Delusions and Divisions

I just finished reading Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. (Houghton Mifflin, 2006).  Dawkins is an Oxford don who specializes in evolutionary biology.  He is also perhaps the world’s most outspoken and notorious atheist. 

Dawkins has authored many popular books championing Darwinian evolution.  Probably his best known are The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker.  The God Delusion, however, is something quite different.  Instead of merely arguing the scientific evidence in favor of Darwinian evolution, as he does in his other books, Dawkins makes a frontal, take-no-prisoners assault on religion.  Not just extreme forms of religion, not just on simplistic, literalistic fundamentalist forms of religion, not even just on Christianity, but on all forms of religion.

Dawkins is, so to speak, one of the founders of the so-called “new atheism.”  There is of course nothing new at all about atheism; it has been around for centuries.  But it has mostly been the subject of rather austere philosophical discussions unknown to most people.  In contrast, the “new atheists” are known primarily for an absolutist, no-holds-barred, in-your-face approach to atheism.  And their books have been best sellers.

Dawkins’ minimum goal with this book is to make the world safe for atheists; his maximum goal is to convert as many people away from belief in God and ideally to do away with religion altogether.  It’s a rather odd goal, don’t you think, “to make the world safe for atheism.”  He seems to have a kind of persecution complex.  In his world, the deck is stacked against atheists.  This might make many religious believers laugh ironically, because they are likely to feel that the deck is stacked against them in this highly secular modern world of ours.  Which is it? 

Is modern culture pro-God or pro-atheist?  I think the answer depends on where you look.  If you look primarily at the private lives of people living in the heartland of the United States, it may seem reasonable to view the world as anti-atheist.  Dawkins points to several anecdotes where children were denounced and rejected by their parents for declaring their conversion to atheism.  On the other hand, if you look at the dual coasts of the United States, and particularly at the ruling intellectual classes in this country (e.g., academia, and especially the main media organs), you are likely to find the direct opposite:  secularism reigns supreme and religion is looked upon with distaste and suspicion.

I have nothing against atheists.  As a skeptic by nature and a former agnostic myself, I view certain types of atheism as a perfectly reasonable approach intellectually in trying to make sense of the world.  I honestly do not understand the antipathy that many people feel toward anyone who declares himself an atheist (as opposed to, say, merely non-religious).  I certainly cannot and do not expect others to have the same experiences that I have had that have convinced me of the reality of God.  And if I had not had those experiences, it’s quite possible that I might have embraced atheism myself by this point in my life.

What I find intolerable in the Dawkins approach to “militant atheism,” however, is the arrogant mockery of all forms of belief.  For example, he quotes approvingly from Robert M. Pirsig, (author of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”):  “When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity.  When many people suffer from a delusion is it is called Religion.”  Dawkins then goes on:

If this books works as I intend, religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down. . . . Of course, dyed-in-the-wool faith-heads are immune to argument, their resistance built up over years of childhood indoctrination using methods that took centuries to mature. . . .  Among the more effective immunological devices is a dire warning to avoid even opening a book like this, which is surely a work of Satan.

This is pure mockery, and throughout the book Dawkins demonstrates an absolute unwillingness to seriously engage any religious ideas.  It’s not entirely clear whom he would identify as “dyed-in-the-wool faith-heads.”  Presumably they are people with little education or critical intelligence.  Doubtless there are many such people in the world, but he seems to suppose that all or most believers would fit into that category.  Dawkins is known for making such statements as:  "It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid, or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)."

He has even called for fellow atheists to mock and ridicule believers in public – presumably to shame them into abandoning their faith.  It seems like a rather counterproductive way of trying to persuade people of your views.

It is worth noting that Dawkins et al. have been criticized sharply even by fellow atheists for this approach, which seems designed to alienate anyone who doesn’t already agree with them.  Michael Ruse, a philosopher of science, has written [here], that the new atheists have done great harm even to their own causes of science and atheism:

The new atheists do the side of science a grave disservice. . . .  These people do a disservice to scholarship. . . .  Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion would fail any introductory philosophy or religion course.  Proudly he criticizes that whereof he knows nothing. . . .  I am indignant at the poor quality of the argumentation in Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, and all of the others in that group. . . .  The new atheists are doing terrible political damage to the cause of Creationism fighting.   Americans are religious people. . . .  They want to be science-friendly, although it is certainly true that many have been seduced by the Creationists.  We evolutionists have got to speak to these people.  We have got to show them that Darwinism is their friend not their enemy.  We have got to get them onside when it comes to science in the classroom.  And criticizing good men like Francis Collins, accusing them of fanaticism, is just not going to do the job. Nor is criticizing everyone, like me, who wants to build a bridge to believers – not accepting the beliefs, but willing to respect someone who does have them. . . .  The God Delusion makes me ashamed to be an atheist. . . .  They are a bloody disaster. . . .

In line with his utter lack of respect for anything that remotely resembles religious faith, Dawkins focuses nearly all his attention on the most extreme forms of Christian (and Muslim) fundamentalism and biblical literalism.  The examples he provides of the evils of religion are the most attackable aspects of religion:  the former televangelist Oral Roberts, for example, who once persuaded his audience to give him $8 million to prevent God from striking him dead!  Or the violent extremism of modern Islamist terrorists.  These are hardly representative of the wide range of religious beliefs in today’s world.  Yet he insists that he is opposed not only to extremism and fundamentalism, but to all forms of religion, no matter how moderate.

He is completely dismissive of (and for the most part completely ignores) all intellectually sophisticated analyses of the Bible or religion.  One exception to this is his superficial analysis of the traditional philosophical arguments on the existence of God, which he dismisses with such descriptions as “vacuous,” “infantile,” and “perniciously misleading.”  His own argument  against the existence of God, on the other hand, he describes as “unanswerable.”  Really?

In sum, The God Delusion is a remarkably poor book.  I am certainly not alone in this viewpoint.

Even his reviewer in the New York Review of Books [here], no bastion of conservative Christianity, concluded that “despite my admiration for much of Dawkins’s work,” The God Delusion is “badly flawed.”  “Though I once labeled Dawkins as a professional atheist,” he writes, “I’m forced, after reading his new book, to concede he’s actually more an amateur.” 

One of the reasons I have discussed this rather poorly argued book at such length is that I believe it should give believers a certain degree of comfort to know that a very intelligent man who was intent on disabusing them of their faith could not do a better job.  (I daresay I might have done a better job myself if I chose to write as a pure skeptic!)  Are there other books on this topic that compare favorably to The God Delusion? Not that I’m aware, if one is considering only direct, polemical attacks on religion.  Christopher Hitchens, in God is not Great, and Sam Harris, in The End of Faith, attempted to launch similar direct attacks, but their efforts are equally superficial as Dawkins’s.  To be sure, there are many other types of more respectable books that attempt to undermine religious faith more indirectly, arguing, for example, that religions are simply human cultural inventions.  A well-known example of this approach is Daniel C. Dennett’s  Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon.  (Dennett is often linked to the other New Atheists, but his is a much more moderate approach.)

However, there is another reason why I consider Dawkins and others of his ilk to be particularly pernicious and therefore worth discussing.  Not in their atheism per se, which as a philosophical position is fairly harmless.  No, what is most disturbing about this absolutist approach is how they create unnecessary divisions in society. 

As is becoming increasingly apparent (particularly from the current political cycle!) is that the U.S. is becoming a highly polarized environment – not only politically, but also culturally.  I believe that the political and cultural aspects are closely related to each other, and that they both flow in great part from the modern tendency to view science incorrectly as anti-religion and anti-God.  The common wisdom is that the supposed “war” over science and religion began with the publication of Darwin’s The Origin of Species.  Supposedly the majority of Christians blindly refused to accept the truth of Darwinism because it contradicted the Bible, and that since then they have become even more blind and more adamant in their obscurantist views, while the scientists have bravely and nobly maintained the truth of evolution and science.  But that is a gross oversimplification – i.e., bad history.

In fact, the divisions between scientists and religionists in the 19^th century were by no means clear cut.  There were many Christian leaders and thinkers in the Victorian Age who not only accepted but endorsed Darwinism, and there were many scientists who rejected it.  More importantly, it was in great part the pro-evolutionists who began to portray themselves as being in a war with Christianity rather than the other way around.  (I hope to discuss this period in a future blog – stay tuned!)

Unfortunately, the myth of the noble fight of science against the religious forces of obfuscation has become so prevalent since the middle of the 20^th century that everyone takes it for an absolute truth, and as a result the battle lines have become hardened on both sides.  As a result, there are too many scientists who assume, uncritically, that there is no way for them to validate any form of belief in God.  (This is beginning to change, but only barely).  Likewise, there are too many believers today who accept the false assumption that there is no way for them to accept both the Bible and science.  Because (they suppose) they cannot be religious and accept the conclusions of science, they prefer to hold on to their religion, which gives meaning to their lives, and reject science. 

Dawkins tells the story of a young man who obtained a degree in geology from the University of  Chicago and then a doctorate in the same subject from Harvard.  He was a promising student who dreamed of teaching and doing research in his chosen field.  Then, as Dawkins tells the story, “tragedy struck.”

It came, not from the outside but from within his own mind, a mind fatally subverted and weakened by a fundamentalist religious upbringing that required him to believe that the Earth . . . was less than ten thousand years old.  He was too intelligent not to recognize the head-on collision between his religion and his science, and the conflict in his mind made him increasingly uneasy.  One day, he could bear the strain no more, and he clinched the matter with a pair of scissors.  He took a bible and went right through it, literally cutting out every verse that would have to go if the scientific world-view were true.  At the end of this ruthlessly honest . . . exercise, there was so little left of his bible that [as he realized]  “I had to make a decision between evolution and Scripture.  Either the Scripture was true and evolution was wrong or evolution was true and I must toss out the Bible . . .  It was there that night that I accepted the Word of God and rejected all that would ever counter it, including evolution.  With that, in great sorrow, I tossed into the fire all my dreams and hopes in science.”

Like Dawkins, I too consider this outcome a tragedy for the young man – but not for the same reason as Dawkins.  Dawkins, of course, saw the tragedy in the fact that he had been indoctrinated as a youth as a Christian, which led him to abandon his science (and all rationality!) for the Bible.  For me the tragedy lies in the fact that he ever felt it necessary to choose between science and religion – that he had to abandon science for religion or vice versa.  Thousands of other people in the midst of a faith crisis have come to the conclusion that both science and religion can, at least to some extent, be brought together, and that the inherent tension between the two is actually valuable.  Unfortunately, this young man had the view that there was an unbridgeable gulf between the two.  Doubtless he had been brought up to have that view by religious parents, but he may also have been essentially indoctrinated in similar fashion by his science teachers.

We might wonder if he was aware of the many scientists in the world who have been and are believers in God and religion.  If we suppose that his parents indoctrinated him into an absolutist, no-compromise view of the bible, we must realize that that attitude on the part of many fundamentalists developed in great part as a result of the polarization that began in the 19^th century and subsequently took off in even more extreme form in the 20^th century.  There are countless examples from history of growing polarization between groups on intellectual grounds, as one side argues against the other, then has to exaggerate its own ideas in order to strengthen its own arguments against its opponents.  The opponents then must do likewise, of course, and the first group must then counter with even more extreme arguments, until they have completely talked themselves into positions of total and absolute opposition.  This unnecessary enmity has resulted in a strong streak of anti-intellectualism in our society, which is quite harmful, both to the individuals involved and to society as a whole. 

“The God Delusion” was published by a major publishing house and was a best seller.  Books by the other new atheist writers have likewise sold very well, while serious critiques of their books have received much less attention.  To the extent that people are at all aware of attempts to present opposing views, it usually comes in the unproductive context of confrontational televised debates.   Our modern commercial media love confrontation, but such debates (including the countless political debates foisted on us!) are rarely informative and rarely result in anyone changing his or her views.  What they do do is to heighten the sense of opposition, enmity, and polarization in our society.  This is a pernicious influence.  As one of our better-known presidents once said, “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”

Are Science and Religion Incompatible?

The relationship of science and religion has been the subject of countless books, articles, debates, which show no signs of diminishing in quantity.  The relationship between the two fields is often presented, by champions of both sides, as one of enmity and opposition.  War, in fact, is often the most common metaphor.  But this need not be the case. 

Many (though far from all) scientists suppose that science has replaced – or should replace! – religion as the source of understanding of the world.  Many religious believers take this view of certain well-known scientists at face value and suppose that they, in turn, should reject science in the name of religion.  The truth is that science and religion are so different that it is difficult to say that they conflict.  Does it make any sense to say, for example, that apples and oranges conflict?  Or (to take an absurd example) oranges and submarines?  No, they are simply different objects, with more differences than similarities.  Similarly, religion and science are very distinct ways of trying to understand the world. 

Whence then arises the conflict?  There is a centuries-long history behind this clash, which I don’t have space to go into here (though doubtless I will get into it in a future blog).  For the moment, though, it’s enough to say that science deliberately excludes God from its parameters.  This is not because science is inherently atheistic – science per se is neither atheistic nor theistic – but simply because God has no place in the scientific method.  Science focuses laser-like on the sensible world – the world of our five senses, the things we can touch, taste, see, hear, and smell – and it takes a purely objective approach, excluding (to the extent possible) all subjective experience.

Edwin Schroedinger, the physicist of “Schroedinger’s cat” fame (a well-known thought experiment relating to quantum physics), understood this distinction when he stated, “No personal god can form part of a world-model that has only become accessible at the cost of removing everything personal from it.”  In other words, the scientific method, developed over many centuries, focuses single-mindedly on the physical world and excludes – or rather, attempts to exclude – all subjectivity from its parameters, so as to focus on specific aspects of the world.  Subjectivity – one’s personal experiences and feelings, including such things as love, hate, duty, obligation, and friendship – have no significance in the physics or chemistry lab.  Is this because they don’t exist?  Not at all – it’s simply because science has chosen to ignore them in order to focus on the material, objective aspects of the universe.

It’s a little bit like Cleopatra.  Most people assume that the famous Egyptian queen must have looked like Elizabeth Taylor or Sophia Loren.  But she didn’t.  We know from historical sources that she was quite lacking in physical beauty.  Yet she was nevertheless a highly charismatic and captivating woman, and highly desired by men.  (It reminds me of the classic opening line of the novel “Gone With the Wind”:  “Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.”  In other words, Scarlett did not look like Vivien Leigh!)  Of course Cleopatra’s riches and queenly status were part of the equation, but more importantly it seems as though she had a seductive charm that men found irresistible, despite her superficial plainness.  Scientists have studied physical attractiveness (in men and women) and determined that certain facial proportions and symmetries are considered the most beautiful.   Suppose we decided to draw up a top-ten list of the most beautiful women of all time, focusing on those particular measurements and ignoring everything else – Cleopatra would never make it on to our list.  Would that mean that she was not attractive – in real-world terms?  Obviously not, because we know that men were attracted to her.  All it would mean is that she was lacking in one measurement of overall attractiveness.

How then could we attempt to grasp the nature of her appeal to men – in objective terms?  We could go on and measure other aspects of her outer appearance.  We could even attempt to measure her actions and how she interacted with men – such things as how many times a minute she touched her companions on the arm or looked into their eyes or smiled at them.  We could then sum up all these objective measurements and analyze them and then draw our conclusions about why men were attracted to her.  The question is, would the results of our analysis be very satisfying?  Probably not.  Why not? 

Because charisma and charm are, in great part, subjective characteristics.  We know them when we see them, we can sense them – often subconsciously – but they’re nearly impossible to measure.  But does the fact that something is subjective or difficult to measure mean that it doesn’t exist? 

The point is that science by its very nature, focuses narrowly on certain aspects of our world which are easily measured, and excludes those things which are not.  Love and friendship, by their highly subjective nature, are difficult to measure and therefore difficult to study scientifically.  Does that mean love and friendship don’t exist?  Let us hope not.  If by its very nature science excludes subjective personality from its purview, does that mean personality doesn’t exist?  God, also, by his very nature, is not scientifically measurable.  Does that mean he doesn’t exist? 

There are many well-known authors, many of them scientists, who insist that God cannot exist because he is not detectable by the scientific method.  Perhaps the best known of these is Richard Dawkins, the author of “The God Delusion.”  He mocks the idea that there could be any knowledge of philosophy or religion that is outside the competence of science.  Therefore, he suggests, anyone who believes in realities outside the realm of science – in particular, God – is a deluded fool. 

In contrast to the Dawkinses of the world, many reputable top scientists – even eminent scientists – have not only been open to the possibility of God but even highly religious.  The best known of these today is Francis Collins, one of the world’s most distinguished geneticists.  Collins was formerly the head of the Human Genome Project, which completed the sequencing of the human genome in 2003.  Since 2009 he has been the director of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland – one of the most prestigious scientific research institutions in the world.  He has also been elected to the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences, and has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal of Science.

Francis Collins is also a devout evangelical Christian. 

In 2007 he founded the BioLogos Foundation, which invites the church and the world to see the harmony between science and biblical faith as we present an evolutional understanding of God’s creation.”  [See their website here.]  He has written two books on the relationship of science and religion.  In The Language of God: A ScientistPresents Evidence for Belief (2006), he relates his own conversion to Christianity.  His parents were nominal Christians and freethinkers.  In college, as he became interested in science, he drifted into agnosticism and then atheism.  He “became convinced that everything in the universe could be explained on the basis of equations and physical principles” and that “no thinking scientist could seriously entertain the possibility of God without committing some sort of intellectual suicide.”  Eventually he decided to go to medical school, and as he began to interact with patients – with real people, as it were – he began noticing how many of them had

a strong reassurance of ultimate peace, be it in this world or the next, despite terrible suffering that in most instances they had done nothing to bring on themselves.  If faith was a psychological crutch, I concluded, it must be a very powerful one.

One patient challenged him to reconsider his lack of faith and belief, and he quickly realized how he had never seriously considered (as a good scientist should) the evidence for and against the existence of God. 

There I found myself, with a combination of willful blindness and something that could only properly be described as arrogance, having avoided any serious consideration that God might be a real possibility.  Suddenly all my arguments seemed very thin, and I had the sensation that the ice under my feet was cracking.  The realization was a thoroughly terrifying experience.  After all, if I could no longer rely on the robustness of my atheistic position, would I have to take responsibility for actions that I would prefer to keep unscrutinized?  Was I answerable to someone other than myself?  The question was now too pressing to avoid.

On the advice of a Methodist minister, he began reading C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity.  He was impressed by the fact that Lewis himself, an Oxford scholar, had begun as an atheist and had made an attempt to disprove faith on the basis of logical argument, only to end up the most well-known defender of Christianity in the 20^th century.

I don’t have room to give justice to Collin’s discussion of how he changed his mind.  But one of the bases for his decision to convert was his realization of the reality of the foundation of morality in human society.  Morality, like friendship, like love, like God, is a subjective reality.  It has no place in the laboratory (though one hopes that scientists, especially biologists, take it into account in their actions!  There is a entire field known as bioethics).  Collins began to realize (to collapse a rather complex discussion in his book) just how basic the concepts of morality, justice, and fairness are to human society.  This realization became the basis for his growing conviction about the existence of God.

Why is it that Dawkins and others of his ilk insist that science has superseded religion?  In essence, it’s because they refuse to distinguish between science and philosophy.  Science as a method of studying the world, as we’ve already said, simply ignores God and focuses on the physical world.  And because it ignores God, (along with many other beliefs that cannot be proven in the laboratory), it is an easy (but false) leap to suppose that it opposes the very concept of God.  And because science and its sibling field of technology (applied science) have been so successful in the last two centuries in transforming civilization, it is easy to conclude – if one is not careful – that science is all that we need, that its view of the world is superior to all others.

In other words, it is important for us to distinguish between science, which is a method of studying the world, and the philosophy of naturalism or materialism, which is a way of viewing the world.  Materialism posits that there is nothing outside the material world – i.e., the world which science studies.  It is opposed not only to Christianity and other religions, but also Platonism and many other philosophies.  (Plato believed that there was a world of being, apart from the material world, which was accessible only with the mind.)

But it is important to stress that materialism is a philosophy, not a science.  In other words, it does not rest on scientific evidence.  Instead, it rests on a supposition that there is nothing outside the physical, material world which science studies.  There is no scientific evidence for this conclusion, apart from science’s inability to detect any other reality apart from the material world.  But how could science be expected to detect subjective realities that it has deliberately excluded from its purview?

I intend in future posts to look more closely at arguments made by materialist / atheist thinkers to show how weak they are.  I will not attempt to disprove them per se, but merely to show that they are far, far, from certain.  Stay tuned!