A literary and philosophical review of 'The God Delusion' - written 30/11/08

We agree on something...

Let me first say I am no fan of religious fundamentalism ; I find the idea of a desert religion , which supposes the earth and everything on it was made in seven days approximately 4000 years ago, and was then transposed wholesale around the world, frankly ridiculous.

As Einstein said (and Dawkins quotes at the beginning of his chapter regarding morality):

‘Strange is our situation here on Earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why...however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men – above all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends’.

I find this belief (which I share) incompatible with the notion of organised religion, which condemns to damnation any individual who fails to support a particular belief system. If there is a personal God, then I’m hedging my bets that he’s going to be benevolent enough to understand scepticism concerning an unproven (and unprovable) theory, and respect a life lived with respect for other humans and the planet on which I live. If he turns out to not be that benevolent, then I’m not sure ‘heaven’ is really going to be all it’s cracked up to be, and maybe I’d be better of toasting my marshmallows over the fires of hell.

Widespread belief in Abrahamic religions is, I believe, a waste of human time. There is evidence to support Darwin’s theory of evolution; there is evidence to prove the earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old; there is evidence to demonstrate that the universe is not static. The ridiculous notion that creationism should be toasted as an alternative to evolution in schools, is just that, ridiculous. The time that is spent on attempting to prove the absurd would be better spent helping to improve the conditions within which humanity lives, or furthering our scientific understanding of the world around us.

So that’s the bit I agree with Dawkins on. Well done for saying it Sir, but you could have saved yourself 420 pages and an awful lot of time.

An Atheist Fundamentalism

Before I get on to the deeper problems with Dawkins’ philosophy I’d like to address some of the things he says about religion which I don’t agree with. Even as a non-believer in organised religion I find him insulting and ignorant, as I shall demonstrate.

A typically authoritative and unsubstantiated Dawkins quote:

‘To the vast majority of believers around the world, religion all too closely resembles what you hear from the likes of...Osama Bin Laden or the Ayatolloah Khomeini’.

Perhaps Dawkins lives in a particularly fervent village, but last time I went to the Christingle service I don’t recall the Vicar having an AK47.

With regards to the Montreal police strike in 1969, when all hell (excuse the pun) broke loose, Dawkins declares it is his 'uninformed prediction' that religious believers looted and destroyed more than unbelievers. Such unfounded scare-mongering is both unhelpful and prejudice. I might suggest that if he is so 'uninformed', he should refrain from predicting.

More seriously Dawkins appears to solely blame religion for the ills of this world. He asks us to imagine a world without religion, with no Northern Ireland ‘troubles’ (a situation which is fuelled by the desire of one half of N. Ireland to join the Republic, and other half to remain with the UK – it is undeniably linked to tensions between (loyalist) protestants and (republican) catholics, but religion cannot shoulder the sole blame), and with no 9/11 (once again Dawkins dismisses the important political issues surrounding the build up to 9/11, which were arguably far more important than the role of religion). It is worth remembering that both Stalin and Hitler were Atheists, and they arguably committed the worst atrocities in the history of mankind (oh sorry, that should be ‘humankind’ or ‘peoplekind’ – as Dawkins pedantically points out throughout his book, use of the male pronoun actually, and I quote, ‘makes half the human race feel excluded’). The Holocaust demonstrates the dangers of fundamentalism of any kind, religious, atheist, or otherwise. Of course, it would be ludicrous to say that because Hitler and Stalin were bad people, then all atheists are bad people, or even that most atheists are bad people, just as it is ignorant to lump all religious people together in one havoc-wreaking, blood-letting collective.

The ills of the world are numerous, some are caused by religion, others are not. All are caused by a lack of understanding and empathy - characteristics which Dawkins appears to be woefully short of.

Disregarding Deism?

Early in his book, Dawkins (quite rightly) is eager to point out the difference between theistic and deistic religious beliefs. Theistic being a belief in a personal God, who answers prayers, enacts miracles, etc. and deistic being a belief in an entity who set the laws in place for the universe to exist – essentially something which exists outside of the universe and which we cannot understand.

He then (for reasons which I don’t quite understand) decides to attempt to convince the reader that Einstein was an atheist - on Dawkins ‘side’. I’m not sure why it matters what Einstein’s religious beliefs were, I thought this book was all about Dawkins’ opinionated attitudes, but maybe I’m wrong. And so begins a battle of the quotations – ‘Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind’ on the side of the theists, ‘I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this’ on the side of Dawkins. Once again we must ask ourselves, who cares and what relevance does it have? But at the risk of lowering myself to the childish level of Dawkins and the theists, I will wade in with my own Einstein quote:

‘I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth.’

I don’t know about you, but that seems to be fairly clear to me. Einstein, one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century, recognised the lunacy of belief in a personal God, but also respected the limits of science. He was an agnostic. Dawkins (quoting his old school chaplain) describes agnostics as ‘namby-pamby, mushy pap, weak-tea, pallid fence sitters’. Lovely. How open minded. How respectful. Of course if you don’t share Dawkins belief in radical atheism then you are clearly lacking in character. Religious people are naturally stupid, I quote: ‘I suspect that for many people the main reason they cling to religion is not that it is consoling, but that they have been let down by our educational system’. Is no-one else reminded of statements like ‘those that don’t believe in God just haven’t been shown the way yet’, or, more controversially ‘the Jews (substitute blacks, gays, Muslims, infidels, Christians) are evil, and should be destroyed. If you don’t believe me then you have not been educated’? Surely the way to tackle discrimination, close mindedness, and fundamentalism is not to replicate it in a different form?

I do feel bad about doing this, because this is supposed to be about my opinionated attitudes, but I am going to quote Einstein once more, in an attempt to sum up my personal beliefs.

‘To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious’

This quote, I believe, speaks of an acceptance that science can never have all of the answers. In the next section I will explain why this is. It does not have the assumptive arrogance of Dawkins atheism which says humans are capable of understanding everything.

Ironically Dawkins uses this quote in his book (and I’m sure you can guess that I have unashamedly stolen it from there, which I suppose is even more ironic...). Dawkins says that in this sense he too is religious, except that, hold on here comes that arrogant atheism, he says that ‘cannot grasp’ should not mean ‘forever ungraspable’. As I will explain, he is lacking in understanding if he believes the human mind is capable of understanding everything. Dawkins then somehow attempts to link Einstein’s quote with a quote by Carl Sagan, which says:

‘If by ‘God’ one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying...it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity’

How Dawkins managed to mangle Einstein’s view of a 'something beautiful and sublime which cannot be grasped', into Sagan’s view of God as the law of gravity, I’m not quite sure. Gravity is painfully graspable (especially when falling from a great height). We understand it, it can be explained. Einstein’s God cannot, that is the point.

Dawkins writes that his title, ‘The God Delusion’, does not refer to the God of Einstein (which Dawkins handily defines for us – a definition which I do not agree with). He writes: ‘in the rest of this book I am talking only about supernatural gods’. I had vainly hoped that this meant he would stick to discrediting Abrahamic religions for the rest of the book, which would have made for a slightly boring, but at least rational read. However he doesn’t. He chooses to stick his scientific size 9’s where they really don’t belong...

An Arrogant Ideology

Dawkins concedes that ‘the deist God...is certainly an improvement over the monster of the Bible’ but insists that ‘unfortunately it is scarcely more likely that he exists, or ever did’. It is important to remember that a deist God is not a personal God, he(???) does not cast miracles, listen to prayers, or send sons down to die for our sins. A deist God is something which exists outside our universe, and plays no part in the working of it.

Dawkins central argument against the existence of God (and it’s a good one) is that if there is a God who created the universe then there must have been something which created God. This raises the problem of infinite regress; the idea that there must always be an increasingly intelligent and complex creator. His answer to this is a form of cosmological Darwinism (proposed by Lee Smolin)...a sort of evolution of the universe. It is, I think, an interesting theory.

Biological evolution is, in my eyes, a fact. It works within the laws of our universe. It can be proven. Cosmological evolution, on the other hand, does not have to work within the laws of our universe, and it cannot be proven, and as a result I am very sceptical (Dawkins would be proud!). There is also the problem that evolution must come from something. The biological evolution with which we are familiar began in a primordial soup, when heavy elements combined to form amino acids, which became proteins, and eventually formed the building blocks for basic life. The starting point of this evolution was the heavy elements. Equally, cosmological evolution must start somewhere, there must be something basic from which something can evolve. We then encounter the same problems with infinite regress as we would if we believed in a God who operated according to the laws of our universe (it would just infinitely regress the other way - rather than looking for something increasingly complex, we would be looking for something increasingly simple). However, as I will show, to consider something purely from the perspective of the laws of our universe, is to miss a trick.

Dawkins assumes that because humanity experiences things a certain way then that is how they have to be. For example according to the laws of our universe for a watch to exist it must have been made by a watchmaker, it cannot just be. Or for humans to exist they must have evolved from something, they cannot just be. Because this is how we experience the formation of a watch or a human we apply this logic outside of the universe, but this is a fallacy. I am of course not suggesting that humans didn’t evolve from something else, I am simply saying that this logic is useless outside of the universe.

The ‘Big Bang’ is a singularity. Scientifically this means that at the big bang the laws of science break down, the laws of our universe are no longer applicable. The big bang is the start of space and time. People may say, ‘well if time only began at the big bang, then nothing could have happened before because time didn’t exist’, but time is only a dimension of our universe. If there is any form of ‘God’ operating outside of the universe he would not be subject to time, who knows what he would be subject to.

It is a hard idea to imagine, so I’m going to offer some examples to demonstrate the limits of human understanding...

What exists outside of the universe? Nothing? What is the nothing like? Imagine it. Are you imagining a white space? A white space is something, it is white, and oddly enough, it is a space. You, nor I, can imagine nothing, because we exist in a universe of somethings. White is something, air is something, everything is something, so you can’t comprehend nothing.

Another example...string theory postulates that there are either 10 or 24 dimensions. It is not a concrete fact but it is a well supported scientific theory. It says that in our universe, or at least in our section of the universe, the four dimensions we experience (width, height, depth, and time) are flattened out, and the other 6 (or 20 depending on what particular part of string theory you support) are curled up tightly into balls, so small that they can never be experienced. In other parts of the universe or in other universes, some of these dimensions might be flattened out, or the dimensions we experience might be curled up. Try and imagine another dimension...can’t do it? No me neither, because I exist within four dimensions, therefore I can only imagine four dimensions; just like I exist within the laws of this universe therefore I am incapable of imagining anything outside of it. It is like asking a blind person to describe the colour red. It is useless, and more than that it is pointless.

Every time we think of ‘God’ we think within the constraints of our own universe and experience: we assume that the universe must have evolved from something simpler than itself, or that it was created by a greater being who must in turn have been created. We disregard the notion that 'God' could just exist, without anything to create him(?), and by the same token (and at the risk of unpicking my own arguement about the probable existence of something outside the universe) we rarely consider the fact that the universe could just exist, from nothing. Existence from nothing is an alien concept to us, but that does not mean that it does not exist. There may well be (read probably are) other possibilites to explain the existence of our universe which we (and our language) are unable to comprehend. The very notion of 'God' is relative to our universe, I consider myself an ignostic (note the 'i' not the 'a') in that I believe you must have a meaningful defintion of what God is, before you can meaningfully debate his existence. Seeing as we can only imagine a God who works in accordance with the laws of our universe, I don't think I'll be changing my stance anytime soon. We think according to our laws, and our experiences, we cannot hope to imagine what happens outside of our universe, or even outside of our particular area of this universe. I think this is what Einstein was alluding to when he describes the something we cannot understand which lurks behind everything.

Perhaps that seems depressing? To think that there is something that we simply cannot grasp, something which is (despite Dawkins' protestations) forever ungraspable. I don’t find it depressing in any way, in fact I find it uplifting, to know that there is something beyond our understanding, which won’t be confined to the history books of knowledge. Why Dawkins is fearful of the unknown I’m not sure. In all honesty I don’t think he is, I just think he’s got carried away in his condemnation of an Abrahamic God. You’ll excuse me for guessing what Dawkins is thinking, it’s a nasty habit I’ve picked up from reading his book in which he appears omniscient with regards to the thoughts of Hawking, Einstein, and Huxley to name a few. Suspiciously Godly I say.

Science proposes that the universe is simply a set of numbers and equations. That love, beauty, a desire to be good, enjoyment can all be explained with numbers. This is something I will never be able to come to terms with. This is where that dangerous word ‘faith’ comes in, the point where I just have to say ‘I think there’s more to it all than a set of numbers’. However, unlike Dawkins and many theists I won’t be forcing my faith down anyone’s throats.

Even if you do support the notion that the universe is just a set of rules and equations, then Stephen Hawking raises an excellent point when he writes:

‘What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?’

We do not know, and I don’t think we will ever know. Hawking quite rightly says it is philosophers, not scientists, whose business it is to ask why. There is nothing wrong with not knowing, it is in my eyes part of the beauty of life.

The fact that Dawkins attempts to disprove a deistic God using the logic of our universe is illuminating of the arrogance often associated with hard-line atheists. Scientifically we cannot understand what exists beyond the laws of our universe, and it is a fallacy to claim you can. It is an understandable effort to discount any form of ‘God’, from a man clearly frustrated by the presence of Abrahamic religions in our (supposedly enlightened) society. Sadly for Dawkins he is barking up the wrong tree, and should probably return to writing well–regarded papers on the rules for grooming in flies and the nesting strategies of digger wasps. Something I hear he does very well.

The arrogant and assumptive tone of ‘The God Delusion’ does no favours for the school of rational thought which Dawkins attempts to promote. I think ‘The God Delusion’ can do one of two things. The first is breed contempt among people who disagree with it. The second is get impressionable people to swallow it and everything it says wholesale. What’s the other book that does that? Oh, the Bible.