The Dawkins Delusion

If you are looking for evidence of the existence of God, you won’t find it in Doctor Alister McGrath’s The Dawkins Delusion. You will need to look elsewhere for that. In fact, you would probably spend more time contemplating “the mind of God”, as Professor Stephen Hawking puts it, in A Brief History of Time.

The Dawkins Delusion… (I believe a question mark follows after “Delusion”, but because of the lopsided way it is plastered on the front cover, I am going to treat it as artistic licence. If McGrath intended "The Dawkins Delusion" to be a serious question, he would have put a question mark at the end of the word "Delusion" to avoid ambiguity, so I am going to leave it out in this post)…

…I’ll start again…

The Dawkins Delusion is an intellectual point scoring match played against The God Delusion. McGrath gives himself 65 pages to battle it out against The God Delusion’s 420 pages, and he isn’t going to waste an opportunity to imply that this leaves him with a disadvantage.

“Yet the fact that Dawkins has penned a 400-page book declaring that God is a delusion is itself highly significant,” McGrath writes on the first page of his introduction. “Why is such a book still necessary?” he screams in italics (pg vii). “Every one of Dawkins’ misrepresentations and overstatements can be challenged and corrected. Yet a book that merely offered such a litany of corrections would be catatonically boring,” he adds by way of a get out clause (pg xii). One of the first things Professor Steve Jones said at the mention of Richard Dawkins during the Theos “Did Darwin Kill God?” debate at Westminster Abbey in May was that Dawkins had sold over 1.5 million copies of The God Delusion. Jones admitted, humorously, a twinge of envy in the same breath as acknowledging Dawkins’ achievement. McGrath will do neither.

Instead, McGrath ends the introduction to his book by telling his readers why he thinks they have got round to reading it:

“This book, I suspect, will be read mainly by Christians who want to know what to say to their friends who have read The God Delusion, and are wondering if believers really are as perverted, degenerate and unthinking as the book makes them out to be.” (pg xiii)

If there was ever a sentence McGrath must regret having ever written, it is that one. WHY does he think that Christians will not read The God Delusion?! Does he think they are too lily-livered to make it through the 400 pages? Or does he think the majority of Christians do not have the intelligence to understand Dawkins’ arguments? I would like to ask him. As it is, McGrath begins his 65 pages by insulting the intelligence of his readers; a condescension that is difficult to shake off for the rest of his argument.

But that is not to say that McGrath doesn’t score any points. He does. This one is a classic example:

“I would place Dawkins (and Dennett) in the broad tradition of naturalist explanation of religion which includes Feuerbach, Marx and Freud. Whatever the benefits of religions might be, these writers believe that they arise entirely inside human minds. No spiritual realities exist outside us. Natural explanations may be given of the origins of belief in God. In the end, this is a circular argument, which presupposes its conclusions. It begins from the assumption that there is no God, and then proceeds to show that an explanation of God can be offered which is entirely consistent with this. In fact, it is basically an atheist reworking of Thomas Aquinas’ ‘Five Ways’, arguing that a consistent account of things may be offered without being obliged to propose the existence of God.” (pg 31)

Very good. A nice return, especially as McGrath takes on the mince meat that Dawkins makes of Thomas Aquinas’ ‘Five Ways’:

“For example, Dawkins takes issue with the approaches developed by Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century, traditionally known as the ‘Five Ways’. The general consensus among philosophers of religion is that, while such arguments cast interesting light on the questions, they settle nothing. Although traditionally referred to as ‘arguments for God’s existence’, this is not an accurate description. All they do is show the inner consistency of belief in God – in much the same way the classic arguments for atheism (such as Ludwig Feuerbach’s famous idea of the ‘projection’ of God: see pp.28-9) demonstrate its inner consistency, but not its evidential foundations.” (pg 7)

I would have liked to have read McGrath exploring the idea of the ‘projection’ of God much more than he does. At best, he offers an ontological response to the idea:

“There is no God.
But lots of people believe in God. Why?
Because they want consolation.
So they project or objectify their longings, and call this ‘God’.
So this non-existent ‘God’ is simply the projection of human longings.

It’s a fascinating argument, and has had a deep impact on western culture. It has problems, however. For a start, wanting something is no demonstration that it does not exist. Human thirst points to the need for water.” (pg 28)

Not so good. A poor return. The ontological argument really is pure armchair ratiocination, as Dawkins terms it, and it is a wonder that Camp Quest uses it to disprove God’s existence in the staple “Unicorn Game”(http://tinyurl.com/mus9l5). It’s fun, but that’s all.

A friend of mine recently tried to rib me by saying that I deify Dawkins. Me? Deify Dawkins?! I believe the misunderstanding occurred because I said that Dawkins had successfully challenged the existence of God. But “challenged” is not the same as “disproven”.

The last argument against the existence of God which I read (not from Dawkins) before writing this sentence was that "God cannot exist because He is a contradiction in terms". Right. And the only way to get out of double-think is to double-unthink it.



Note: page references to The Dawkins Delusion are from the 2007 paperback version.

Camp Quest UK Launch

A very funny comment piece in today's Telegraph by Michael Deacon who is rationally sceptic about the Professor Richard Dawkins-supported launch of Camp Quest UK:

Here is a taste:

“At Camp Quest UK, children aged eight to 17 will be given lessons in evolution and rational scepticism.
“Now, I have no quarrel with Camp Quest's objectives. I am an atheist. And of course children should be taught to think scientifically. No, my worry is simply that the camp's teachings will be too effective. For if there's one thing to make my blood freeze, it's the thought of my child mutating into some kind of pedantic, humourless, eight-year-old mini-Dawkins.
"Imagine trying to celebrate the little beast's birthday: ‘Many happy returns, Darling. Now blow out the candles and make a wish.’
‘Certainly not, Father. This is a futile custom. There is no evidence to support the notion that blowing out the candles on a Marks & Spencer Victoria sponge increases the likelihood of one's desires becoming reality.’
‘Right. I see. Sorry. Well, luckily, we've bought some nice gifts for you.’
‘On the contrary, Father, luck did not influence your purchases. Indeed, there is no such thing. To believe otherwise is flabby thinking.’
‘Oh, God.’
‘Please don't say that, Father. You know perfectly well that the deity whose name you invoke does not exist.’
‘That Camp Quest thing really had an effect on you, hasn't it. I suppose you'll be wanting to go on the course they're organising for Easter…’
‘Most assuredly not. Easter is a spurious festival based on the fallacy that a man came back from the dead, which double-blind experiments have proved impossible. In consequence, I refuse to recognise Easter and shall spend the holiday period at school, whether or not my teachers are in attendance.’"

And here is the whole article: http://tinyurl.com/l2ontj

I have just checked out the Camp Quest UK website and watched a You Tube piece to camera by Religion and Contemporary Society Kings College Masters student and Camp Quest UK Director, Samantha Stein.

One of the highlights for the camp-goers is the “invisible unicorns challenge” which, Samantha says, is “a staple at any Camp Quest across the world”. The kids get introduced to the two invisible unicorns that they can’t see or smell or touch and they have to prove to the camp counselors that they don’t exist. “To be honest, I am not sure how they will manage that because we have faith that these exist, but err, there we go,” says Samantha (in the most see-through bluff ever).

If I was a kid and Samantha delivered the rules of the game to me in the same way she does in the You Tube clip, I wouldn’t want to play – the camp counselors are going to have to put a little bit more heart and soul into it then that. But - get this - the prize is (Samantha says, fluttering her eyelashes), “a £10 Darwin note signed by Richard Dawkins himself, so I am sure that will give the kids some incentive to participate in this activity.” What?! Not the activity itself?! I think the prize should be a unicorn – two of them. Those poor kids.

Seriously, watch the clip yourself: http://tinyurl.com/l2akfa