Recently I read Richard Dawkins’s book The God Delusion and I’d like to share a few thoughts about it. At the outset, Dawkins lays down a couple goals for the book, one of which is that any people of faith who read it, convert to atheism, in my case, this will not be achieved, in fact, I felt sort of let down by the thing. Saying that isn’t really all that fair as I don’t think I set realistic expectations for the work and to be truly honest, I didn’t finish it. I guess I expected more from Dawkins. I don’t know what exactly but maybe something that I would consider a real challenge to my faith, that didn’t happen. It turned out to be a collection of arguments I’ve heard a thousand times before or at least had considered on my own. For that reason I became quite bored with it. I skimmed the remaining chapters to see if there would be any difference there and when I reasoned that there would not, the book went back to the library (there were other folks who had it on request). The long and short of it is that I expected something original from the man who may be the world’s foremost advocate of atheism, and I didn’t find it.
All that said, I didn’t disagree with Dawkins on all that much, mainly just the conclusions he draws. His indictment of religion is more or less correct. Religions suck. Jesus said repeatedly that he was not there to save a privileged few, but everyone, Jew, gentile, Yankee and Red Sox fans, even the French. Then, a bunch of people in robes show up and say “Nope, you gotta be one of us to be saved and in order to be one of us, you gotta do this and if you don’t, off to hell with you.” This is completely in defiance of Jesus’ words and screwed up the whole thing. The result is that people turned their backs on God. To quote Rob Bell: “A lot of people confuse religion with God and walk away from them both.”
Dawkins also goes to great length to prove evolution to which I say, “Well done.” For me, God and evolution can coexist quite nicely. I have no problem here. Yay evolution.
So let’s get to it. Here’s where I have a problem with Dawkins. First, he likes a small God. Also towards the beginning of the book, he says something like, and I’m paraphrasing because the book is back at the library, “some people believe in a God that no matter what science proves, it’s all still God.” How shocking. Duh.
All that said, I didn’t disagree with Dawkins on all that much, mainly just the conclusions he draws. His indictment of religion is more or less correct. Religions suck. Jesus said repeatedly that he was not there to save a privileged few, but everyone, Jew, gentile, Yankee and Red Sox fans, even the French. Then, a bunch of people in robes show up and say “Nope, you gotta be one of us to be saved and in order to be one of us, you gotta do this and if you don’t, off to hell with you.” This is completely in defiance of Jesus’ words and screwed up the whole thing. The result is that people turned their backs on God. To quote Rob Bell: “A lot of people confuse religion with God and walk away from them both.”
Dawkins also goes to great length to prove evolution to which I say, “Well done.” For me, God and evolution can coexist quite nicely. I have no problem here. Yay evolution.
So let’s get to it. Here’s where I have a problem with Dawkins. First, he likes a small God. Also towards the beginning of the book, he says something like, and I’m paraphrasing because the book is back at the library, “some people believe in a God that no matter what science proves, it’s all still God.” How shocking. Duh.
One of Dawkins’s main arguments is a little bit schoolyard for me. There is a line of thought in creationism regarding a “Prime Mover.” Essentially you can regress everything so far back, but at some point there has to an initial cause that had no cause itself. Big Bang kind of stuff. This Prime Mover is labeled “God.” Dawkins’s answer is of course, “Well then, who created God?” I think he actually includes the phrase “Neener Nee Nee” (really he does). Which brings me to this, this book is a great deal of Dawkins masturbating in an intellectual sense. Much of the tone of the book is “If you weren’t so stupid, you’d agree with all of us smart people and be an atheist.” If fact, he sees his role in all of this as that of a consciousness raiser. Again, at least for me, there was nothing new in this book.
Dawkins lays out a good case of why one should not believe. His arguments are extremely rational as one would expect from a renowned scientist and certainly a brilliant man. To be honest, I’d love to have lunch with the guy as he truly seems to be an incredibly interesting being. The problem with rational arguments is that they don’t hit the spot on people where faith lives. Dawkins actually uses this quote from the bible and it occurred to me several times while reading the book “A fool hath said in his heart, there is no God” (Ps. 14:1). Notice how the brain is not mentioned? That’s not an accident. Brains are inconsistent. They’re designed to doubt, consider and reconsider, turn things over and over again. They also send you into a room to get something and then forget why. They lose your car keys and make you do thing that result in embarrassing facepalm moments. Your heart is something else entirely. (Before anyone points it out, I know it’s not actually your heart, it’s more a difference between the purely rational, and the aspect of the self that is not purely rational.) Hearts can be a bit wild sometimes, but when they are touched by the truth, they can move a man to tears. No simple, rational fact ever did that. An honest faith, will cross both planes, the brain and the heart. It has to. Of course, that means that the believer will be subject to doubt, but that’s okay. Doubt can have the effect of strengthening faith. My point in all of this is that I think there is a level of knowing something that goes beyond the rational. For example, I know how to play the guitar. I know the notes on the fretboard, the correct way to play them, and I can read music, but I don’t know how to play. I may know a lot of what a virtuoso knows, but I can’t do what he can do. His knowledge of the guitar exists on a different level from my own. I’ve stated this all quite poorly, but give it some thought.
One last point, and this is a bit of the small God thing, but Christianity is not stagnant. Christian thought and philosophy is constantly evolving as new people make new arguments. Within the last couple years, a young pastor in Michigan named Rob Bell sent shock waves though the Christian community with a book called Love Wins that challenged the commonly held notion of heaven and hell. The argument still rages over this. People of faith are not fools, we are not slaves to dogma, and you had better believe that we can damn well think for ourselves. One book by an atheist isn’t going to change that anymore than one theologian will convert all of the atheists. No matter how brilliant either thinks himself to be.
Ultimately, I’d suggest reading Dawkins, or at least making an effort to do so, whether a person is a person of faith or not. Challenges to faith are a good thing. It keeps one from becoming complacent. If your faith is really shaken, maybe it or aspects of it should be reevaluated. This is not bad. Think of it like going to the gym. You may even end up an atheist for a bit, but your heart may call you back after a while, in which case your faith will be tested and proven. We challenge our bodies to keep them healthy, we challenge our intellects to keep them vibrant, why should faith be left out of the mix?
One last thing. Dawkins states that an atheist can be a moral, compassionate, contented, and good person. I agree completely. Some of my favorite people are atheists. They are also some of the people who are doing some of the hardest work on behalf of people who need the most help in the world. In many cases, they’ve outdone us Christians to our shame and their credit. I’d rather stand with a good atheist than a bad Christian any day of the week, twice on Sunday.
I’d love to hear what any of you have to say. Also I apologize if this is scattered and not especially coherent, but my work schedule doesn’t allow for a lot of time on this right now. Besides, I don’t want to write a book to comment on one, nor do I want to summarize the whole of Dawkins’s work.
Y’all know I love ya.
© Carl Mealie, 2012
Dawkins lays out a good case of why one should not believe. His arguments are extremely rational as one would expect from a renowned scientist and certainly a brilliant man. To be honest, I’d love to have lunch with the guy as he truly seems to be an incredibly interesting being. The problem with rational arguments is that they don’t hit the spot on people where faith lives. Dawkins actually uses this quote from the bible and it occurred to me several times while reading the book “A fool hath said in his heart, there is no God” (Ps. 14:1). Notice how the brain is not mentioned? That’s not an accident. Brains are inconsistent. They’re designed to doubt, consider and reconsider, turn things over and over again. They also send you into a room to get something and then forget why. They lose your car keys and make you do thing that result in embarrassing facepalm moments. Your heart is something else entirely. (Before anyone points it out, I know it’s not actually your heart, it’s more a difference between the purely rational, and the aspect of the self that is not purely rational.) Hearts can be a bit wild sometimes, but when they are touched by the truth, they can move a man to tears. No simple, rational fact ever did that. An honest faith, will cross both planes, the brain and the heart. It has to. Of course, that means that the believer will be subject to doubt, but that’s okay. Doubt can have the effect of strengthening faith. My point in all of this is that I think there is a level of knowing something that goes beyond the rational. For example, I know how to play the guitar. I know the notes on the fretboard, the correct way to play them, and I can read music, but I don’t know how to play. I may know a lot of what a virtuoso knows, but I can’t do what he can do. His knowledge of the guitar exists on a different level from my own. I’ve stated this all quite poorly, but give it some thought.
One last point, and this is a bit of the small God thing, but Christianity is not stagnant. Christian thought and philosophy is constantly evolving as new people make new arguments. Within the last couple years, a young pastor in Michigan named Rob Bell sent shock waves though the Christian community with a book called Love Wins that challenged the commonly held notion of heaven and hell. The argument still rages over this. People of faith are not fools, we are not slaves to dogma, and you had better believe that we can damn well think for ourselves. One book by an atheist isn’t going to change that anymore than one theologian will convert all of the atheists. No matter how brilliant either thinks himself to be.
Ultimately, I’d suggest reading Dawkins, or at least making an effort to do so, whether a person is a person of faith or not. Challenges to faith are a good thing. It keeps one from becoming complacent. If your faith is really shaken, maybe it or aspects of it should be reevaluated. This is not bad. Think of it like going to the gym. You may even end up an atheist for a bit, but your heart may call you back after a while, in which case your faith will be tested and proven. We challenge our bodies to keep them healthy, we challenge our intellects to keep them vibrant, why should faith be left out of the mix?
One last thing. Dawkins states that an atheist can be a moral, compassionate, contented, and good person. I agree completely. Some of my favorite people are atheists. They are also some of the people who are doing some of the hardest work on behalf of people who need the most help in the world. In many cases, they’ve outdone us Christians to our shame and their credit. I’d rather stand with a good atheist than a bad Christian any day of the week, twice on Sunday.
I’d love to hear what any of you have to say. Also I apologize if this is scattered and not especially coherent, but my work schedule doesn’t allow for a lot of time on this right now. Besides, I don’t want to write a book to comment on one, nor do I want to summarize the whole of Dawkins’s work.
Y’all know I love ya.
© Carl Mealie, 2012
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