Playing With Words

When I was 11 or so, there was a boy in my class who was an atheist. It wasn't something that was discussed, and I don't recall how the subject came up, but I remember sneaking a look at him in morning prayers, and yes, there he was, brazen as you please, eyes wide open and not saying a word. My attitude, I think, was that this wasn't a serious position. He couldn't really be an atheist.

That seems to be the assumption of a number of critics when confronted with Richard Dawkins. Somehow, some way, he can't actually mean what he says. Deep down he's the same as the rest of us: the poor dear just won't admit it. If his beliefs encompass anything more than tiny billiard balls pinging mechanically around a meaningless universe, then - aha! - that's what we meant by religion anyway, so, voila, he really is religious.

Ruth Gledhill, the Times Religion Correspondent, called "The God Delusion" an atheistic rant. Later, in a review of the recent debate which brought together Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and AC Grayling, she decided she'd maybe been a bit harsh:

His problem is that he takes religion too literally, and as many have pointed out, is too fundamentalist about his own atheistic creed... But I hope I might have the opportunity to explore some of these areas in an interview with him soon. I'll still be using in in my mind the nickname I have adopted for him: 'Mobius Dick.' But after last night I accept that Dr Dawkins does have more than two sides to his soul, more that two dimensions to his spirit. He just doesn't know it... yet.

And now, with this interview, she at last has her chance to patronise him in person:

Richard Dawkins believes that children should grow up reading the Bible and has a “soft spot” for the Church of England. He also believes some of the historic atrocities of human behaviour were not inspired by religion, but were a result of our “ruthless Darwinian past”. And he believes in the possibility of a transcendent “intelligence” existing beyond the range of present human experience. It is just that he refuses to call it God.

These are just some of the more surprising confessions to come from the man variously described as Britain’s angriest atheist and the self-appointed Devil’s chaplain.

You see? He's really quite cuddly. Quite human in fact. So he must be religious, but just doesn't realise it.

In GD [The God Delusion], Dawkins quotes Einstein as saying that he prefers not to call himself religious, because that implies “supernatural”. But Einstein acknowledged that behind everything “there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly”.

Dawkins admits: “If that’s what you call religion then I’m religious.” But when I suggest that, in this case, he is in touch with the transcendent, he accuses me of “playing with words”. He says: “If by transcendent you mean what Einstein believed then yes, but what I think, to come back on your statement that more intelligent and sophisticated religious people believe something close to what Einstein and I believe, that may be true, but they are a tiny minority of religious people in the world. It’s the majority of religious people in the world that we have to worry about.”

He is really talking about the US here, where hundreds of thousands of people believe that the Universe is less than 10,000 years old. “

He's really talking about the US here? That being, of course, the only place where religious fundamentalism is any kind of problem.

Being among those who have criticised Dawkins for an atheistic version of the fundamentalism he so detests, critics have accused me of mistaking his passion for fundamentalism. A more intelligent assault on his lack of beliefs came in sermons earlier this year at Westminster Abbey. The Rev Dr Nicholas Sagovsky, its Canon Theologian, accused him of lacking an “ethic of love”...

His passion and anger do stem from love, however, a love of the truth.

I fail to see what's particularly intelligent about accusing Dawkins of lacking "an ethics of love". It's just name-calling. But Gledhill decides that he does in fact have a passion. He loves the truth. So it looks like this sinner can be saved, if only he can be made aware of the fact that, since God is Love, if he loves something - like the truth - then he's being religious.

Reading too much of this sort of thing can turn your mind to mush.

He denies that he is setting up an alternative religion, an atheistic lack-of-belief system. He also resists the conclusion that, if God and religion are no more than human creations, his attack on religion is an attack on humanity, perhaps evidence of a certain degree of misanthropy. “There’s a lot to criticise in humanity that has nothing to do with religion, but that doesn’t detract from the importance of criticising religion as well and I would criticise the brutality of Stalin and Hitler, the idiotic beliefs that they had.”

Well of course he denies that atheism is itself a faith, because it quite clearly isn't, except in the trivial sense that it requires a belief that there's no god (Stephen Laws has offered a signed copy of his latest book for the "the most irritating, sinister or downright funny use of this ever-popular myth"). But now we get this: if religion is merely a human creation, then to attack religion is to attack humanity, and so is evidence of misanthropy. I must remember that one next time someone criticises astrology, or conceptual art, or, well, pretty much anything.

He is equally critical of fundamentalist Darwinism. “A lot of what is good about human history has been an emancipation, a weaning, of humanity away from our ruthless Darwinian past,” he says. “As a Darwinian, I see that.”

Well no: he isn't being critical of fundamentalist Darwinism here. That's an entirely different argument. He's suggesting that through civilisation we're able to liberate ourselves from the effects of "our ruthless Darwinian past".

By now it is clear that the thing Dawkins really detests is not so much God, or even religion, but superstition.

What Dawkins is trying to suggest is that God and religion are superstition, but he's obviously wasting his breath.

And finally, that line from her introduction: Dawkins apparently "believes in the possibility of a transcendent “intelligence” existing beyond the range of present human experience"? That'd be quite some admission, if he'd actually made it. This is the relevant passage:

[W]hat about those other dimensions that some scientists believe might exist? Yes, he concedes, modern physicists do talk about 11-dimensional space. “But that’s nothing to do with theology.” How does he know? Might not God exist in one of those states? “That might be true, but what’s sure, well, highly unlikely, is that anything that theologians of modern day or any day have to say is going to have anything to do with the wonder of what future physicists are going to discover. It’s going to dwarf not only modern-day science but present-day theology as well.”

But was there not, in his mind, a tiny possibility that one of these future physicists could discover God in one of these dimensions?

“Well, I’m convinced that future physicists will discover something at least as wonderful as any god you could ever imagine.” Why not call it God? “I don’t think it’s helpful to call it God.” OK, but what would “it” be like?

“I think it’ll be something wonderful and amazing and something difficult to understand. I think that all theological conceptions will be seen as parochial and petty by comparison.” He can even see how “design” by some gigantic intelligence might come into it. “But that gigantic intelligence itself would need an explanation. It’s not enough to call it God, it would need some sort of explanation such as evolution. Maybe it evolved in another universe and created some computer simulation that we are all a part of. These are all science-fiction suggestions but I am trying to overcome the limitations of the 21st-century mind. It’s going to be grander and bigger and more beautiful and more wonderful and it’s going to put theology to shame.”

I have no idea what prompted Dawkins to come out with these odd remarks. I suppose he was politely taking her suggestion seriously - yes, there might conceivably be some science-fiction scenario where a great intelligence blah blah. In the circumstances, though, it wasn't a smart move. Inevitably Gledhill seizes on it as an admission that he believes there could be a transcendent intelligence. And so, you see, he really is religious after all.

Comments

[Jeffrey Mushens]

Mary Midgley did a much better job of dealing with Dawkins' philosophical inadequacies. But Eagleton's review was pretty funny as well. And Andrew Brown was pretty scathing as well. Maybe Dawkins would be better advised to promote the public understanding of science as something other than inconsistent metaphysical speculation. His actions damage science's reputation in the public mind.

[Julien]

"Fundamentalist" is an epithet almost invariably used by Dawkins's critics, but I'm not sure what they mean by it. If they mean he fundamentally refuses to accept religious explanations, well, yes, that's the point, isn't it? He sees no compelling evidence for them. If they mean that he wants to forcibly impose atheism on other people, as religious fundamentalists do, then they can't have read him very carefully (or at all). His sci-fi speculations in this article are odd, but I think he's trying to say that if even if it turns out we are the product of design, the designer would have to be a physical, non-supernatural intelligence.

[dearieme]

Christians are nearly-atheists; they don't believe in Jove or Thor or the Hindu cast of thousands. I add Jehovah to that list. What do Christians find so hard about that last step of non-faith? And why do they find it so hard to see that whatever I might think of other aspects of their character, I despise their intellectual folly on the Jehovah business? Since it upsets them so, I am happy to discuss other things. Nice to see Trescothick back, isn't it?

[Richard Dell]

Much of the criticism of Dawkins is ill-informed, and few have seriously tackled his arguments, preferring to scoff, much as Sam Wilberforce did of Darwin. There is a long and deeply considered debate here (timeline bottom to top) between Daniel Dennett (with whom my sympathies lie) and others about the issue:
http://www.edge.org/discourse/dennett_orr.html

Freeman Dyson has added a necessary addition to Weinberg's remark that Dawkins often quotes. I have more sympathy with Dyson, who takes the only sensible view of God - not only do we not know, but we cannot know.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson (section on Science and Religion)

[DaninVan]

*Sigh*.... Man, this topic consumes so much of Human activity; can you imagine what we could accomplish if we redirected this energy?!

Take an aquarium (YOU take it, I already have a couple...), its denizens, if born there, have no knowledge of anything other than what they sense through the glass. Food, generally speaking comes from above (heaven?) and corpses return there... an apparition appears out of the 'sky' and scoops up the dead blighters, said blighters never to return. Giant creatures seem to appear regularly and attempt to communicate with the creatures through the barrier that defines their world/universe (that tapping on the glass thing is REALLY painful!...and annoying).

Point being that it really doesn't matter whether there is or isn't a 'creator'. You, as an individual, have more chance of winning big on the lottery than you do on ever having perfect insight into the purpose of the Universe...assuming that there actually IS a reason for its existence.
Enjoy your three score and ten (if you beat the odds) and don't lose sleep over something that you and I have absolutely no grasp of.
.....it is kinda fun thinking about it though, eh?

[IanCroydon]

"What do Christians find so hard about that last step of non-faith?"

I think what is being suggested is the other way round, why does Dawkins find it so hard over that last step of "faith".

I'm not suggesting Dawkins becomes "born again", I just despair why he gets in such a bother over what is essentially a meaningless concept in a modern western society.

After all, atheists are mainly liberal thinking people living in free-thinking western liberal democracies. I doubt very much they'd survive in any other environment, and I imagine they are quite grateful that such societies exist.

And it just so happens that a vast majority of free-thinking western liberal democracies were also Christian ones during their history and went through a process of enlightenment but still have a strong cultural tradition of Christian faith.

And it also just so happens that a vast majority of Christians living in free-thinking western liberal democracies are quite unconcerned that atheists and non-Christians live as equals amongst them, or that government is based on human ideologies rather than God inspired ones, in fact you could say they agree with Dawkins on this point.

Check out basic liberal principles, and apart from the "faith" ones and the belief in the "God delusion", they are identical with Christian principles, you know, stuff like "don't kill anyone" and such.

In short, it makes squat all difference if you have "faith" or not, the principles of a liberal/Christian society are the same.

Perhaps it is not a question that Dawkins might be a raving fundementalist underneath, but more of an acute embarrassment that his entire existance as an atheist depends on the actions of Christians past and present.

I doubt Dawkins will be engaging in a book signing tour to promote The God Delusion in countries like Saudi Arabia, presumably because he prefers his head to remain attached to his body. In the meantime he'll sit on his comfortable atheist arse in his smug Oxford house listening to distant church bells toll in the quaint English country air and ne'er a though will dwell about how this came to be so, he'll just continue to fume over how an unelected Archbishop can put on a silly hat and gain more right to sit in government than he can.

Maybe one day he will discover the connection between the God Botherer in Chief sitting in the House of Lords and his arse and the head that stubbornly remains attached to the same body despite his unholy infidel views.

I admire Dawkins greatly, his book The Selfish Gene was a definining moment in my life, and as a scientist he is unsurpassed in his expertise and his devotion to bring science to the masses.

But he is sadly mistaken that religion is preventing this in the western world, in fact, right now, the Christian faith is probably the only thing standing up to defend the right of atheists like Dawkins to freely air their views, against a bunch of religious control freaks who believe God told them which hand to wipe their bottoms with.

[Recusant]

Dearime

"I despise their intellectual folly on the Jehovah business"

Now you usually talk sound good sense on most of your comments, but here - you've really lost it. It makes you sound like Dave Spart: not a comparison you should enjoy.

To despise must mean in the first place that they make you angry. Why? When we are talking about Christianity, they are only proposing, not imposing. Do you despise the Vegan Society for proposing a Vegan diet? Or the Fabian Society; the Adam Smith Institute; the Rosacrucians; Derby and Joan Clubs, etc., etc......?

Pull yourself together man and stop sounding so ideologically left-wing. Or are you Matthew Parris?

[DaninVan]

Voyeurism?
"
Agence France- Presse
WASHINGTON — NASA unveiled Thursday a model of the massive space telescope that will replace the aging Hubble in 2013 and allow scientists to observe the formation of the first galaxies at the dawning of the universe.

The U. S. National Aeronautics and Space Agency displayed in Washington a full- scale model of the James Webb space telescope, which scientists hope will peer back to the first stars after the “ Big Bang” and the formation of solar systems capable of hosting life.

JWST, a joint project of the U. S., European and Canadian space agencies, will be three times bigger than Hubble, with a hexagonal mirror 6.5 metres in diameter and five- layer sunshield the size of a tennis court"

[dearieme]

Yes, yes, many Christians are perfectly nice people. But they manage to mix together "What's it all about then, Lord Russell?" wonderment at the mysteries of the Universe, with belief in a risible collection of Bronze Age Semitic folktales, and then object that others laugh at them. And some aren't nice, like the Catholic schoolteachers who tried to teach a cousin of mine to hate Protestants.