fares even worse. It consists
mostly of disconnected examples of things said and done by various
persons throughout history in the name of religion, followed in each
case with a sneering "Isn't this stupid and/or silly and/or repulsive?
I can't believe that any sane person would think this way." This
isn't productive, because a lot of sane people do think this way, and
they derive a lot of consolation and meaning from religion. It also
ignores the fact that many of the most significant and inspiring
achievements of the human imagination (religious art, the pyramids,
the cathedrals, the religious music of J.S. Bach, etc.) would never
have occurred without religion. So religion can't be *all* bad.
In fact, there is a variant of Dawkins' #2 claim that I find
compelling (I am an atheist as well). To introduce this claim, note
that there is an important difference between religious belief and
other abstract beliefs, like belief in morality or justice. Religion
makes claims like "God exists" or "I shall go to heaven" that purport
to be about actual or potential experience. "God exists" says there
exists some set of circumstances under which I could actually
experience God. Otherwise, what could it mean for God to exist,
except perhaps as a metaphor (as in the case of Einstein's God that
Dawkins discusses in Chapter 1)? I call this type of claim an
"experiential claim."
I believe that experiential claims should be supported by actual
experience: either direct observation, or reported observation by
others that I would also share, with a high degree of certainty, in
the same situation. I call this belief the experiential claim
requirement, or ECR. If the ECR were established, then Dawkins' #1
claim would follow naturally, because the God hypothesis is an
experiential claim for which the observable evidence is at best very
suspect, as Dawkins nicely argues in Chapter 3.
But what kind of argument could we use to establish the ECR? A
successful argument, in my view, would go something like this:
(a.) Start with a sympathetic description of religion's aspirations,
what motivates so many people to believe in it.
(b.) Argue either that those aspirations should be abandoned, or that
they can be satisfied by other practices and institutions that also
satisfy the ECR.
(c.) Argue that institutions and practices that satisfy the ECR are
better, on balance, than ones that don't.
This is similar to how the philosopher Richard Rorty goes about
arguing that we should abandon quasi-religious philosophy in favor of
more "pragmatic" practices like science, literature, and art.
Now some of Dawkins' arguments do support (b.) and (c.). The
arguments that God is a "skyhook" that just postpones the question
(Chapter 4), that morality can exist without religion (Chapter 6), and
that scientific wonder can replace religious wonder (Chapter 10) all
support (b.). Russell's "celestial teapot" example that Dawkins
dwells on in Chapter 2 obliquely supports (c.); the implication is
that we insist on the ECR in our everyday experience, so we should
insist it of religion as well. In Chapter 9, Dawkins makes a good
argument that non-ECR practices like religion are repressive to the
extent that they condition people (especially children) with beliefs
that may not be questioned by evidence or argument. This certainly
supports (c.). However, Dawkins never connects these individual
pieces into a broader sustained argument against religion, as
suggested in the previous paragraph.
A more serious problem is that Dawkins is too contemptuous of religion
to make any serious attempt at (a.). He tries to skip (a.) and throw
religion over wholesale by showing how absurd religious belief is, and
how it inevitably leads to outcomes that are at best wrong and at
worst catastrophic. This position is deeply unsatisfying to someone
like me, who sympathizes with what religion is trying to do even if
its experiential claims are impossible to accept. A much more subtle
argument is needed, one that acknowledges the validity of religious
experience, but also argues that we can get "beyond" religion (while
preserving what is good in religion) by making all our practices, even
ones that touch the deepest and most unknowable questions posed by
man, obey the ECR. Note that doesn't mean we will turn them all into
science or even reason, which is what it sometimes seems that Dawkins
wants to do.
So in the end, I agree with Dawkins' conclusion but am unimpressed by
his arguments. I picked up this book expecting to find good arguments
for why our beliefs about actual or potential experience should be
backed by evidence. I did get some scattered arguments along these
lines. But mostly, I got a nice scientific argument for something I
already knew (that natural selection impressively explains the origin
of life) and a rambling, simplistic indictment of religion.