[Above, Dawkins on the warpath again. I believe he's actually licenced to kill by HRM decree]
Having recently finished reading Mr. Dawkin's highly controversial anti-religious rant, the God Delusion, I'd like to chime in with a kind of review cum explication of my own views. These are probably aetheist/humanist, but lean away from Dawkin's antipathy to God without leaning toward religion. I think I'm more interested in the process of thinking about it than in the answers anyway, but this may be a function of my youth, and comparative distance from thoughts of death (by aging). No matter the person, I think mortality is a shadow over all thought. Even for the aestheist who professes to be reconciled/resigned to death without afterlife. It would be interesting to see if the positive correlation between education and aetheism is prefaced in life by a correlation between ambition to suceed and high educational achievement. The point being, people may want to be remembered in this life because they believe there will be no next one. Can't imagine how you'd go about designing such an experiment though.
Enough tangential rambling - on with the topical rambling.
Dawkins' hypothesis seems to be that the probability of a big G god's existence is so slight that faith in that probability is irrational and unproductive. Then he argues that since belief has so little demonstrable worth, and the negative consequences of religion are so great, the entire enterprise should be done away with. There's a good bit more to the book (although editing his personal anecdotes would still cut it in half) - but that is the gist as I understood it. To paraphrase:
'Faith in God is inherently worthless, is largely a consequence of psychological conditioning, and collectively has great negative consequences and few positive ones that would not be occurring without it.'
I don't recall the argumentation addressing the corollary of the last point - that religion's negative consequences might also be occurring without religion. That's an aside though.
Can we ask an important question - what is the point of this kind of attack? Surely people of a religious bent will not be 'converted' to atheism by a single polemic? Dawkins invokes the demonstrably tiny probability of a creator god, as though the tiny probability were not what seekers of religious truth were seeking in the first place (Things that are rather self-evident don't really require faith)! And as for those who might be persuaded, Dawkins is so acerbic, impolite and unrelenting in his attack on religions that those on the fence must be more likely to remain there than come to his side. They may well have been on the fence because they disliked religious fanaticism (now I can't compare atheist fervour with religious fanatics, but still...) so it's surely a turn off for such moderates. Especially when he says he has utmost contempt for agnostics!
But no. Despite all this, it is worth saying a lot of what he says. Much of it is one-sided, but much is also true. Some has not been widely publicised before. The logic is nice in places, particularly where he discusses the God hypothesis. Of course, he does nothing to demonstrate that one shouldn't believe in a creator God on grounds of the intrinsic lack of logic in the hypothesis, for it is a minority indeed that cares if its belief(!) system is validated by logic - mostly logicians and mathematicians, I would guess.
Still, we need the like of Dawkins. The scarier the Creationists etc get, the scarier we need someone to hold the other corner. Nobody listens to nice people. They listen to lots of people, and crowds are always easier swayed when you're loud and scary. The politicised Christians in the U.S. are particularly scary right now, and having angry uncompromising people like Dawkins tells the rest of America that they can hold their own views and get away with it. They don't need to agree with him, just be inspired to independence of thought. Not many tend to do that on their own. When something threatens one in a basic and fundamental way, we can either be Chamberlain or we can be Churchill.
To carry the analogy, taking the path of most resistance forces one immediately into conflict. The appeasement route looks like initially like live and let live, but how far can this go? It cannot be thought of as resolution, since neither opposing side is likely to abandon their mutually inimical stances by a process of entropy. Depending on the overlap of their spheres of concern, and their proximity, it would seem inevitable that the expansionism inherent in human nature is going to force the issue sooner or later.
So, whether by this eventual process, or if one first chooses the path of most resistance, one naturally comes straightway right against the other fellows beliefs, which he cannot abandon, which in fact he may have been hoping to foist onto you. What to do? However you cut it, believing strongly or having interests in something - anything - seems to have the potential to force you into a situation of conflict. If what Dawkins is doing is recognising this and drawing up his battle, I do not find myself inclined to fault him too greatly for it.
5 comments:
In any fun debate there's a devil's advocate :), but was this really your impression with Dawkins?
My reoccurring impression of the debate is that the two camps always end up diverging on the question of logic and empirical proof vs. faith.
Personally, just as little as I would put my life in the hands of "fate" alone, I cannot see how even the most vehement scientist can argue that what we now know and see is all there is. After all, we keep learning and seeing more - sometimes things work in different and bigger ways than initially envisioned (sometimes smaller). But in limiting ourselves to logic we limit our scope for discovery, no?
Incidentally I thank you for the reference to Phantom's in the Mind which I am now thoroughly enjoying.
Thanks for this! Much appreciated.
In the months since I first flew off the handle about this book, I have come to have a much more positive view of it: okay, so it's stirring things up - but in doing so it's opened the door for religious moderates (previously biting their tongues) to come out and talk about these issues. That alone is invaluable.
From my casual analysis of the books' contents, most of the philosophy is pretty weak, but much of theology is equally weak, so that's not much of a complaint.
We've tried not talking about these things, and it didn't work. Let's try talking about them instead.
Best wishes!
Nomad: Of course they diverge as you say, on the question of logic and empirical proof vs. faith, because each side feels at heart gravely threatened by the epistemilogical processes of the other (some even know why they feel threatened, which is almost sadder). The irony is that the best from both camps actually need the other side's thinking, and use it, to do the great things they do.
So many inquisitive people get massive inspiration from the idea that the universe stretches beyond sight in all directions and is indescribably beautiful all the way...and they want to know some part of that immensity. Some of these people are religious, and call it God, and some are not and call it the Laws of Physics (caps intended!).
We cannot 'limit' ourselves, as you say, to logic. Nor can we to faith. As with most things, they are an inextricably bound engine, driving our highest thoughts by attracting and repelling each other.
Ps I was referring to The Emperor's New Mind, precursor to Shadows of the Mind. Haven't read the latter. Physically, I think Penrose's hypothesis on the quantum effects at work in thinking has been shown to be untenable, but I believe his arguments for the non-algorithmic nature of thought are as strong as ever.
Chris: My pleasure. Surprised by the positive response, but you're right in your analysis of the book and thus its not too worth getting worked up over - the issues certainly are, but Dawkins himself should have written a pamphlet, not a book.
More to come on this, when I've time!
(I believe the reference is intact and taken from one your comments, but no matter, I am always on the outlook for more books. :)
Oh. Well, I was getting ahead of myself referencing SotM, since as I said, I haven't read it. Boo for me.
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