Delusions of divinity

I want to write something about an important book I am reading at the moment. It’s not a review, in the sense that there are many professionally executed reviews on this blog, rather this is a personal review. It’s for Richard Dawkins’ new book The God Delusion.

The book itself was at the front of my mind because I had a good natured ‘argument’ of sorts with Aoife, a friend of mine, recently in a pub about this, and a couple of things she said stuck with me. She is a rational, reasonable, intelligent person, and most importantly, she had some ideas regarding Dawkin’s work and was capable of expressing them without becoming emotionally involved.

However, on a personal level I approached this book cautiously. I was in a book shop last Saturday in Dublin, picking up my fix of novels for the next two or three weeks, and it was sitting on the shelves, visible from the corner of my eye. I was apprehensive about it, because I don’t like fundamentalism of any kind, and had grouped this book into a particular mental box, with the crackpot ravings of many other idiots keen to cram their own insecure world view down the throats of anyone foolish enough to give them attention.

The title doesn’t help. The God Delusion. Really, it’s kind of inflammatory to begin with, but obviously that’s a sales technique. Anyway, I was apprehensive about this book, but I knew it was probably a good read, because some people I respect had talked about it in positive terms. Even so, I think I was probably afraid in some way it would challenge me in a manner I would be uncomfortable with.

However, I was seriously wrong.

Not about being challenged, I was certainly that. However, this is an important book, and one which everybody should read. It galvanised my thinking on certain things and united different ideas I’d had into a coherent dialogue. Dawkins is an important thinker and this is an excellent book.

I’m glad I’m not writing a professional review of this book however, because it’s an extremely detailed and complex argument, and it would be very hard to summarise it. There’s a wikipedia page for it though, and this is how it explains its central arguments:

In his preface, Dawkins writes that The God Delusion contains four "consciousness-raising" messages:

* Atheists can be happy, balanced, moral, and intellectually fulfilled.
* Natural selection and other scientific theories are superior to a "God hypothesis" in explaining the living world and perhaps even the cosmos.
* Children should not be labeled by their parents' religion. Terms like "Catholic child" or "Muslim child" should make people wince.
* Atheists should be proud, not apologetic, because atheism is evidence of a healthy, independent mind.[4]

Dawkins defines "delusion" as "a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence, especially as a symptom of psychiatric disorder." Regarding "whether [religious faith] is a symptom of a psychiatric disorder," he is inclined to follow Robert M. Pirsig, who said: "when one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion."

The book is not without its faults. Dawkins is a man of science and presents his arguments excellently. However, in places he can't resist treating pursuit of and faith in religion as if it were a mental disorder. In many cases he's right, it is, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth to see someone make fun of others for cheap laughs, when the central tenet of the book is that if a person of average intelligence actually has the case for the non existence of god articulated for them calmly and rationally, they will find continuing faith inherently ridiculous.

Well, nobody likes being laughed at, and I think it's a pity that there are certain groups of people who desperatly need to read this book who won't because Dawkins has made fun of them. I think he would have been better served to simply let the power of his argument stand.

That said, the whole book isn't like that, and this only occurs in one or two places, so it doesn't detract from the book in general. While Dawkin's stated aim is to create atheists, he also somewhat responsibly offers some extremely compelling arguments why this is a good rather than a bad thing.

More from Wikipedia, concerning the reviews for The God Delusion in notable magazines:

The physicist Lawrence M. Krauss, writing in Nature, says that although a "fan" of Dawkins, "I wish that Dawkins ... had continued to play to his strengths". Krauss suggests that an unrelenting attack upon people's beliefs might be less productive than "positively demonstrating how the wonders of nature can suggest a world without God that is nevertheless both complete and wonderful." Krauss remarks, "Perhaps there can be no higher praise than to say that I am certain I will remember and borrow many examples from this book in my own future discussions."[15]

The Economist praised the book, focusing on Dawkins' critiques of the influence of religion upon politics and the use of religion to insulate political positions from criticism. "The problem, as Mr. Dawkins sees it, is that religious moderates make the world safe for fundamentalists, by promoting faith as a virtue and by enforcing an overly pious respect for religion."[16]

Marxist literary critic Terry Eagleton in the London Review of Books argues that Dawkins has insufficient understanding of the religious concepts he is attacking to engage with them effectively. He questions whether Dawkins has read or heard of Christian thinkers like Eriugena, Rahner or Moltmann, and upholds that "Critics of the most enduring form of popular culture in human history have a moral obligation to confront that case at its most persuasive". Eagleton also disagrees about historical points; for example he asserts that "Catholic" and "Protestant" were not synonyms for "Nationalist" and "Loyalist" in Northern Ireland.[17]

Andrew Brown in Prospect considers that "In his broad thesis, Dawkins is right. Religions are potentially dangerous, and in their popular forms profoundly irrational". He criticises, however, the assertion that "atheists ... don't do evil things in the name of atheism" and notes that "under Stalin almost the entire Orthodox priesthood were exterminated simply for being priests." Furthermore, he cites Robert Pape[18] that religious zealotry is neither necessary nor sufficient for suicide bombers, and concludes that the book is "one long argument from professorial incredulity." [19]

Harper's Nov. 2006 front paged highlighted: "In Defense of Religion: Marilynne Robinson on Richard Dawkins's Hysterical Scientism." Pulitzer prize winner Marilynne Robinson provides a theistic critique of Dawkins. Robinson portrays Dawkins as having superficial knowledge of the Bible and as intolerant of theists, yet demanding tolerance of science: "if religion is to be blamed for the fraud done in its name, then what of science? Is it to be blamed for the Piltdown hoax, for the long-credited deceptions having to do with cloning in South Korea? If by "science" is meant authentic science, then "religion" must mean authentic religion, granting the difficulties in arriving at these definitions."[20]

(Footnotes are revelevant to the Wikipedia entry on this book.

So has this book converted me to Atheism? No, not really. I was pretty much mostly there, already. I retain a strong belief in a sense of otherness regarding the spiritual component of mankind and firmly believe that we very little understanding of the sum total of human experience. If I have any major problem with Dawkins, it's that I think he should leave more room than he does for what we don't yet know. If for no other reason, than the scope of what we have discovered as a race in the last 200 years so profoundly revolutionised our understanding of the world, it seems slightly foolish to assume our horizons won't be so seriously broadened in the future.