When all else fails, try sarcasm...
It's good that someone religious has read Dawkin's God Delusion. One would hope for some debate of facts and attitudes, but instead there is only sarcasm.
Specifically, I'm skeptical that such a poorly researched, self-contradictory book could really be the product of such a brilliant, rational mind as Richard Dawkins.
So you expect some examples of poor research, or self contradiction in the essay, you will be disappointed. The writer sets up "sources" of inspiration for Dawkins:
The first source is opposed to what he or she calls the "God Hypothesis." For this reason, I will label this source "H". This hypothesis is stated by H to be:
Unfortunately, the two are not in conflict at all. The negation of the hypothesis of a particular concept of deity is just one small part of getting rid of all deities. The supposed opposition of these two hypotheses is the basis of the rest of the essay. Negating "H" is supposedly conciliatory, while "A" is somehow more aggressive. I fail to grasp why 'your god does not exist' is more conciliatory than 'no gods exist'. oh, well...
Next paragraph carries on with the supposedly contrasting sources A and H, and represents A as "factually challenged". Interesting assertion, but no challenged facts are brought up. oh... he thinks Dawkin's got Mendel's religious sincerity wrong, implying he was a cloistered, mute monk whose devotion to God alone only increased at his elevation to abbott. Hmm...
He was actually a physics teacher, with a gardening hobby, and when appointed Abbot, was hoping to spend more time gardening, and less time teaching. The Catholic encyclopedia says:
Mendel, already much engrossed with his biological experiments hoped that he might have more time for his researches than was possible in the midst of his labours at the Realschule. But this was not to be. The jurisdiction and privileges of the abbey are somewhat extensive, and its abbot must, in ordinary times, find himself with plenty of occupation. Mendel, however, in addition to the multiplicity of his duties as abbot, became involved in a lengthy controversy with the Government which absorbed his attention and embittered the last years of his life.
So his time being taken up with administrivia was not a choice, but an obligation, and was not at all what he hoped for. Dawkin's was not far off at all. The next "error" is supposedly the addition of ''nowhere to hide" to a sentence referring to Bonhoeffer. Firstly, the sentence does not purport to quote the source, but merely to reflect the spirit of his thinking. Here is a substantial reference:
Dawkin's Quijote-esque desire is to save all the world´s people from the waste of time, money, love, and blood that is religion. That the people do not understand they are infected is understandable, but his vitriol is for the destructive beliefs, and his compassion is for the people saddled with them. I wish him good luck, but this review shows how long a slog it will be.
Specifically, I'm skeptical that such a poorly researched, self-contradictory book could really be the product of such a brilliant, rational mind as Richard Dawkins.
So you expect some examples of poor research, or self contradiction in the essay, you will be disappointed. The writer sets up "sources" of inspiration for Dawkins:
The first source is opposed to what he or she calls the "God Hypothesis." For this reason, I will label this source "H". This hypothesis is stated by H to be:
There exists a superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us. (p. 31)The second source is opposed to the very idea of a deity:
I am not attacking any particular version of God or gods. I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented. (p. 36)I will label this source "A" because he or she is opposed to *ALL* gods.
Unfortunately, the two are not in conflict at all. The negation of the hypothesis of a particular concept of deity is just one small part of getting rid of all deities. The supposed opposition of these two hypotheses is the basis of the rest of the essay. Negating "H" is supposedly conciliatory, while "A" is somehow more aggressive. I fail to grasp why 'your god does not exist' is more conciliatory than 'no gods exist'. oh, well...
Next paragraph carries on with the supposedly contrasting sources A and H, and represents A as "factually challenged". Interesting assertion, but no challenged facts are brought up. oh... he thinks Dawkin's got Mendel's religious sincerity wrong, implying he was a cloistered, mute monk whose devotion to God alone only increased at his elevation to abbott. Hmm...
He was actually a physics teacher, with a gardening hobby, and when appointed Abbot, was hoping to spend more time gardening, and less time teaching. The Catholic encyclopedia says:
Mendel, already much engrossed with his biological experiments hoped that he might have more time for his researches than was possible in the midst of his labours at the Realschule. But this was not to be. The jurisdiction and privileges of the abbey are somewhat extensive, and its abbot must, in ordinary times, find himself with plenty of occupation. Mendel, however, in addition to the multiplicity of his duties as abbot, became involved in a lengthy controversy with the Government which absorbed his attention and embittered the last years of his life.
So his time being taken up with administrivia was not a choice, but an obligation, and was not at all what he hoped for. Dawkin's was not far off at all. The next "error" is supposedly the addition of ''nowhere to hide" to a sentence referring to Bonhoeffer. Firstly, the sentence does not purport to quote the source, but merely to reflect the spirit of his thinking. Here is a substantial reference:
A phrase that is often deployed in his letters on the world come of age is a Latin quotation from the Dutch jurist Grotius, ‘etsi deus non daretur‘ which can be translated as, ‘even if there were no God.’ Allow me to quote at length from a letter to Eberhard Bethge dated July 16th 1944.
“God as a working hypothesis in morals, politics or science has been surmounted and abolished; and the same thing has happened in philosophy and religion (Feuerbach!). For the sake of intellectual honesty, that working hypothesis should be dropped, or as far as possible, eliminated. A scientist or physician who sets out to edify is a hybrid.”
“…we cannot be honest unless we recognize that we have to live in the world etsi deus non daretur. And this is just what we do recognize - before God! God himself compels us to recognize it. So our coming of age leads us to a true recognition of our situation before God. God would have us know that we must live as men who manage our lives without him. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us (Mark 15:34) ['My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?'] The God who lets us live in the world without the working hypothesis of God is the God before whom we stand constantly.
Again, there really is not any basis for complaint. Dawkin's has not mis-represented Bonhoeffer's views at all. There are no other "mis-represented" or "challenged" facts to speak of. There is just a distinct feeling on the author's part that one should respect his feelings. Does he respect Raëlians, Moonies, Scientologists, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, Wiccans, etc... ? Where does respect stop, and ridiculous begin? With Brights, it is clear: if you invoke the supernatural, you are being ridiculous, unless you have some pretty hefty proof. Respect the people always, but the beliefs? no.Dawkin's Quijote-esque desire is to save all the world´s people from the waste of time, money, love, and blood that is religion. That the people do not understand they are infected is understandable, but his vitriol is for the destructive beliefs, and his compassion is for the people saddled with them. I wish him good luck, but this review shows how long a slog it will be.
posted by philobyte at 7:45 PM
5 Comments:
Thanks for your feedback. To be honest, I was so disappointed with Dawkins' book that I wasn't able to write a serious review. At times I thought he made some good points, primarily those relating to the "god hypothesis" he set forth in the second chapter. The "god hypothesis" is, I would say, roughly equivalent with the "theory" of intelligent design. If Dawkins had focused on that aspect of religion, I'd have been in full agreement with him.
However, at many places in the book he descended into childish insults, claiming at one point that anyone not willing to strap a bomb to their chest in the name of religion does not really believe. (This is in chapter 8.) That's ridiculous on the face of it. In the end, I just couldn't take The God Delusion seriously. Your mileage may vary.
I found this book shrill in tone, but for data to back up assertions, Dawkin's is invariably solid. It's fine to be riled by the tone, I didn't like it much either. But if you can get past it, I think Dawkin's point is that, given a written document with horrible ideas mixed in with good ones, some will eventually get the good ones and bad ones crossed. Take for example some commandments:
That would include Exodus & the 10 commandments. ...
Exodus 20:3 “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”. Old Testament punishment - Deuteronomy 17:1-5 “And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heavens, which I have not commanded. Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing and shalt stone them with stones, till they die”.
3rd. Commandment, Exodus 20:7 “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain”. Old Testament punishment - Leviticus 24:16 “And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death”,
Joshua defeated the whole land... he left no one remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the LORD God of Israel commanded." (Joshua 6:21 and 10:40)
Now there are a bunch of biblical literalists out there, and the simplest way of interpreting what biblical literalists means is to take them at their word (that the good book is complete and inerrant.)
So out of 200 perfectly reasonable people, one nutbar will take that particular clause literally, Add in
Deuteronomy 20:10-18, and you have justification for holy war by Christians. The world is big, and given 300 million people and an internet, one out of 200 translates into a group of 1.5 million nutbars in the US alone. If only a few of them get together, then bad things are likely.
from ( http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/submitted/Perry/holywar.html )
Paul in Chapter 13 of his letter to the Romans declared, "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God." He who is in authority "is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer." This text was cited by many later Christians as divine justification for military force.
Then you have the saviour himself, who died for our sins, kind of the ultimate jihadi.
If you are going to say ignore that part, fine, get all the christians together, and produce a canonical list of all the bits that are stricken. You can even leave them in there, as long as they are in italics or something that clearly tags the passages as historical only. And leave only the good parts in.
So Dawkin's point is that while you may be perfectly reasonable and know which passages to take, and which others to interpret symbolically, a book we expect people to worship, read by even an absolute homicidal maniac, should not leave room for justification of holy wars, because someone, somewhere, somewhen, will use it.
Because unless you can get to an objective path, where the menonites agree with the Catholics, and Dominionists about what the good book means, then it doesn't matter much what you personally understand, because we cannot be safe from a random fool Dominionist (doing another Oklahoma City type deal.)
So yeah, if you protect the literalistic bozos by reclaiming your right to freedom of belief, using the two (or four) thousand year old compendium of short stories as the source of definitive truth, that is as much as asking for someone (not you in particular) to eventually attack someone (hopefully not you or me!) in the name of the Lord.
Hi philobyte. I found my way here via Bruce's blog. I hope you don't mind my dropping in.
It seems that your criticism are mostly criticisms of the Bible and how it might be (and surely is, at times) used. This, of course, has little bearing on the question of the existence or non-existence of God, but I suppose it is entirely relevant to the question of whether or not religion is harmful.
To recast a common argument, if I may, religion doesn't kill people...people kill people. Don't be too quick to dismiss it. Religion surely gives shape to the way that nutbars, as you calls them, manifest their nutiness...usually in harmless, if annoying, ways. But you will notice, if you care to look, that nutbars do not require religion to do nutty things. People are quite capable of coming to wrong-headed conclusions, and gather en masse around those wrong-headed conclusions, quite apart from religion. It seems to be an inherent flaw in the species.
I would argue that religion, particularly organized religion, is a useful counter-force against such nuttiness, in as much as it purports to provide an established norm for the correct interpretation, not just of the aforementioned dangerous scriptures, but of the many other generally ambiguous situations that we humans face with great regularity.
Now, like all human institutions, religious institutions are subject to corruption. I would also admit that these institutions have a propensity to be wrong. Such is life. There is no alternative to uncertainty and precariousness as a course of life. The best we can do is pretend that it's absent. For this reason, reformable and elastic institutions are useful.
Even so, the argument in favor of religion, as it pertains to the topic I have here introduced, is that on the whole received wisdom is more likely to be correct than individual ad hoc judgment. This is particularly true when you consider the number of individuals doing this judging who are, by and large, nutbars.
Welcome. Your post makes a lot of sense. If I get you: the ancients wrote this stuff down, so it represents some kind of well-worn consensus, and is going to do better than each one of us trying to figure this stuff out on our own, and so this collective wisdom deserves our respect on purely practical grounds.
I can buy into that... On the other hand, the point bears no relation to the truth value of what is being taught. It could be completely bogus, but if it results in useful (good) behavior, then it ought to be OK.
I guess I need to be convinced, that, given crusades, jihadis, witch hunts, inquisitions, the persecution that led to the founding of the US, white supremacy & slavery, etc..., that religion actually helps in some fashion, beyond just being an echo of the rest of the society in which it is embedded.
There are a lot of good people who try to do good deeds in religion's name, so that could be an empirical question.
HI Philobyte
Thanks for thinking through some of these issues.
My simple response would be to question the abuse of religion, or theism in particular, for things not actually intended by God.
If God is indeed Creator & Sustainer and judge, surely it is within his scope of responsibility to handle things according to his judgment.
However to cite the Crusades, slavery white supremecy etc is to miss the point of each of those. From my study of history, most often these were political incidents carried out under the guise of religous purposes. Certainly the later crusades were corrupted in purpose by some of those who misguided individuals who called for them, and the early crusades were in fact that... a call for military assitance from one nation to other religiously affiliated nations, in defense against an overwhelming invasion. This was, to my reading of history, politics co-opting religion as a political motivator.
But when military and civil leaders are people of a specific religion (both sides) then we can be expected to see this happen when they misinterpret texts to suit their needs. Shortcuts liek these, especially religious ones, are most often extremely regrettable.
Obviously we can evaluate each reference on a case by case basis, and while some (ie. witch hunts)were religiously motivated, others (White supremacy) were not. Overall, the majority were corruptions of the original intent. Certainly religious persecutions between factions is not biblically supported at all, out of the words of Jesus, Paul or Peter, or any of the other NT writers. Most of the OT works referenced in these discussions are contextual, and when employd as a motivator in modern contexts, are taken out of place and corrupted. Is it fair to say that religion can be corrupted? absolutely. As you can guess, my bias is to faith in God, and the work of Jesus as Christ. However, that does not mean that we support the atrocities and corruptions allegedly done by religion. Quite the opposite, a collegue of mine recently commented, 'if the public only knew the extent that the church kept 'nutbars' at peace they would be astounded. The church should get some credit for that.' Sometimes the religious influence of the church, and the persons' willingness to submit to God at work in them, falls short and we see some very bad results. When these people are in a postion of influence or leadership, then it only magnifies the consequences.
As to the reading of the text, I also submit that the 'the good book is complete and inerrant.' But I also recognize that literal doesn't always mean the same thing to people, and poor study and slacking should not condemn an entire group or religion, but the individuals involved.
In this respect, Dawkins has missed the point. He swiftly charactizes religion with straw man arguements and while he makes some good arguments, the manipulation of statements toward a bias from both sides of the arguement is an often used tool for propoganda. In this, I am disspointed by Dawkins book. Clearly he is intelligent, but unfortunately he performs several academic shortcuts that simply frustrate me as a reader, and leave me feeling completely mis-represented as a Christian.
(as to your request for a canonical summary of texts, it was already done by a council of leaders using both textual criticism, witness testimony, references to general tradition (aka broader community witness testimony) and God's leading to discern what ought to be there. (another fact that is misrepresented p19-20 as it was not arbitrary at all)
The problem for me as a reader with his tone is mostly limited to the propoganda usage of various arguments and mis representation of facts. This really made reading his book a chore, rather than what I had hoped would be an intellectual grappling with facts and arguements.
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