[The Dawkins Delusion]

INTRODUCTION

“[Religion] has made a comeback. It is now such a significant element of today’s world that it seems strange to think that it was only a generation ago that its death was foretold with such confidence. The humanist writer Michael Shermer, perhaps best known as the director of the Skeptics Society and publisher of Skeptic magazine, made this point forcefully back in 1999 when he pointed out that never in history have so many, and such a high percentage of the American population, believed in God. Not only is God not ‘dead,’ as the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche prematurely proclaimed; he never seems to have been more alive.”

Regarding Dawkins’ insistence that the majority of scientists were irreligious (and that the religious ones weren’t plugged into traditional religious faiths, being more akin to the nature-admiration of Einstein), McGrath observes, “Though an atheist, Gould was absolutely clear that the natural sciences—including evolutionary theory—were consistent with both atheism and conventional religious belief. Unless half his scientific colleagues were total fools—a presumption that Gould rightly dismissed as nonsense, whichever half it is applied to—there could be no other responsible way of making sense of the varied responses to reality on the part of the intelligent, informed people that he knew.”

CHAPTER ONE: DELUDED ABOUT GOD?

“What you believe has a very significant impact on life and thought. That makes it all the more important, we are told, to subject faith to critical, rigorous examination. Delusions need to be exposed—and then removed. I agree entirely.” (18) “Dawkins is right—beliefs are critical. We base our lives on them; they shape our decisions about the most fundamental things. I can still remember the turbulence that I found myself experiencing on making the intellectually painful (yet rewarding) transition from atheism to Christianity. Every part of my mental furniture had to be rearranged. Dawkins is correct—unquestionably correct—when he demands that we should not base our lives on delusions. We all need to examine our beliefs—especially if we are naïve enough to think that we don’t have any in the first place.”

“[Most] of us are aware that we hold many beliefs that we cannot prove to be true but are nonetheless perfectly reasonable to entertain. To lapse into jargon for a moment: our beliefs may be shown to be justifiable, without thereby demonstration that they are proven.”

“Philosophers of science have long made the point that there are many scientific theories that are presently believed to be true but may have to be discarded in the future as additional evidence emerges or new theoretical interpretations develop. There is no difficulty, for example, in believing that Darwin’s theory of evolution is presently the best explanation of the available evidence, but that doesn’t mean it is correct.”

“The one inescapable and highly improbable fact about the world is that we, as reflective human beings, are in fact here. Now it is virtually impossible to quantify how improbable the existence of humanity is. Dawkins himself is clear, especially in Climbing Mount Improbable, that it is very, very improbable. But we are here. The very fact that we are puzzling about how we came to be here is dependent on the fact that we are here and are thus able to reflect on the likelihood of this actuality.”

CHAPTER TWO: 

HAS SCIENCE DISPROVED GOD?

“Scientific theories cannot be said to ‘explain the world’—they only explain the phenomena that are observed within the world. Furthermore, they argue, scientific theories do not and are not intended to describe and explain ‘everything about the world’—such as its purpose.” Any such speculation leaps into the world of the philosophical, and the New Atheists are hopefully not blind to the fact that much of their convictions rest in philosophical underpinnings rather than concrete, indisputable science; they may condemn the religious (and especially religious scientists) for allowing their own presuppositions to guide their interpretations, but any thought that we can be totally detached, totally objective, is a foolish notion. Although Dawkins and others seem to relish and bathe in a philosophical naturalism rooted in a positivist and materialist approach to reality, they may be the first to tell you that such philosophical roots are illusions, and that they stand firmly on the solid (i.e. objective rather than subjective) ground of the natural sciences.

“There are many questions that by their very nature must be recognized to lie beyond the legitimate scope of the scientific method, as this is normally understood. For example, is there purpose within nature? Dawkins regards this as a non-question. Yet this is hardly an illegitimate question for human beings to ask or to hope to have answered. Bennett and Hacker point out that the natural sciences are not in a position to comment on this if their methods are applied legitimately. The question cannot be dismissed as illegitimate or nonsensical; it is simply being declared to lie beyond the scope of the scientific method. If it can be answered, it must be answered on other grounds.”

“In a significant publication titled The Limits of Science, Medawar explored the question of how science was limited by the nature of reality. Emphasizing that ‘science is incomparably the most successful enterprise that human beings have ever engaged upon,’ he distinguishes between what he calls ‘transcendent’ questions, which are better left to religion and metaphysics, and questions about the organization and structure of the material universe. With regard to the latter, he argues, there are no limits to the possibilities of scientific achievement. He thus agrees with Dawkins—but only by defining and limiting the domain within which the sciences possess such competency.”

“As if preempting Dawkins’ brash and simplistic take on the sciences, Medawar suggests that scientists need to be cautious about their pronouncements on these matters lest they lose the trust of the public by confident and dogmatic overstatements. Though a self-confessed rationalist, Medawar is clear on this matter: ‘That there is indeed a limit upon science is made very likely by the existence of questions that science cannot answer, and that no conceivable advocate of science would empower it to answer… I have in mind such questions as: How did everything begin? What are we all here for? What is the point of living? Doctrinaire positivism—now something of a period piece—dismissed all such questions as nonquestions or pseudoquestions such as only simpletons ask and only charlatans profess to be able to answer.’”

“[The] natural sciences, philosophy, religion and literature all have a legitimate place in the human quest for truth and meaning. This is a widely held view, both in Western culture at large and even within many sections of the scientific community itself… The somewhat ugly term scientism has now emerged to designate those natural scientists who refuse to concede any limits to the sciences—such as Dawkins.”

Stephen J. Gould saw two spheres of existence in operation, the “magisterium of science” (focusing on the empirical realm) and the “magisterium of religion” (focusing on questions of ultimate meaning). “The term magisterium is best understood as a ‘sphere of authority’ or ‘domain of competency’” The dichotomy is between, one might say, how the universe works on the one hand and why it works on the other. Gould asserted that these two realms don’t overlap. “For Dawkins there is only one magisterium—empirical reality. This is the only reality that exists.”

“Science has, in Dawkins’s view, wrecked faith in God, relegating God to the margins of culture, where he is embraced by deluded fanatics. There’s an obvious problem, of course—namely, that rather a lot of scientists do believe in God.”

“The God Delusion was published in 2006. In that same years three other books were published by leading research scientists.” Owen Gingerich (Harvard astronomer) wrote God’s Universe, declaring that “the universe has been created with intention and purpose, and that this belief does not interfere with the scientific enterprise.” Francis Collins came out with The Language of God, where he “argues that the wonder and ordering of nature points to a Creator God”, and he takes a traditional Christian conception of God as his own, writing about his conversion from atheism to Christianity. “This hardly fits Dawkins’s rigid insistence that real scientists are atheists.” Paul Davies (cosmologist) came out with The Goldilocks Enigma. He argues “for the existence of ‘fine-tuning’ in the universe. For Davies, the bio-friendliness of the universe points to an overarching principle that somehow pushes the universe towards the development of life and mind. The idea that there is any evidence of purpose or design in the universe is, of course, dismissed out of hand by Dawkins. Davies has other ideas. While not subscribing to a traditional Christian notion of God, there’s something divine out there. Or maybe in there.”

“Dawkins is forced to contend with the highly awkward fact that his view that the natural sciences are an intellectual superhighway to atheism is rejected by most scientists, irrespective of their religious views. Most unbelieving scientists of my acquaintance are atheists on grounds other than their science; they bring those assumptions to their science rather than basing them on their science.”

“[Some] of Dawkins’s most vociferous critics among scientists are actually atheists. His dogmatic insistence that all ‘real’ scientists ought to be atheists has met with fierce resistance from precisely the community that he believes should be his fiercest and most loyal supporter.”

“So why are so many scientists religious? The obvious and most intellectually satisfying explanation of this is not difficult to identify. It is well known that the natural world is conceptually malleable. It can be interpreted, without any loss of intellectual integrity, in a number of different ways. Some read or interpret nature in an [atheistic] way. Others read it in a deistic way, seeing it as pointing to a Creator divinity, who is no longer involved in its affairs. God winds up the clock, then leaves it to work on its own. Others take a more specifically Christian view, believing in a God who both creates and sustains. Others take a more spiritualized view, speaking more vaguely of some ‘life force’… The point is simple: nature is open to many legitimate interpretations. [Emphasis mine] It can be interpreted in atheist, deist, theist and many other ways—but it does not demand to be interpreted in any of these… One can be a ‘real’ scientist without being committed to any specific religious, spiritual or antireligious view of the world. This, I may add, is the view of most scientists I speak to, including those who self-define as atheists. Unlike dogmatic atheists, they can understand perfectly well why some of their colleagues adopt a Christian view of the world. They may not agree with that approach, but they’re prepared to respect it.”

“[Dawkins’ view] ultimately depends on an obsolete and now abandoned historical reading of the relationship of science and religion. Once upon a time, back in the second half of the nineteenth century, it was certainly possible to believe that science and religion were permanently at war. Yet, as one of America’s leading historians of science recently remarked to me, this is now seen as a hopelessly outmoded historical stereotype that scholarship has totally discredited. It lingers on only in the backwaters of intellectual life, where the light of scholarship has yet to penetrate. The relationship between science and religion is complex and variegated—but it could never conceivably be represented as a state of total war.”

CHAPTER THREE: 

WHAT ARE THE ORIGINS OF RELIGION?

“[Why] would anyone believe in God? For Dawkins this is an utterly irrational belief—like believing in a teapot orbiting around the sun. Sure, this is a flawed analogy. Nobody I know believes such nonsense. But that’s what Dawkins wants his readers to think—that believing in God is on the same level as cosmic teapots. It’s yet another recycled analogy that is all part of his general strategy of systematically mocking, misrepresenting and demonizing competing worldviews, which are always presented in the most naïve light possible.”

“In 1841, Feuerbach argued that God was basically an invention, dreamed up by human beings to provide metaphysical and spiritual consolation. His argument runs like this: There is no God. But lots of people believe in God. Why? Because they want consolation. So they ‘project’ and ‘objectify’ their longings and call this ‘God.’ So this nonexistent God is simply the projection of human longings… [Wanting] something is no demonstration that it does not exist. Human thirst points to the need for water. It also suggests that all worldviews are a response to human needs and desires—including, of course, atheism, which can be seen as a response to the human desire for moral autonomy.”

Traditionally, two routes have been taken in trying to determine the reason human beings believe in God: “One locates the origins of belief in God in sociological factors, the other in psychological factors. Karl Marx argued that the reason people needed the delusion of God was that they were socially and economically alienated. When the socialist revolution came there would be no need for religion. It would just die out, naturally. Which is just as well, as it is a serious obstacle to human progress… Sigmund Freud argued that the origins of belief in God lay in the longing for a father figure. Once it is appreciated that God is a ‘wish fulfillment’ conjured up as a result of human projection, we can move beyond this infantile illusion and grow up.”

“Dawkins presents atheism as the ultimate outcome of a process of whittling down irrational beliefs about the supernatural. You begin with polytheism—believing in lots of gods. Then as time progresses and your thinking becomes more sophisticated, you move on to monotheism—belief in only one God. Atheism just takes this one step further… Yet the history of religion obliges us to speak about the diversification, not the progression, of religion. The evidence simply isn’t there to allow us to speak about any kind of natural progression from polytheism to monotheism—and thence to atheism.”

“Some scientists have fallen into the habit of asking, What caused A? Was it X or Y? But in the human sciences, multiple causes are the norm. For example, consider the question, Is depression caused by physical or social factors? The answer is that it is caused by both. As Watts points out, the history of such research ‘ought to make us wary of asking whether an apparent revelation of God really is such, or whether it has some other natural explanation, in terms of people’s thought processes or brain processes.’ To put it crudely, God, human brain processes and psychological processes may all be causal factors in human religious experience.”

CHAPTER FOUR: IS RELIGION EVIL?

“Dawkins is, I think, entirely right when he exposes and challenges religious violence… Yet is [violence] a necessary feature of religion?... There is no doubt that religion can generate violence. But it’s not alone in this. The history of the twentieth century has given us a frightening awareness of how political extremism can equally cause violence.”

“Dawkins insists that there is ‘not the smallest evidence’ that atheism systematically influences people to do bad things. It’s an astonishing, naïve and somewhat sad statement. Dawkins is clearly an ivory-tower atheist, disconnected from the real and brutal world of the twentieth century… [Dawkins’] pleading that atheism is innocent of the violence and oppression that he associates with religion is simply untenable, and suggests a significant blind spot. Dawkins’ naïve view that atheists would never carry out crimes in the name of atheism simply founders on the cruel rocks of reality.”

“Dawkins is simply in denial about the darker side of atheism, making him a less than credible critic of religion. He has a fervent, unquestioning faith in the universal goodness of atheism, which he refuses to subject to critical examination. Yes, there is much that is wrong with contemporary religion and much that needs to be reformed. Yet the same is also true of atheism, which needs to subject itself to the self-searching intellectual and moral criticisms that religious systems are willing to direct against themselves… [Human] beings are capable both of violence and moral excellence—and… both of these may be provoked by worldviews, whether religious or otherwise.”

Dawkins insists that “Since religion is the problem, its disappearance will be to the general benefit of civilization.” But the issue, McGrath says, isn’t religion. “The real issue is that religions possesses a capacity to transcendentalize normal human conflicts and disagreements, transforming them into cosmic battles of good and evil in which the authority and will of a transcendent reality is implicated. Divine warfare is terrestrialized, its mandate transferred to affairs on earth. When this situation arises, the normal constraints and compromises that allow humanity to solve potentially explosive situations are trumped.” Thus eradicating religion will eliminate transcendentalizing? Hardly. “[When] a society rejects the idea of God, it tends to transcendentalize alternatives—such as the ideals of liberty or equality. These now become quasi-divine authorities, which none are permitted to challenge. Perhaps the most familiar example of this dates from the French Revolution, at a time when traditional notions of God were discarded as obsolete and replaced by transcendentalized human values… All ideals—divine, transcendent, human or invented—are capable of being abused. That’s just the way human nature is… Would [the end of religion] end the divisions within humanity? Certainly not. Such divisions are ultimately social constructs that fleet the fundamental sociological need for communities to self-define and identity those who are ‘in’ and those who are ‘out,’ those who are ‘friends’ and those who are ‘foes.’ The importance of ‘binary opposition’ in shaping perceptions of identity has judgment. Yet this is a historically conditioned oppositionalism shaped and determined by complex social forces. It is not a specifically religious phenomenon. Religion was merely the social demarcator that dominated in this situation. In others, the demarcators would have to do with ethnic or cultural origins, language, gender, age, social class, sexual orientation, wealth, tribal allegiance, ethical values or political views… The simplistic belief that the elimination of religion would lead to the ending of violence, social tension or discrimination is thus sociologically naïve. It fails to take account of the way in which human beings create values and norms, and make sense of their identity and their surroundings. If religion were to cease to exist, other social demarcators would emerge as decisive, some of which would become transcendentalized in due course.”

ADDENDUM: ON WORLDVIEWS

So what’s the difference between religions and worldviews? “A worldview is a comprehensive way of viewing reality that tries to make sense of its various elements within a single, overarching way of looking at things. Some, of course, are religious; many are not. Buddhism, existentialism, Islam, atheism and Marxism all fall into this category. Some worldviews claim to be universally true; others, more in tune with the postmodern ethos, view themselves as local.” (58)

How do we know which worldview is true? “[No worldview] can be ‘proved’ to be right. Precisely because they represent ‘big picture’ ways of engaging with the world, their fundamental beliefs lie beyond final proof.” (58) “[Every] worldview—religious or secular—ends up falling into the category of ‘belief systems’ precisely because it cannot be proved. That is simply the nature of worldviews, and everyone knows it. It prevents nobody from holding a worldview in the first place and doing so with complete intellectual integrity in the second.” Interestingly, too, our attempts to ‘prove’ a worldview over against another is always done from the frame-of-reference of the your own worldview; you can only denounce an alternative worldview from the position of your own worldview, and that muddles things quite a bit.

What promotes fanaticism? Worldviews or religion? In The God Delusion, Dawkins claims that religion fosters fanaticism. McGrath points out that worldviews also promote fanaticism. “Dawkins treats this as a defining characteristic of religion, airbrushing out of his account of violence any suggestion that it might be the result of political fanaticism—or even atheism. He is adamant that he himself, as a good atheist, would never fly airplanes into skyscrapers or commit any other outrageous act of violence or oppression. Good for him. Neither would I. Yet there are those in both our constituencies who would.” (58)

Do we just choose our worldviews because we like them? “The way human beings perceive the world is indeed colored by our agendas and expectations. ‘Cognitive bias’ is indeed a fundamental characteristic of human psychology. Yet in general this unconscious bias is manifested not so much in our believing what we would like to be true as in maintaining the status quo of our beliefs. The driving force is not wishful thinking but conservative thinking—that is, thinking that conserves an existing worldview.” (61) “[We] have a built-in resistance to change our position—a resistance that is underpinned by cognitive biases that predispose us to fail to notice or to discount data that are inconsistent with our view.” (62) “On the whole we do this because it is efficient—it takes effort and is upsetting to have to change one’s mind—even if the change is in a positive direction.” (62) Psychologists are still trying to sift the wheat from the tares in trying to determine personal hot cognitions from communal group statements that, while being embraced as true, may not be felt to be true. “People may be prepared to assent to propositional contradictions (renaming them ‘paradoxes’) and counterfeit belief statements (renaming them ‘mysteries’) precisely because the cognitive processing associated with their personal religion is not taking place at this level at all but at an intuitive level that is not easily amenable to description in propositional terms.” (64)