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Atheist with a Mission
Critique of The God Delusion
by Richard Dawkins
by Philip Bell
Published: 7 February 2007 (GMT+10)
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, Transworld Publishers, London, 2006
The title of this book immediately betrays the bias of the author—even for
those unacquainted with the writings of this Professor of the (so-called) Public
Understanding of Science of Oxford University, Richard Dawkins. Just to skim the
chapter contents is to give one a forewarning of what to expect. For instance, Chapter
1 is entitled ‘A deeply religious believer in no God.’ Chapter 4: ‘Why
there almost certainly is no God.’ Chapter 7 is ‘The ‘Good’
Book and the changing moral Zeitgeist’—showing Dawkins’ absolute
dislike of the message of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. More provocatively still,
the ninth chapter is ‘Childhood, abuse and the escape from religion.’
The single appendix is ‘a partial list of friendly addresses, for individuals
needing support in escaping from religion.’
So much for any attempt at balance and objectivity—this book is certainly
not a disinterested search for truth and is devoid of any careful weighing of evidence,
for and against his thesis. Rather, it is this author’s most polemical work
to date, that of a man driven by an unholy zeal to depose the God he claims to disbelieve
in but transparently hates.
‘I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural,
wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented.’ (p. 36: emphasis
added in all quotes unless otherwise stated)
However, he takes pains to inform his reader that his venom is mostly reserved for
monotheistic forms of God and one in particular:
‘Unless otherwise stated, I shall have Christianity mostly in mind, but only
because it is the version with which I happen to be most familiar. … I shall
not be concerned at all with other religions such as Buddhism or Confucianism.’
(p. 37)
Dawkins gets angry with what he views as the unhealthy and undeserved respect accorded
to religious belief and closes the first chapter with:
‘… my own disclaimer for this book. I shall not go out of my way to
offend, but nor shall I don kid gloves to handle religion any more gently
than I would handle anything else.’ (p. 27)
The irony is that Dawkins is utterly dogmatic and insistent that his own views on
religion are superior to all others!
Ironically, the first sentence of the next chapter is a veritable torrent of abuse1 directed at ‘The God of the
Old Testament … arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction …’
I found offensive and blasphemous. Similar outbursts appear elsewhere but when a
professed atheist engages in such frequent name-calling—‘psychotic delinquent’
(p. 38), ‘monster’ (p. 46) and ‘evil monster’ (p. 248) will
suffice as examples—one wonders how secure he really is in his
atheism.
Such animosity is unlikely to inspire confidence in the reader who wishes to be
presented with a well-argued cogent case but will obviously bring plaudits from
Dawkins’ most ardent supporters (e.g. Playwright
just plain wrong). The perceptive reader—regardless of their bias—will
not fail to notice the contradiction between this antagonism towards the Judeo-Christian
God, illustrated by numerous outbursts against His attributes, and the following
claim:
‘I am not attacking the particular qualities of Yahweh, or Jesus, or Allah
…’ (p. 31)
However, it is not for nothing that Dawkins has been described as ‘Darwin’s
Rottweiler’;2 his claimed
rationale is spelt out as follows:
‘Instead I shall define the God Hypothesis more defensibly: there exists a
superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the
universe and everything in it, including us. This book will advocate the
alternate view: any creative intelligence, of sufficient complexity to design anything,
comes into existence only as the end product of an extended process of gradual evolution.’
(emphases in original; p. 31).
Those who have seen Dawkins’ television documentaries ‘Root of all evil?’3 will be familiar with the tenor of
his rhetoric on what he here calls the God Hypothesis. Like those programs, The
God Delusion spews forth more of the same unsubstantiated claims and specious
arguments. Of course, those who are desperate for justification of a world-view
that removes accountability to the Creator and Judge of all human beings will be
blind to these fatal flaws. Consequently, Matt Ridley—author of books on genetics
and human behaviour—endorses this polemic as,
‘… so refreshing … It feels like coming up for air.’
More disturbingly still, Philip Pullman—acclaimed author of the award-winning
children’s trilogy, His Dark Materials—says,
‘It is so well written, in fact, that children deserve to read it
as well as adults. It should have a place in every school library—especially
in the library of every ‘faith’ school.’
Why read and review a 400-page treatise of a man’s hatred of God? Simply because,
for all Richard Dawkins’ ranting ways, he is so widely promoted in the
mainstream media that he cannot be ignored. While it is true that a number
of non-believers do smell a rat when they observe such blatant antireligious bias,
many more—including a constituency of his readers that attend churches—accord
this man’s writings and opinions with considerable honour. The limitations
of a review mean there is much that begs for comment or critique that must be ignored,
while seeking to arm the reader with many usable Dawkins quotations.
Who is deluded?
Early on, Dawkins emphasises that The God Delusion does not refer to the
physicists’ God (see Einstein, the universe
and God) but to supernatural gods, especially Yahweh of the Old
Testament (p. 20). It is believers in this God who are the really deluded
ones and this is why he has written what he unashamedly describes as ‘a book
on religion’ (p. 351); albeit advocating a view that is indistinguishable
from humanism, rather than (as he asserts) no religion at all:
‘The truly adult view, by contrast, is that our life is as meaningful, as
full and as wonderful as we choose to make it. And we can make
it very wonderful indeed.’ (p. 360)
‘The atheist view is correspondingly life-affirming and life-enhancing, while
at the same time never being tainted with self-delusion, wishful thinking,
or the whingeing self-pity of those who feel that life owes them something.’
(p. 361)
Those who happen to reject Dawkins’ self-described ‘atheistic world-view’
(p. 344)—or yet worse, creationists—are singled out for the professor’s
most scathing ridicule: ‘unsophisticated Christians’ (p. 94) and ‘dyed-in-the-wool
faith-heads’ (p. 5). ‘Creationist “logic” is always the
same’ (p. 121) and even intelligent design theorists are ‘lazy and defeatist’
(p. 128) according to this Oxford sage. Those who believe in irreducible complexity
are ‘no better than fools’ (p. 129). In fact, Dawkins makes no effort
to moderate his contempt—after all he is an atheist, and atheism is not even
‘tainted with self delusion’:
‘… atheism nearly always indicates a healthy independence of mind and,
indeed, a healthy mind.’ (p. 3)
The man’s arrogance is palpable. At one point, having attacked irreducible
complexity, he says:
‘… we on the science side must not be too dogmatically confident.’
(p. 124)
Ignoring for a moment the false science-vs-creation sleight-of-hand, the irony is
that Dawkins is utterly dogmatic and insistent that his own views on religion
are superior to all others! He seems genuinely unaware of his crass hypocrisy when
he writes:
‘Far from respecting the separateness of science’s turf, creationists
like nothing better than to trample their dirty hobnails all over it.’ (p.
68)
Leading philosopher Alvin Plantinga argues that Dawkins’ forays into philosophy
could be called sophomoric were it not a grave insult to most sophomores.
This is rich, appearing as it does in a book by a scientist that purports to engage
with theology. Indeed, philosopher and Marxist Terry Eagleton opened his own review
of The God Delusion with these words:
‘Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject
is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels
like to read Richard Dawkins on theology.’4
Similarly, leading philosopher Alvin Plantinga argues5
that Dawkins’ forays into philosophy could be called sophomoric were it not
a grave insult to most sophomores.
Who are you calling a fundamentalist?
Those who adhere to a belief in divine revelation subvert science, claims Dawkins.
‘By contrast, what I, as a scientist, believe (for example, evolution) I believe
not because of reading a holy book but because I have studied the evidence.’
(p. 282)
‘… and we would abandon [evolution] overnight if new evidence arose
to disprove it. No real fundamentalist would ever say anything like that. …
But my belief in evolution is not fundamentalism, and it is not faith, because I
know what it would take to change my mind, and I would gladly do so if the necessary
evidence were forthcoming.’ (p. 283)
Ah, but does he really know his own mind—which after all is ultimately
just the by-product of random atomic collisions
in his world-view? The professor is on record as saying something very different
the previous year:
‘I believe, but I cannot prove, that all life, all intelligence, all creativity
and all “design” anywhere in the universe is the direct or indirect
product of Darwinian natural selection.’6
Yet elsewhere he derides Christianity for allegedly believing things without proof
(ignoring Gödel’s famous incompleteness proof that any system as complex as
arithmetic will have true statements that are unprovable within the system), so
he shows his hypocrisy. Certainly Christians start from axioms, i.e. starting propositions
believed to be true without proof, although it is rational to do so
as we have explained—and all
belief systems start with axioms, as Dawkins illustrates. And does he
seriously expect anyone to believe that he would ‘gladly’
change his mind about evolution if the evidence conclusively falsified it? In a
rare instance of (feigned?) even-handedness, Dawkins actually claims,
‘I do not, by nature, thrive on confrontation. I don’t think the adversarial
format is well designed to get at the truth …’ (p. 281)
Yet, this entire book furnishes ample evidence that he has failed to follow his
own advice!
A sampling of arguments against God
The fact that Dawkins’ critiques of many carefully argued and long-standing
arguments for God’s existence are dealt with in very few pages tells us more
about the power of his own self-belief than the soundness of his refutations. For
instance, arguments that invoke Thomas Aquinas’ ‘Unmoved Mover’
and ‘Uncaused Cause’ (or similar) are plain wrong, he says in a blatant
ipse dixit,7 because the
implied/explicit infinite regress must also apply to God himself (p. 77–78)
(although philosophers argue cogently that only
that which has a beginning needs a cause). Chapter 3 barely scratches
the scratch on the surface with respect to other philosophical arguments for the
Divine. As for ‘the argument from personal ‘experience’ (p. 87–92),
Dawkins believes that this kind of thing simply demonstrates ‘the formidable
power of the brain’s simulation software’ (p. 90). But then, how can
we be sure that his atheistic just-so story-telling doesn’t demonstrate the
same thing, according to his own ‘reasoning’?
‘The argument from Scripture’ (its reliability) is dispatched in only
five pages and contains some especially fatuous statements, such as:
‘The historical evidence that Jesus claimed any sort of divine status is minimal.
… there is no good historical evidence that he ever thought he was divine.’
(p. 92) [but see
The Divine Claims of Jesus and
Jesus’ Assertion of Godhood: Miscellaneous Claims]
‘Nobody knows who the four evangelists [gospel writers] were, but they almost
certainly never met Jesus personally.’ (p. 96) (of course ignoring real historical
evidence such as
Gospel Dates, Gospel Authors, Gospels Freedoms)
‘It is even possible to mount a serious, though not widely supported, historical
case that Jesus never lived at all …’ (p. 97) [It’s possible
to mount a ‘serious, though not widely supported … case’ on anything
you like, e.g. the
non-existence of Dawkins, but no historian takes the non-existence of Jesus
seriously—see
Shattering the Christ-Myth]
Each of these assertions is made without a shred of supporting evidence and amount
to so much bluff and bluster. Since the nineteenth century, ‘scholarly theologians’
(i.e. liberals) have all but proved the unreliability of the Gospels—so he
says. His other sources for alleged contradictions or errors in the New Testament
are sceptics like himself, such as a writer for the Free Inquiry, and he
actually thinks that embittered apostate charlatans like
Brian Flemming are credible. Does he seriously believe that Christians have
no answer to the charge that, since Matthew 1 and Luke 3 record very different genealogies, this is a
‘glaring contradiction’ (never mind that
theologians have long shown from the original Greek grammar that Luke is presenting
Mary’s line)? Predictably, he wheels in
gnostic writings to further poison these already muddy waters (p. 96).
‘The central argument’—attacking design
Chapter 4 ‘contains the central argument of my book’, says Dawkins,
and he gives a useful six-point summary of it (pp. 157–158). To précis this
yet further: It is tempting to explain design using the watchmaker analogy but this
is false because the Designer then needs an explanation (again misconstruing the
designer as having a beginning in the first place, as well as explaining away the
fact that God is not composed of different parts). Ergo, natural selection
is the only option and we ‘can now safely say’ design is merely an illusion.
An ultimate origin (i.e. of the universe itself) awaits a better explanation but
the multiverse theory is favoured by Dawkins, even though the alleged other universes
are not observable even in principle, so it is hardly a scientific theory. ‘We
should not give up hope’ of finding ‘something as powerful as Darwinism
is for biology’ to explain cosmology. That is basically all there is to the
book’s central argument and anyone conversant with Dawkins’ previous
writings (e.g. Climbing Mount Improbable) will find nothing novel here.8
He does engage with Behe’s concept of irreducible complexity9—though very weakly indeed. After quoting from
Darwin, he concedes,
‘The creationists are right that, if genuine irreducible complexity could
be properly demonstrated, it would wreck Darwin’s theory. … But I can
find no such case. … Many candidates for this holy grail of creationism have
been proposed. None has stood up to analysis.’ (p. 125)
One wonders how thoroughly Dawkins has explored each case of claimed irreducible
complexity. For instance, his attempt at a refutation of the bacterial flagellum
motor is straight out of Kenneth Miller’s
discredited book Finding Darwin’s God, an argument that is
as fallacious as it is audacious.10
Surprisingly he even gets his facts wrong, claiming that:
‘The flagellar motor of bacteria … drives the only known example, outside
of human technology, of a freely rotating axle.’ (p. 130)
‘It has been happily described as a tiny outboard motor (although by engineering
standards—and unusually for a biological mechanism—it is a spectacularly
inefficient one.’ (pp. 130–131)
On the contrary, Dawkins is apparently ignorant of the F1 ATPase motor,11 direct observations of the rotation
of which were published in Nature in 1997; that same year, several scientists
shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for this discovery. Also, the bacterial flagellum
motor is 100% efficient at cruising speed.12
Such errors hardly inspire confidence.
It’s notable that Dawkins says he recommends Miller’s book to Christians—showing
clearly how he treats theistic evolutionists
as ‘useful idiots’ who undermine their own faith.
In fact, his insinuation of a ‘god of the gaps’ mentality grossly misrepresents
the argument for irreducible complexity. Far from being an intellectual cop-out
(‘we can’t imagine how this complexity was produced so God must have
done it’), design is the only credible scientific explanation for certain
data based on what we do know—it is precisely for this reason that
non-theists and agnostics have joined the ID movement.
However, no matter how powerfully a case can be made for irreducible complexity,
Dawkins will then appeal to his final ‘clincher’ argument:
‘… the designer himself (/herself/itself) immediately raises the bigger
problem of his own origin. … Far from terminating the vicious regress, God
aggravates it with a vengeance.’ (p. 120)
Aside from the fallacy pointed out already, Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga
has pointed out that his argument also begs the question by presupposing materialism.
In other words, it presupposes that God is composed of the same sort of matter/energy
as the universe, and subject to the same laws. Such an approach a priori
rules out the notion that God is spirit, is the uncaused First Cause, is eternal,
etc. It thus seeks to discredit God’s own claims about Himself without engaging
them on their own terms, ruling them inadmissible by default.
Origin of morality
In chapter seven, the missionary zeal of this apostle of atheism becomes very apparent
indeed. His thesis is that morality needs neither God nor religion and that the
Bible’s standards of morality are abhorrent. First of all, he launches a diatribe
against the Old Testament and key players in its history (p. 237–250). To
Dawkins, much of the Bible is ‘weird’ and strange so perhaps his theological
illiteracy is partly accounted for. Yet, for a man who has clearly studied the Bible—after
a fashion—his (mis)use of it in these pages smacks more of calculated deceit.
Almost gleefully, he describes immoral actions (such as Lot’s incest with
his daughters in Genesis 19 and the Levite’s behaviour concerning his
concubine in Judges 19) and concludes that this shows the Bible is not
our source for morality (ignoring that not everything reported in the Bible is endorsed
by the Bible). But he also wilfully twists the actions of the heroes of faith—so
Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac is ripped out of all context
to make him a child abuser! Moses and Joshua also receive a bashing by this self-appointed
theological expert, but his animosity is always at its fiercest when he is persecuting
the God that these biblical figures worshipped and served:
‘What makes my jaw drop is that people today should base their lives on such
an appalling role model as Yahweh …’ (p. 248).
Dawkins truly lives up to the name ‘A Devil’s Chaplain’13 when he writes about the New Testament,
quickly showing his true colours. For instance,
‘… there are other teachings in the New Testament that no good person
should support. I refer especially to the central doctrine of Christianity: that
of ‘atonement’ for ‘original sin’. This teaching, which
lies at the heart of New Testament theology, is almost as morally obnoxious as the
story of Abraham setting out to barbecue Isaac, which it resembles—and that
is no accident …’ (p. 251)
As an aside, Dawkins never tells us how he defines a ‘good person’.
Indeed, he bandies about such terms as ‘good’ and ‘evil’
(often when indulging in ad hominem remarks about his detractors) quite
brazenly and fails to justify his inconsistent absolutist position. So,
‘… Hitler and Stalin were, by any standards, spectacularly evil men.’
(p. 272)
‘Faith is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks
no argument.’ (p. 308)
By what standards (omitting the Bible which he rejects) does Dawkins
make these points? He doesn’t say. And it seems incongruous with
his recent support for eugenics, on the grounds that 60 years is enough
time to reconsider some of Hitler’s ideas.
However, what is more pertinent here is that Dawkins reveals his understanding of
the central tenets of the Christian faith. Without Adam’s sin, Jesus’
atoning sacrifice for sins (foreshadowed by the Abraham/Isaac incident; i.e. ‘no
accident’) becomes meaningless. The doctrine of original sin and the atonement
is, as he says, at the very ‘heart of New Testament theology’; we heartily
agree. Yet this Gospel is an offence to Dawkins who has chosen to deny God and deny
his own sin in order to avoid accountability to his Creator:
‘Original sin itself comes straight from the Old Testament myth of Adam and
Eve. Their sin—eating the fruit of a forbidden tree—seems mild enough
to merit a mere reprimand. But … They and all their descendants were banished
forever from the Garden of Eden, deprived of the gift of eternal life …’
(p. 251)
How tragically ironic that the very doctrines which Dawkins attacks with a vengeance
are also denied by theological liberals and by increasing numbers of professing
evangelicals—some have lately been downplaying or attacking not only Creation
and the Fall of man but also the penal substitution of Christ for sinners.14
‘But now, the sado-masochism. God incarnated himself as a man, Jesus, in order
that he should be tortured and executed in atonement for the hereditary
sin of Adam. Ever since Paul expounded this repellent doctrine, Jesus has been worshipped
as the redeemer of all our sins.’ (p. 252)
Later, Dawkins asks why God couldn’t just forgive sins without sacrifice but
he knows the biblical answer and actually refers directly to Hebrews 9:22. So Dawkins does understand Christianity—much
better than many ordinary Christians do—but he wilfully rejects it. In fact,
he admits to hoping to make atheists out of some of his religious readers (p. 5).
This is an important take-home message. Dawkins is on a mission is to undermine
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the only Saviour of human beings. The pronouncements
of theistic evolutionists and others who downplay Genesis as history aid and abet
him and his ilk:
‘To cap it all, Adam, the supposed perpetrator of the original sin, never
existed in the first place: an awkward fact …’ (p. 253)
Defending the historicity of Adam is something that Dawkins would fully expect creationists
to do—though he despises them for doing so. On the other hand, his disdain
for fence-sitters (p. 46) and theological compromisers is hard to miss; for example:
‘Oh, but of course, the story of Adam and Eve was only ever symbolic,
wasn’t it? Symbolic? So, in order to impress himself, Jesus had himself
tortured and executed, in vicarious punishment for a symbolic sin committed
by a non-existent individual? As I said, barking mad, as well as viciously
unpleasant.’ (emphasis in original; p. 253)
Clearly, Dawkins hates these doctrines for the moral problem that they expose in
himself and others but he has another reason too—an originally perfect Creation
and Redemption through the atoning work of Jesus are diametrically opposed to his
naturalistic world-view, a vision that he believes, passionately, requires no God:
‘I am continually astonished by those theists who, far from having their consciousness
raised in the way that I propose, seem to rejoice in natural selection as “God’s
way of achieving his creation.”’ (p. 118).
Other examples of Dawkins’ criticism of compromising ‘believers’,
who pick and choose which parts of the Bible they are comfortable with, are found
on pages 157 (belief in the Virgin Birth
and the Resurrection),
238 (Genesis not literal), and
247 (Scriptures
symbolic or literal).
Dawkins—man of faith
We have already seen that the author is careful to disparage anything and anyone
religious. Chapter 5 is a vain and facile attempt to explain religion’s roots
from a naturalistic perspective. Religion might be ‘a placebo that prolongs
life by reducing stress’ (p. 167) or perhaps it exists merely as a by-product
of some separate entity that gave survival value (not having any survival value
of its own; p. 172). For example, it’s good for a child to trust his/her parents
(it enhances survival value) but religious beliefs are also, thereby, passed on.
Alternatively,
‘Could irrational religion be a by-product of the irrationality mechanisms
that were originally built into the brain by selection for falling in love?’
(p. 185)
Having just decried the idea that faith is a virtue (and scorned those who believe
in the Trinity but concede their
limited comprehension of all it entails), Dawkins gives us his best shot at explaining
why religion exists:
‘… memetic natural selection of some kind seems to me to offer a plausible
account of the detailed evolution of particular religions.’ (p. 201)
Yet, the ‘meme’ hypothesis of Dawkins merely describes the transmission
of ideas and beliefs over generations and falls far short of explaining the origin
of religion—amounting to so much hand waving (even
according to many evolutionists) and, well, faith (of the blind sort, not
the
biblical kind). It also ignores the historical evidence for the claims of
Christianity, in particular
Jesus’ resurrection.
Dawkins believes that morality probably predated religion (p. 207). Then
again, he ought to know because he believes he has a firm grasp on the difference
between true and false religion. Thus, we are told that the atrocities perpetrated
by Hitler (a fanatical
evolutionist, incidentally) were carried out by soldiers ‘most of
whom were surely Christian’ (p. 276, although atheist
and famous evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr testified that biblical Christianity
was almost non-existent in Germany when he grew up)! Furthermore, ‘without
religion there would be no labels by which to decide whom to oppress and whom to
avenge’ in Northern Ireland and ‘the divide [between Protestant and
Catholic] simply would not be there’ (p. 259)! Perhaps he has forgotten the
Hutu/Tutsi divide in Rwanda. After all, religion is ‘the root of all evil’.3 In contrast, he seeks to reassure
the reader:
‘Stalin was an atheist and Hitler probably wasn’t; but … the
bottom line of the Stalin/Hitler debating point is very simple. Individual atheists
may do evil things but they don’t do evil things in the name of atheism.’
(p. 278)
One hopes that many of his readers are rather more well-informed than Dawkins gives
them credit for.15 Christian persecutions
were inconsistent with the teachings of Christ, while atheistic persecutions
were consistent with atheism—indeed, communists have persecuted non-atheists
precisely because they were non-atheists .
So, ‘why are we good’ (chapter 6) if a bloody evolutionary struggle
is responsible for human existence?
‘Could it be that our Good Samaritan urges [our altruistic tendencies] are
misfirings, analogous to the misfiring of a reed warbler’s parental instincts
when it works itself to the bone for a young cuckoo?’ (p. 220–221)
Dawkins is not joking—for humans also, feelings of pity are no different from
lust:
‘Both are misfirings, Darwinian mistakes: blessed, precious mistakes.’
(p. 221)
Dawkins is truly a man of considerable faith, witness the following pseudoscientific
beliefs that he holds:
· There are probably ‘superhuman’ alien civilizations elsewhere in the
universe (p. 72).
· ‘I think it is definitely worth spending money on trying to duplicate
[the origin of life] event in the lab and - by the same token, on SETI, because
I think that it is likely that there is intelligent life elsewhere’
(p. 138).
· There may well be a plethora of universes (the ‘multiverse’)
and he even claims: ‘we are still not postulating anything highly improbable’
(p. 147)!
In addition, he indulges in blatant circular reasoning on several occasions:
‘We exist here on Earth. Therefore Earth must be the kind of planet that is
capable of generating and supporting us …’ (p. 135)
‘Darwinian evolution proceeds merrily once life has originated. But how does
life get started? The origin of life was the chemical event, or series of events,
whereby the vital conditions for natural selection first came about. … The
origin of life is a flourishing, if speculative, subject for research. The expertise
required for it is chemistry and it is not mine.’ (p. 137)
He is right about his
ignorance of chemistry. But, neither does the professor have expertise in
theology or astrophysics, yet he discusses these at length. The real reason for
his disclaimer is that nobody has the faintest idea how life got started—but
that it happened is axiomatic for Dawkins:
‘… we can make the point that, however improbable the [naturalistic]
origin of life might be, we know it happened on Earth because we are here.’
(p. 137)
That has to be the ultimate in circularity although there are other instances in
the book (e.g. regarding human embryos, p. 300). One of his main arguments against
God’s existence, as we have seen, is that such a being demands an explanation
but is held to exist by faith. He is seemingly blind to the many incredible things
(also complex and demanding an explanation) which he believes as a matter
of faith; such as other universes, the spontaneous origin of life and ETs—all
without a shred of supporting evidence. Dawkins believes that Darwinism explains
the whole shebang:
‘Think about it. On one planet, and possibly only one planet in the entire
universe, molecules that would normally make nothing more complicated than a chunk
of rock, gather themselves together into chunks of rock-sized matter of such staggering
complexity that they are capable of running, jumping, swimming, flying, seeing,
hearing, capturing and eating other such animated chunks of complexity; capable
in some cases of thinking and feeling, and falling in love with yet other chunks
of complex matter. We now understand essentially how the trick is done, but only
since 1859.’ (p. 366–367).
And this is the man who is trying to convince his readership that believers in God
are deluded!
Abusing education
In view of the foregoing, it is not easy to stomach Richard Dawkins’ sanctimonious
attitude towards his dissenters who choose to teach their children a biblical world-view—one
which incorporates honour and respect for God and for one’s fellow human beings.
He is, by now, infamous for his attacks on Christian schools which dare to expose
children to alternatives to his bleak, atheistic take on life—such parents
and teachers are guilty of ‘child abuse’ in his celebrated opinion.
More than once, Dawkins argues that there is no such thing as a Christian child
or a Muslim child (e.g. p. 338 & 339), something that many children would have
something to say about! He has a real fixation about this:
‘Fundamentalist religion is hell-bent on ruining the scientific education
of countless thousands of innocent, well-meaning, eager young minds. Non-fundamentalist,
‘sensible’ religion may not be doing that. But it is making the world
safe for fundamentalism by teaching children, from their earliest years, that unquestioning
faith is a virtue.’ (p. 286)
Absolutism, he argues, has a dark side—many times in the book, he equates
believers in a literal Genesis or the conservative Christians of the USA with the
‘Taliban’ (e.g. p. 289). Needless to say, he admits little of the dark
side of atheistic and evolutionistic intolerance and absolutism and its consequences
for the lives of millions during the last century.16
He expects young people to be exposed to his wisdom, yet how many parents
would be happy for their children to imbibe Dawkins’ twisted take
on human life:
‘When I am dying, I should like my life to be taken out under general anaesthetic,
exactly as if it were a diseased appendix. But I shall not be allowed that privilege,
because I have the ill-luck to be born a member of Homo sapiens rather
than, for example, Canis familiaris or Felis catus.’ (p.
357)
Dawkins does concede that if, ‘having been fairly and properly exposed to
all the scientific evidence, they [children] grow up and decide that the Bible is
literally true or that the movements of the planets rule their lives, that is their
privilege.’ (p. 327)
But, he says, parents should not impose their views on their children. Of course,
the learned professor is exempt from his own advice—witness the incident he
related in Climbing Mount Improbable, where he took pains to put his young
daughter ‘right’ for taking a teleological view of wild flowers.17 Exposing young people to ‘all
the scientific evidence’ clearly would not equate to teaching evolution ‘warts
and all’—including its scientific flaws—in Dawkins’ mind!
Finding common ground
Are there any parts of this anti-God disputation with which a creationist
might agree? Well, yes, but many are a sad reflection on the state of the church—and
of society in general—in our western culture:
‘In England … religion under the aegis of the established church has
become little more than a pleasant social pastime, scarcely recognizable as religious
at all.’ (p. 41)
‘There seems to be a steadily shifting standard of what is morally acceptable.’
(p. 268)
However, this changing ‘spirit of the age’ (zeitgeist) is something
Dawkins approves of. Those who ‘advance’ with the times therefore approve
of
abortion. Dawkins correctly notes:
‘[For] the religious foes of abortion … An embryo is a ‘baby’,
killing it is murder, and that’s that: end of discussion. Much follows from
this absolutist stance. For a start, embryonic stem-cell
research must cease.’ (p. 294).
But how many pro-lifers realise the foundational (Genesis) basis for defending the
sanctity of human life? An ignorance of what the Bible actually teaches in its opening
chapters is lamentable. Elsewhere in his book, Dawkins says:
‘I must admit that even I am a little taken aback at the biblical ignorance
commonly displayed by people educated in more recent decades than I was.’
(p. 340–341)
Biblical ignorance is a large part of the reason for the moral laxity and relative
moral stance taken by so many today (including within churches)—although Dawkins’s
point is simply that the Authorized, King James Version of the Bible has important
literary merit.
And finally, we would, with Dawkins, highlight this statement (though not in the
way he means it):
‘Who, before Darwin, could have guessed that something so apparently designed
as a dragonfly’s wing or an eagle’s eye was really the end product of
a long sequence of non-random but purely natural causes?’ (p. 116; emphasis
in original).
Related Articles
Further reading
References and notes
- No less than twenty adjectives and nouns are hurled at God until
the professor has vented his spleen. Return to text.
- Hall, S.S., Darwin’s Rottweiler, Discover
26(9), September, 2005. The article is subtitled: Sir Richard Dawkins:
Evolution’s fiercest champion, far too fierce. Return to text.
- Root of all Evil? Channel 4, United Kingdom, presented by Richard
Dawkins and screened in two parts during 2006. Return to text.
- Eagleton,T.,
Lunging, flailing, mispunching, LondonReview of Books
28(20), 19 October, 2006, last accessed 25 January, 2007. The author
is Professor of English Literature at Manchester University, UK.
Return to text.
- Plantinga, A.,
The Dawkins Confusion: Naturalism ad absurdum, Christianity Today
(Books and Culture), March/April 2007. Return to text.
- Dawkins, R., quoted in: Roger Highfield, Science’s scourge
of believers declares his faith in Darwin, Daily Telegraph, 5 January,
2005, p.10. Return to text.
- Ipse dixit (Latin) = ‘He himself said it’,
i.e. an unsupported assertion. Return to text.
- See: Sarfati, J.,
review of Climbing Mount Improbable, Journal of Creation.
12(1):29–34, 1998. Return to text.
- Behe, M. J., Darwin’s Black Box. The Biochemical
Challenge to Evolution, The Free Press, 1996. Return to text.
- Miller points out that there are similar components in e.g.
the toxin-injection organelle of the plague germYersinia pestis and claims
that this refutes the claim for irreducible complexity of the flagellum motor. Not
so; around three-quarters of the components in this motor are unique and absent
from the plague bacterium’s ‘Type III secretory apparatus’ (TTSS).
There is actually
good evidence that the organelle in Yersinia resulted from degeneration
of a functional flagellum—consistent with the Creation/Fall model and in no
way undermining the case for irreducible complexity of the flagellum motor. Indeed,
evolutionary
experts argue that the TTSS must have come first, so Dawkins and Miller
are contradicting the best evolutionary theory as well.Return to
text.
- This is a subunit of the larger ATP synthase enzyme which is
ubiquitous in all living cells, and vital to generate its ‘energy currency’
ATP. See: Sarfati, J., Design
in living organisms (motors), Journal of Creation 12(1):3–5,
1998. Return to text.
- DeVowe, S., The amazing
motorized germ, Creation 27(1):24–25, 2004.
Return to text.
- The title of his book of selected essays, published by Weidenfeld
& Nicolson, London, 2003. Return to text.
- For example, see White, A.J.M.,
The lost message of Jesus is no message at all! 15 November 2004.
Return to text.
- For instance, see: Bergman, J.,
Darwinism and the Nazi race holocaust, Journal of Creation 13(2):101–111,
1999; Bergman, J., The Darwinian foundation
of communism, Journal of Creation 15(1):89–95,
2001. Return to text.
- Hall, R.,
Darwin’s impact—the bloodstained legacy of evolution, Creation
27(2):46–47, 2005. Return to text.
- Dawkins, R., Climbing Mount Improbable, Viking Penguin,
London, p. 236, 1996. Return to text.
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