For all those interested in the Dawkins phenomena and his book 'The God Delusion' may I suggest reading the critique by Alister McGrath aptly named 'The Dawkins Delusion'. Dawkins is a well established scientist and puts across some good and helpful points but this latest of his writings is not science but an assortment of very bias arguments grasping at already disregarded theories and some statements that simply foolish.
The cultural and literary critic Terry Eagleton pointed out in his withering review of The God Delusion: ‘Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is The Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology.’
One of the most characteristic features of Dawkin’s anti-religious polemic is his presentation of the pathological as if it were normal, the fringe as if it were the centre, crackpots as if they were mainstream. It generally works well for his intended audience, who can be assumed to know little about religion, and probably care for it even less. But it’s not acceptable. And it’s certainly not scientific.
Dawkins does, I have to say with regret, tend to portray anyone raising questions about the scope of the sciences as a science-hating idiot. Yet there is a genuine question here. Every intellectual tool that we possess needs to be calibrated – in other words, to be examined to identify the conditions under which it is reliable. The question of whether science has limits is certainly not improper, nor does a positive answer to the question in any way represent a lapse into some kind of superstition. It is simply a legitimate demand for calibration of intellectual accuracy.
Furthermore, they argue, scientific theories do not, and are not intended to, describe and explain ‘everything about the world’ – such as its purpose. Law, economics and sociology can be cited as examples of disciplines which engage with domain-specific phenomena, without in any way having to regard themselves as somehow being inferior to or dependent upon the natural sciences.
The point is simple: nature is open to many legitimate interpretations. It can be interpreted in atheist, deist, theist and many other ways – but it does not demand to be interpreted in any of these. One can be a ‘real’ scientist without being committed to any specific religious, spiritual or anti-religious view of the world. This, I may add, is the view of most scientists I speak to, including those who self-define as atheists. Unlike dogmatic atheists, they can understand perfectly well why some of their colleagues adopt a Christian view of the world. They may not agree with that approach, but they’re prepared to respect it.. Dawkins, however, has a radically different view. Science and religion are locked into a battle to the death... The relationship between science and religion is complex and variegated – but it could never conceivably be represented as a sate of total war.
Dawkins’ theories of the biological origins of religion, though interesting, must be considered to be highly speculative.
In one of his more bizarre creedal statements as an atheist Dawkins insists that there is ‘not the smallest evidence’ that atheism systematically influences people to do bad things. It’s an astonishing, naïve and somewhat sad statement. Dawkins is clearly an ivory-tower atheist, disconnected from the real brutal world of the twentieth century... The reality of the situation is that human beings are capable of both violence and moral excellence – and that both these may be provoked by world views, whether religious or otherwise.
Atheism must indeed be in a sorry state if its leading contemporary defender has to depend so heavily and so obviously on the improbable and the false to bolster his case.
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