Richard Dawkins is an atheist who wrote a well-known book called, “The God Delusion” back in 2006. The book seeks to, “make a case that belief in God is not just wrong but potentially deadly” (from the Amazon description).
I am currently working through the book for the first time. While I do not consider myself a great philosopher and I have no doubt that Dawkins is intellectually much smarter than me (I am obviously more handsome though), I am rather irritated at his brazen attack on the belief in God and in particular, Christianity. Therefore, as I go through the book, I have decided to post some thoughts on some of his claims and ideas. Let’s begin with the preface.
Confidence
Dawkins is an excellent writer and does an amazing job showing his confidence. However, just because someone is confident doesn’t mean they are correct. Anyone can sound confident but not everyone can be correct. In fact, confidence is a great mask for falsehood. Please don’t make the mistake of following the most confident person in the room. Follow the most correct person!
One of the dangers of young people reading this book is that they might be attracted to his excellent writing and confident tone without thinking through what he is actually saying. I don’t want you to buy into his ideas simply because he sounds correct. Please be careful and think critically of each claim that he gives. Confidence does not equal correctness.
Violence in Religion
Dawkins claims that much of the violence in the world (present and past) is because of religion. He will be talking about this more fully in a later chapter, so I will just give a cursory response. Religion is not the cause of most violence, sin is. Religious people can certainly do violent things, but the same goes for non-religious people. When we get to the chapter, I will talk about a study that actually shows the OPPOSITE of what Dawkins is claiming.
But, hypothetically speaking, even if religion was the main cause of violence (and again, I do not believe that it is), that does not disprove there is a God. It simply shows that some religions cause people to turn to violence.
I suspect I will be giving this statement multiple times: Dawkins seems very keen on giving examples and stories to disprove God. Really? Is that helpful? If I were to eat at a Golden Corral and then later write, “There is no good Chinese food in the world! I know, I have eaten at Golden Corral.” You would likely tell me, “Just because Golden Corral doesn’t have good Chinese food doesn’t mean there is no good Chinese food out there.” Ditto for Dawkins’ claims about violence in religion.
Conspiracy Theory
Dawkins finishes the introduction by talking about “us verse them.” He is sneakily trying to convey that there is some big conspiracy theory in religion out there to harm all the atheists. Because of that, he says that the little group of atheists need to stick together and rebel. This thinking appeals to the young reader who doesn’t have a lot of life experience and has not yet seen that it’s really the other way around. It’s not religion that is the big bad wolf. Atheism is out to get religion. Atheism is the one on the attack.
Nazi Germany gave this same kind of message in the early years leading up to the war. They proclaimed that they were the little guy that needed to stand up to inept and corrupt politics. They proclaimed that only Nazism was the right way. They targeted young people, calling on them to unite (does this sound familiar?).
For a long time, no one took the Nazis seriously. Hitler had taken over several countries in Europe before other world powers started to realize that maybe they should do something about this. While I’m not saying that atheism is equivalent to Nazism, I am saying that just as the Nazis pretended to be the little guy and targeted the youth, Dawkins is giving a similar message. Again, the reality is that he is part of the dominant group that’s taken over much of the belief system out there.
Cultural Religion
I do agree with him when he says there is no such thing as a Christian or Muslim child. This refers to cultural religion which has dangers. In New Hampshire many people grow up as Catholic children but by the time they get older they drift off to nothing. Cultural beliefs or childhood beliefs do not save a person. So yes, there is a danger in children of any religion growing up thinking they are that religion simply because they are part of a family that practices that religion.
Dawkins says that atheism shows a healthy independence of the mind because he thinks that Christianity is the cultural norm of the time. Given his age, his current ignorance can be forgiven because he is reflecting on his early years in the 1950s and 60s and transferring that experience on the 2000s.
But there is no way that Christianity is the norm, even in America where belief in God or Christianity is the dominant cultural norm (he is in England). Atheism, agnosticism, or secularism is by far the dominate culture. For him to say that atheism shows a healthy independence of the mind is laughable because atheism and secularism is what every TV show says, every pop artist sings about, and popular authors write about. Again, this is part of his subversive message where he is saying that he’s the little guy and they need to unite the fight big bad religion.
In Conclusion
While this is just the preface, I can get a general idea of what this book will be like. He will give lots of stories and opinions but will be very lacking with hard facts. People who want to think for themselves and not follow the norm will quickly detect his false claims and ignorant bravado. So far, a more fitting title for the book would be “The Dawkins Delusion,” because the only person that he has shown to be delusional is himself. Stay tuned.