Final Thoughts on Dawkins' "The God Delusion"

I’ve been reading Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion, and offering my thoughts on chapter three, where he looks at the arguments for God’s existence. Check out the earlier posts if you want to see what I’ve covered so far. Almost there now. Here are the last few “arguments” in the chapter.

The Argument from Admired Religious Scientists: e.g. "Newton was religious, so who are you to say different to him?" Really? Who is using this argument?

Pascal's Wager: "You're better off to choose to believe that God exists, because if you're wrong it won't matter anyway. If you choose not to believe in God and you're wrong, you might end up in hell." Dawkins has some good points to say about this one (which I'm sorry to say I've used before). Choosing God along the lines of this argument (because I'd be better off) is a selfish reason to choose God, and not very honest. Also, there are quite a lot of supposed "gods" out there. Which one are we supposed to choose in order to be safe? I remember a sketch by Rowan Atkinson that referred to this. "Oh I'm sorry Christians. The Jews were right." Not to mention the fact that many atheists have chosen not to believe because they see that religion has had a very bad (even evil) influence in the world's history.

The Bayesian Arguments, using probability, don't seem to work very well in my mind, so we may as well go with Dawkins on that one.

And then he concludes the chapter with The Argument from Improbability, which he says works in his favour. "A designer God cannot be used to explain organized complexity because any God capable of designing anything would have to be complex enough to demand the same kind of explanation in his own right." This sounds to me like "God can't have designed the universe because then someone would have to have designed God." Why does God have to be designed? God is God.

I think the bigger question is, "Why is that such a conclusive argument for Dawkins?" He comes back to it a lot in these chapters. I wonder if the argument behind this one is in reality more like this: "God can't exist because it's irrational to think that God exists."

The next chapter deals with improbability a bit more, but I'll leave that for another post.

So where does all that leave us? Obviously I haven’t been convinced, although it has been a very helpful book to read. It’s great to see things from the other side of the discussion for a change, and I can see how it all works for Richard Dawkins. He’s an intelligent guy, and I respect his thinking. He's got some important things to say about religion, and Christians would do well to listen a bit more.

Summing up...

My conclusion from all of it is this:You can't prove or disprove the existence of God using science, philosophy or logic. My advice is to stop trying. It's the wrong field altogether, although it makes for some interesting, important discussions.

Dawkins proposes that belief in God is the same as if someone postulates that there is a teapot orbiting Jupiter. And this highlights the problem. If you're an atheist, it is the same. God and an orbiting teapot may as well be the same thing. But if you're not an atheist, obviously it's vastly different.

For myself, I'm open to the scientific possibility that God exists. For Dawkins this is irrational. I think the fact that he is closed to that possibility is irrational and unscientific. And that's basically where it all ends up. For me it's God, but for him it's a teapot.

And for that reason, we can't really have a reasonable discussion on these lines.

The Bone House - Review

"The Bone House" is the second in Stephen Lawhead's Bright Futures series. It carries on the story of a group of people who've discovered how to travel around in time - and skip between alternative universes - using the "ley lines" hidden in our own world. And Lawhead does it better than anyone else, weaving a tale impossibly wide and deep, stretching the reader's imagination in such a way as not to leave you thinking "that's ridiculous," but rather, "Could that happen? What if the world was like that?"

I've not found an author who comes close to Lawhead in his capacity to open up worlds of incredible beauty and colour that somehow still feel familiar, and characters like ourselves to stumble around and discover them. This series in particular I'm finding interesting due to his skill and knowledge in the area of quantum physics, and the way he opens up new ways to think about these fascinating areas. In such areas, we still do not know all the answers, and scientists have to think outside the box to find possible explanations. As Lawhead asks, why shouldn't a novelist enter the conversation?

I'd recommend this series to anyone.

Think you know your Bible?

I just read a very interesting alternative interpretation of The Parable of the Talents that Jesus tells in Luke 19. Completely different to the way I've always heard it taught.

As the story goes, a nobleman leaves the country to go and be crowned king. (Herod's son Archelaus did this following Herod's death, as the listeners would have known.) Before he goes, the guy divides 10 minas (worth about 3 months wages each) among his servants to invest while he's gone.
When he returns, the first servant has made 10 times the amount given - and receives 10 cities to govern as a reward. The second servant has made 5 times more than he first received, and gets 5 cities as a reward.
But the third servant has made nothing and gives back the original amount. "You wicked servant!" says the king, and takes this amount and gives it to the guy who has 10 cities.

The traditional interpretation is that this parable is about how we are to use what we've been given wisely, because one day Jesus will return and call us to account.

But watch this.

Lloyd Pietersen explains a different way to look at it, and this is very interesting. He points out that whenever Jesus talks about money, it is usually about GIVING IT AWAY, not investing and gaining more. Especially in Luke's gospel, where this is from. Blessed are the poor, Jesus says in Luke 6:20. Zaccheus' story, which is just before this one, ends with Zaccheus giving half his fortune away, and repaying anyone he's cheated four times the amount. One can assume that old Zac ends up with very little at the end. And Jesus says "Salvation has come to this house." The poor widow also gives her last pennies. The rich young ruler, also just a little before this story, is told by Jesus to give everything he has to the poor and come follow. Discipleship, in Luke's gospel, means giving up everything to follow Jesus.

In this context, it would be strange for Jesus to follow with a parable promoting accumulation. Pietersen suggests that Jesus is telling this parable to draw attention to the injustice built into the society, where the rich get richer and those with nothing have everything taken away. Sound familiar?

The third servant, which might be representative of a follower of Jesus, refuses to play by these rules (a common theme for Jesus) and is rejected. Not a particularly encouraging end to the parable. But that's just how it is. Though it's difficult, and you might get chewed up and spit out, Jesus still says generosity - not selfish wealth accumulation - is the only way to "the kingdom of heaven."

That interpretation definitely seems to line up better with Jesus' other sayings and actions. Doesn't work well for those churches that have used the parable to promote prosperity though!

Nice to still be surprised by Bible things I thought I knew. I hope that never stops.

Unicorn

Thanks Reachout.com for this one!

Thoughts on Dawkins' "The God Delusion" 3

Carrying on my imaginary discussion with the well-known atheist Richard Dawkins (in which I get to say everything I like and he nods his head, scratches his beard and says “Hmm, I see that you are right, young Ben.”), we come to The Argument from Beauty. (Check the earlier posts if you want to see where we’ve been so far.)

Dawkins describes this one as: "God must exist because otherwise how would you account for the beauty of Michelangelo's art, Mozart's symphonies, Shakespeare's works?" Obviously it’s ridiculous if you put it in those terms. But again he's set the field in his favour by describing this argument only in terms of human artists.

I think the argument from beauty isn't so bad when you consider the beauty in the natural world. Sunsets didn't have to be beautiful, or flowers, or mountain ranges, or rainbows. The world could have been shades of brown. I don't think it's a knock-em-dead argument, and I can think of rebuttals to it even as I’m writing. But the argument from beauty is certainly not as crazy as Dawkins paints it.

He then generously gives a few pages to considering The Argument from Personal Experience, which is another one that isn't going to be particularly strong with a nonreligious person, though it might be the strongest of them all for the believer. The fact is, it's too difficult to prove, and most likely the listener wasn't there.

The Argument from Scripture is next: e.g. "Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, so therefore he's either 'Lord, Liar or Lunatic.'" I think the popular More than a Carpenter book from memory uses this logic. Dawkins points out that there's a fourth possibility, that Jesus might have been honestly mistaken. Fair point.

He then he goes on to point out some apparent contradictions and discrepancies in Scripture itself, which show his lack of knowledge in First Century and Jewish culture. I can see how this might be particularly persuasive to people who don’t know their Bible stuff though. He writes, "Ever since the nineteenth century, scholarly theologians have made an overwhelming case that the gospels are not reliable accounts of what happened in the history of the real world." Well that's just not true.

And further, "All [the gospels] were copied and recopied, through many different 'Chinese Whispers generations'..." That's a bit of a deceptive comment. It’s true that the New Testament writings were copied and recopied (as is every great work), but archaeology has over time uncovered earlier and earlier (and more and more) documents of the New Testament writings. So the fact is, our translations are getting more and more accurate, not less. And the sheer quantity of copies we have from the first centuries shows the amazing level of accuracy in the copying technique, which is quite phenomenal.

None of this is a secret. You can easily see the points where there are differences in the documents. Just pick up a Bible and check out the footnotes. There aren’t many at all, considering.

And that’s where I’ll sign off for this one.