The Dawkins Delusion

Having Richard Dawkins write a book about religion is rather like asking a vegan to write a book of veal recipes: nothing good can come of it. Dawkins’ position on religion was firmly established in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, in which he put forward his own uncritical view that religions provide no advantages of any kind and are best understood as parasitic entities taking advantage of people. In his new book, The God Delusion, he further expounds his own prejudices in a manner that seems markedly short on sane discourse. 

Many of Dawkins problems seem to result from his insistence on evaluating religions as unsuccessful precursors to science, which is to say, from considering religions as failed research programmes. In doing so he commits gross category errors of the kind that any philosophy undergraduate can identify. But Dawkins has no interest in philosophy. He has previously admitted his ignorance of this field, and has since committed no time and effort to study the area. Similarly, he has wilfully ignored the field of theology on the basis that (in essence) ‘since I know God does not exist, theology cannot possibly contain anything of interest.’

Essentially, Dawkins comes to the topic of religion having done none of his homework, and loudly declares his own prejudices as facts: ‘I’ve done nothing to study religion, and here are my conclusions,’ seems to be his position. This is unfortunate, as Dawkins has a keen intellect, and has written some solid scientific material in the past. But outside the domain of science, he lacks both experience and insight. He is a man with intelligence but no wisdom. 

The prevailing viewpoint among critics of The God Delusion (and there are no shortage of these) is that Dawkins purposefully sets up straw men in order to knock them down. Other complaints include an apparent presumption that all religions can be treated as variations on Christianity, ignorance of religions that might contradict his opinions (such as Sufism in Islam), and an erroneous conflation of secular conflicts with religious conflicts. There seems to be general agreement that this book achieves little if anything of any philosophical importance.

Recommended reading from the critical response to this book is Terry Eagleton’s commentary from the London Review of Books which notes:

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. 

H. Allen Orr of The New York Review of Books comments:

Though I once labeled Dawkins a professional atheist, I'm forced, after reading his new book, to conclude he's actually more an amateur. 

Another critic of note is Pulitzer Prize winning novelist, Marilynne Robinson, who notes that Dawkin’s has chosen to actively attack tolerance, apparently on the basis that his world view is the only sane choice. She concludes her dissection of Dawkin’s polemic with this apposite phrase:

It is diversity that makes any natural system robust, and diversity that stabilizes culture against the eccentricity and arrogance that have so often called themselves reason and science. 

As a scientist, Dawkins lack of objectivity on the subject of religion is staggering. His conclusions proceed from his assumptions in a manner eerily reminiscent of Creation Science. There appears to have been no point at which Dawkins has considered that religions might provide benefits for societies and individuals – that providing people a common metaphysical and ethical framework helps stabilise societies, or aids individuals in living a purposeful life. Nor is the evidence that those with a religion to inform their world view are happier for it considered.

Although Dawkins seems incapable of understanding this basic philosophical point, God belongs to the domain of faith. This has no overlap with science, which has as its domain all things testable. The absence of God in anything testable is a subject already covered at great length in theology, and furthermore it is never possible (as the noted astrophysicist Professor Martin Rees has observed) to eliminate God on scientific grounds as science can never provide an answer to the ultimate question: why there is something rather than nothing. The issue of a personal God, as discussed by Einstein, is an area of legitimate debate, but God the creator is not an entity that can be dismissed by anything other than a metaphysical choice. 

To be clear, there is not a problem with atheism, which is one of many belief systems we can choose between. Furthermore, there are many atheist religions, and the youngest of these, such as Humanism, are attempting to find their feet despite the rather difficult problems facing any new religion. Dawkins apparently has little to offer on the issues facing atheists and seems focussed instead on attacking theists by impugning their mental faculties. What Dawkins espouses goes far beyond holding a personal belief about God and instead walks dangerously close to insisting in the supremacy of one ideology over all others. 

Poorly informed anti-theists such as Dawkins always take especial issue with God, but rarely with other untestable entities – such as nations – which surely have contributed far more directly to wars and atrocities throughout human history than religion. Dawkins single-mindedness in attacking God seems to stem from some personal issue of his own that has never been resolved, possibly overcompensation for the sixteen years he was an Anglican Christian.

What is especially bizarre about Dawkins crusade is that his current job is as Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at the prestigious Oxford University. Since three quarters of the world’s population practice one or more religions, by positioning himself as radically opposed to their beliefs he effectively alienates the majority of his target audience. This is rather more embarrassing for Oxford University than for Dawkins, who it seems is long passed any shame at his own ignorance.

Dawkins chief delusion seems to be a delusion of grandeur: it is almost as if he sees himself as something akin to an atheist messiah. He seems to have missed the point that the many intelligent atheists of the world have no need or want of messiahs, while people with other belief systems are not likely to be swayed into converting to Dawkins’ faith by an outpouring of rampant bigotry. As with all supercilious zealots, the possibility that Dawkins' sectarian world view might be incomplete is never considered.

No-one is denying that humanity has a problem with radical exclusionist dogmas, especially those that lead to hatred and hence violence. But these dogmas are not the exclusive consequence of religion, and occur just as readily from nationalist, racial, or scientistic grounds. They are catastrophes born of the human condition, feeding on ignorance. Anyone who thinks that this problem is best addressed by advocating some new radical exclusionist dogma is surely deluded.

Comments

[zenBen]

I find myself heartily dismayed by the reception to Dawkins book, mainly because I got it from an uninformed sibling for Christmas (I think they liked the jacket design). What I had hoped would would be in there is now clearly not, and I wonder if I should bother reading it at all.
I presumed that Dawkins, as an intelligent scientist and skilled logician, would give us a tour of the various rational approaches to the question of God. Approaches that apply the scientific method to an untestable hypothesis can shed light on both the hypothesis and the method [even the testers], through the exploration of negative space, if you like. I was looking forward to that. I assumed there would be polemic, but I was willing to overlook a rational amount thereof. I assumed that his conclusions would be negative, following the title - I can't say I entirely disagree [based on Ramachandran among others]. But now I read your blog and I ask "what fresh hell is this?" I can handle most points of view [I've good cognitive flexibility] but I prefer my reading material to have at least some intrinsic worth.

How depressing. I think I'll go back to work, and leave metaphysics for another day.

[Chris]

Since you own the book, perhaps you should read it and see if you feel I'm off base here? I would welcome your opinion.

The reviews on Amazon are all extremely positive, but mostly of the form: "I'm an atheist, religion is evil, I agree with Dawkins." It was reading the content of these reviews which pushed me into ranting here, as I found it rather chilling.

Sorry to have inadvertantly depressed you!

[Darius K.]

I'm reminded of a quote from Melvin Goes to Dinner (an excellent movie). Here's my paraphrase:

"Here's the genius of religion. They take faith, the weakest part of their whole argument, and then say, 'No, wait. It's actually the strongest part.'"

I haven't read Dawkin's book. If what you're saying is true and he's using science as a yardstick for religion, then that's a piss-poor argument.

On the other hand... I used to be a committed agnostic. But more and more I feel like I need to take a stand and say, "No, there is no big alpha male in the sky to lead us, and there is no afterlife, which is why we need to be the best we can be RIGHT NOW." I haven't decided to abandon my agnostic position yet, because I can replace "there is no" in the above phrase with "we don't know if there is" and get the same point across.

I also get more and more pissed off by people who attempt to use Pascal's Wager as proof that all agnostics should rationally believe in a god.

Anyway... touchy subject.

[Chris]

It certainly is a touchy subject, but I choose to grasp the nettle on this one when I started the blog, so there's no escape. :)

The thing that gets me is that your second clause "we need to be the best we can be right now" is true irrespective of an individual's beliefs - any Christian, for instance, who doesn't believe this has fundamentally misunderstood their own religion, at least in my view.

The funniest response to Pascal's Wager is probably Homer Simpson's: "But Marge - what if we picked the wrong religion? Every week we're just making God madder and madder!" (Of course, I don't believe in a 'wrong religion' or a 'right religion', but it's still an amusing line). Why is it the cartoons which have more insight than the newspapers on these topics? I should have been animated. :)

Thanks for the comment!

[Scott]

You know, it's customary to at least read a book and attempt to understand it before pretending to review it.

I'm not saying I'd necessarily expect anyone to *agree* with Dawkins after reading the book, but I'd expect them to at least acknowledge what points the book has attempted to make. Specifically, you rail that "Although Dawkins seems incapable of understanding this basic philosophical point, God belongs to the domain of faith. This has no overlap with science, which has as its domain all things testable." Dawkins very specifically addresses this "basic philosophical point" in his book, and tries to show (for the most part correctly, in my opinion) that it is false. You have countered these arguments with nothing other than a repetition of the tired "non-overlapping magisteria" assumption he tries to demolish, along with some well-frothed spittle.

In the future, you might consider making your reviews a little more concise and "punchier" by limiting them to a word or two, such as "Nuh-UH!!!".

[Matthew Cromer]

On the other hand... I used to be a committed agnostic. But more and more I feel like I need to take a stand and say, "No, there is no big alpha male in the sky to lead us, and there is no afterlife, which is why we need to be the best we can be RIGHT NOW."

I'm right with you about the "big alpha male", but there is an enormous amount of evidence that consciousness survives the death of the body. Indeed, that the body and the universe itself is simply a manifestation of the phenomena we call "consciousness".

To ignore that evidence is itself a form of faith and dogmatism.

[cafeman]

I gave up on Dawkins after "Unweaving the Rainbow". What started out as a series of amusing, if somewhat virtriolic, discussions about various uses of science rapidly degenerated into pure bile and the ranting of an obsessed man. In his age, he's become (dare I say it) almost religious in his crusade against faith.

I'm not religious in the slightest, but I just found it too tiring reading his rants to really enjoy or appreciate what he was saying. I agree in principle with a lot of what he stands for, but on the same token, beating people over the head with it isn't the most pleasant way of hearing about it.

[Chris]

Scott: I'm sorry for the confusion, but this wasn't meant as a book review. When I write book reviews, I file them under the category 'Book Review', and cite the ISBN. However, I generally don't write book reviews for books espousing bigotry, because I don't want to encourage their sales.

This piece is intended as a rant against something I find offensive, nothing more. I suppose it is equivalent to Dawkin's book, actually, which isn't something I feel especially good about, I assure you.

Thank you for the clarification that Dawkins disputes the lack of overlap between religion and science, rather than being entirely ignorant of it. I cheerfully withdraw this point. Is there anything else in my account which is in error?

You're absolutely correct to call this a frothy rant - I just get very upset when I find people identifying political scapegoats and (for instance) accusing harmless pacifists like the Amish of being tantamount to child molesters.

But I don't think I have misunderstood Dawkins position, as it hasn't significantly changed between 1976 and today as far as I can ascertain. He has just become more open about his bigotry in his old age.

Thank you for your comment, and I apologise for making this seem like a book review. Next time I will expressly exclude this interpretation.

Matthew: Dawkins hasn't got time to attack fringe science issues; there's too much evil religion to wipe out first. ;)

cafeman: I'm sure you're not alone in feeling this way. The essential irony is that there are serious problems in certain areas of the modern practice of religion that need to be addressed - it's just depressing than an intellectual of Dawkins' stature would think that this is the way to approach the problem. Thanks for commenting!

[zenBen]

"Since you own the book, perhaps you should read it and see if you feel I'm off base here? I would welcome your opinion."

Indeed I will, in time. First I'm trying to get into a very interesting but heavy book on the Samurai and Shintoism; and [appropriately] racing through a novel called Accelerando, about future shock. I hereby recommend the latter to anyone with the mistaken belief that they're keeping pace with the technology curve. Scary.

[ChrisV]

Is there anything else in my account which is in error?

There's little else of substance in your post. Most of it is ad hominem.

"Dawkins purposefully sets up straw men in order to knock them down"

Examples?

"Other complaints include an apparent presumption that all religions can be treated as variations on Christianity, ignorance of religions that might contradict his opinions (such as Sufism in Islam)"

Some of Sufism falls within the scope of the book, some doesn't - just like, say, Taoism or Buddhism, which have both philosophical and religious dimensions. He devotes a section to pantheism, under which category sufism falls to some extent.

"and an erroneous conflation of secular conflicts with religious conflicts."

Guilty as charged here, I think, although the point he makes is that religious conflicts BECOME secular conflicts. The Israel-Palestinian conflict is a good example - both secular and religious. In any case, if you excise this conflation from the book, it makes no difference to the core arguments.

"The issue of a personal God, as discussed by Einstein, is an area of legitimate debate, but God the creator is not an entity that can be dismissed by anything other than a metaphysical choice."

Dawkins spends most of a chapter arguing that this is not so.