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The God Delusion (精装)
by Richard Dawkins
| Category:
Religion, Science |
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| MSL Pointer Review:
A breath of fresh air, Richard Dawkins's book is a frank discussion of science and rationalism versus religion and superstition. |
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AllReviews |
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Scientific American (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-19 00:00>
Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion, tells of his exasperation with colleagues who try to play both sides of the street: looking to science for justification of their religious convictions while evading the most difficult implications - the existence of a prime mover sophisticated enough to create and run the universe, "to say nothing of mind reading millions of humans simultaneously." Such an entity, he argues, would have to be extremely complex, raising the question of how it came into existence, how it communicates - through spiritons! - and where it resides. Dawkins is frequently dismissed as a bully, but he is only putting theological doctrines to the same kind of scrutiny that any scientific theory must withstand. No one who has witnessed the merciless dissection of a new paper in physics would describe the atmosphere as overly polite. |
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Steven Pinker (Harvard Professor, author of The Language Instinct, and How the Mind Works), USA
<2007-01-19 00:00>
At last, one of the best nonfiction writers alive today has assembled his thoughts on religion into a characteristically elegant book. |
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Desmond Morris, (Author of The Naked Ape and The Human Animal) (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-19 00:00>
This is a brave and important book. |
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Penn & Teller (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-19 00:00>
The God Delusion is smart, compassionate, and true... If this book doesn't change the world, we're all screwed. |
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Garrett Fagan (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-19 00:00>
Religious people are not accustomed to having their ideas subjected to harsh criticism. Scientists and rationalists are.
Thus, it is hardly surprising that Dawkins' uncompromising tone will offend believers, and possibly frighten moderate secularists, fearful of throwing down so stark a gauntlet to the religious among us (or, in the USA, to the religious who dominate the culture).
I personaly found this book refreshingly honest. Dawkins despises religion, he is quite up front and honest about that, and he treats it accordingly. The ins and outs of the arguments vary (some are stronger than others, but they're mostly strong), but throughout his tone is blunt (leading to charges of "fanaticism" and "arrogance" -- as if the religious weren't habitually arrogant, fanatical, condescending and bigoted in their tedious denunciations of secularism.)
After much thought, I agree with Dawkins that this uncompromising stance is necessary. For too long preposterous religious doctrines have been given a pass on the basis of "respecting other people's views" (though the religious rarely respect atheistic or secularist positions). We can no longer afford this luxury, in a world where religious fanaticism, nursed and nurtured by the silence or inaction of so-called "religious moderates," may one day be combined with weapons of mass destruction to bring our entire species, and the planet, to destruction.
It really is time to take a firm stand and demand that the religious justify their positions with evidence and logic and not appeals to books written thousands of years ago. We would not need to do this, unless the religious had forced their views on everyone else through the political process leading to such travesties as demands to teach creationism in science class, the stymying of stem-cell research, the blocking of AIDS-prevention through condom use, the promotion of "abstinence-only" sex education (for which, read "no sex education"), the assault on abortion rights, the simple-minded delusions that infuse the idiotic worldview of our highly religious president, the underminig of reason and science in the public forum, and so much more.
In fact, it's fair to say that the religious have thrown down the gauntlet and Dawkins and others like him are just reacting to their extremism.
All in all: a good read. It is particularly recommended for any who are hearing a voice of doubt about their religious faith and may be apalled at the (ab)uses religion is being put to in the contemporary public forum. This book may just open your eyes.
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Cheryl Lynn Blum (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-19 00:00>
Richard Dawkins can read my mind. That's the only explanation I find possible, because as I was reading "The G-d Delusion" I kept exclaiming to myself, "That's just what I always thought!" Except his language is more elegant than mine. Although, not always so elegant; his writing is accessible, engaging and clever, and some of his footnotes are LOL (Laugh Out Loud) funny.
[I Don't Know Why: Because of my religious upbringing, in this review I personally write the name "G-d"; observant Jews avoid writing the name casually because of the risk that the written name might later be defaced.]
Who's Got the Whole World in his Hands: Dawkins, a respected biologist/ philosopher, takes his reputation as Charles Darwin's fiercest supporter and asks how a scientist, or any educated adult, can possible believe in religion (the monotheist ones; he gives Buddhism and Confucianism a pass as "ethical systems or "philosophies of life"). I know I should feel insulted when he calls my G-d, the one I grew up believing in, the G-d of the Hebrew Bible, a "psychotic delinquent," (p. 38), but I like to keep an open mind. I was raised by parents who were themselves raised as Orthodox Jews, but as a family we slipped to Conservative Judaism; then I fell backward into Reform for a few years. I've flirted with the Reconstructionists, as well. I believe in Judaism as a culture, but find it hard to believe in the religion. Right now I'm a Jewish-born Questioner, but as a Questioner, for absolutely no reason, I still don't eat pork.
Teach Your Children Well: Dawkins was born an Anglican child, but rightly points out that a child isn't really a member of a religion, but basically a small human mimicking the words, prayers, and beliefs that were taught by his/her parents, who were obviously taught those words, prayers, and beliefs by their own parents. So the game goes on, and for thousands of years the collected weight of all of those maters and paters impress on the child, leaving him too laden by layers of guilt to make a conscious decision to question his faith. Every religion seems to have the same principle: pile on the guilt, until the child-turned-adult is paralyzed by fear of some version of fire and brimstone, and is afraid to declare himself an atheist, agnostic, or just a questioner with an open mind.
Did You Dance Along the Light of Day?: The book is a real page-turner, careening through space and time, language and culture, from a dissection of the Old and New Testaments, quoting from another recently published book, "Misquoting Jesus" (in England titled, "Whose Word Is It?") by Bart Ehrman on the perils of taking a book that had been translated and transcribed (and modified) by hundreds of translators and scribes over thousands of years, as gospel truth; to an overview of the Universe, with its billion billion available planets, and the probability of life on just one of them; to the political battles over creationism vs. science in school curricula, both in Great Britain and the United States. Along the way we, of course, meet some monkey-obsessed fanatics, and for the gazillionth time, Dawkins must explain, as he did in "The Ancestors' Tale," that we did not descend from monkeys, but do share a common ancestor. He most emphatically does not imply that your mother is a monkey.
The Fools on the Hill: The most devastating comparison in the book (although they are discussed at opposite ends of the book) is between Thomas Jefferson and his fellow Fathers who were most responsible for America's Founding, whom Dawkins describes as "passionate secularists" (p. 43) and the recently-disgraced Pastor Ted Haggard - his disgrace revealed too recently to be included in this first edition - as "the interviewee who most appalled the British television audience." (p. 319). In fact, according to Dawkins, the British are horrified by the influence of religious Fundamentalists in the United States. I must have some British genes, because I am equally horrified.
Now I Don't Claim to be an A Student: The worrisome thing about the anti-science bias promulgated by religious fanatics is the way that they need to subvert scientific knowledge to fit in with their religious beliefs. It's as if their Intelligent Designer just created the Earth about 6,000 years ago - the Young Earth theory - populating his arts and crafts project with both dinosaurs and homo sapiens, disregarding any evidence that biologists, geologists, and anthropologists (and many other -ologists) have discovered over the course of human history. If the Bible is a "major source book for literary culture," (p. 341) and the King James Bible "includes passages of outstanding literary merit," Dawkins will admit that the Bibles and holy books of religion are beautifully written stories, allegories, and a glimpse into the minds of the men who wrote them, but they most assuredly are not science. Thus the religious -ologists must twist the scientific facts to fit their faith.
But I'm Trying to Be: The rigorous scientific method demands measurable evidence and experiments that can be replicated independently by others. Expecting a book or series of books written thousands of years ago to explain phenomena that have been discovered in just the past hundred years is like expecting the Albert Einstein of 1905 to fly a rocket to the moon - he was responsible for making moon rockets possible, but in 1905 he could only imagine the dream, not fulfill it.
Fall Into the Gap: "Gap" is the favorite explanation by the religious of events or processes that are not understood right now, leading them to rush to fill in the Gap with their Designer, rather than using objective, impartial inquiry, with the knowledge that is known to date, and pursuing questions that have not been answered yet.
Dites-moi, Pourquoi (Tell Me Why)?: Dawkins doesn't know it all. I don't know it all. Yet. I'm a Questioner. |
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Walt Byars (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-19 00:00>
Perhaps the most obvious thing that can be said about this book is that it is a "scattershot" critique of religion. In other words, Dawkins packs in a huge number of criticisms, most of which are unrelated except for their conclusions (that religion is bad and/or false). A number of the more peripheral arguments have been soundly rebutted in Marilynne Robinson's review in the November 2006 issue of Harper's magazine.
Some of the peripheral arguments fare better. It is a good point that the reason Hell is usually presented in such strongly negative terms (extreme suffering for all eternity) is because people really don't think that it's likely to exist. If people felt that they would definitely go to hell if they behaved a certain way, hell would only have to be mildly unpleasant to keep them in line. Then there is Dawkins' discussion of parents indoctrinating their children into religion. I think most humane people could agree that this is disgusting, and I find it hilarious that most vehement religionists don't realize that they'd be just as vehement about a different religion if they were born somewhere else. However, I believe his criticism of the practice of referring to kids as "Christian children" or "Hindu children" does not succeed. Dawkins points out that no one calls the children of Marxist parents "Marxist children" or those of Keynesian parents "Keynesian children." I don't really think this is analogous. Children of Christian parents, for example, are likely to hold some fundamental Christian beliefs. Young children of Keynesian parents probably don't have any beliefs about economic policy.
The criticism of those, such as Albert Einstein, who claim to believe in some vague "god" which is merely some impersonal force with no correspondence to the beliefs of any major religions, is excellent. Another of Dawkins' main arguments, that the existence of god is highly improbable (near impossible) doesn't really succeed. However, his point that when apologists try to argue that materialist explanations of life are improbable, they don't consider the probability of god, is correct but not very original.
Dawkins also argues that, while religion seems to fulfill certain needs that people have, the study of science could also fulfill these needs. In my view, the best critique of religion is still that of Karl Marx. To put it very crudely, Marx argued that victims of social oppression resorted to religion to make their lives more tolerable. In a sense, Dawkins' argument inadvertently confirms this. Due to the dominant social relations in the world today, most people simply don't have the option of engaging in a serious study of science. |
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Wendy Krossa (MSL quote), Canada
<2007-01-19 00:00>
Any evolutionary biologist worth their salt should know that the real motivating force behind human cruelty and brutality is not religion or religious belief. What drives people to exercise inhumanity toward others has more to do with core motivating drives in the human psyche. And yes, these drives have led people to create and employ myths that validate the expression of these base drives.
Unfortunately, we have inherited drives to oppose and dominate others, to exclude outsiders, to destroy competing others, along with plain old territoriality. In a word, the small band mentality of us versus them. These drives have produced much human conflict and suffering. And over history people have been quite adept and creating all sorts of explanatory systems through which to validate the expression of these drives - the ancient systems of tribal mythology, the more organized religions of states, and the ideologies of later history, including even atheism. Rush Dozier's Why We Hate is enlightening here.
(A negative review. MSL remarks.)
Fortunately, we also have a cortex which mediates human consciousness and enables us to counter and overcome the baser drives which often emanate from or are influenced by the limbic system. The cortex mediates the more human impulses and reasoning. And our human consciousness now enables us to value humanity and to respect others as a unique persons, and to respect the freedom of others and to engage people inclusively. Consciousness has enabled humanity to move in an entirely new direction from animal reality. It has enabled us to detach ourselves from the too often destructive outcomes of excessive loyalty to some system of belief. Consciousness inspires empathy and reasoning which have enabled us to understand that placing anything above humanity (ideologies, beliefs, gods, authorities) leads to the neglect and abuse of humanity.
But back to Dawkin's slipperiness- let's demand a bit more honestly in regard to this dogma of natural selection. In traditional Neo-Darwinian theory natural selection is the central dogma and in the orthodox version it is driven solely by blind chance. Now smart people like Dawkins have come to recognize the impossibility of chance assembling or producing anything of ordered value in biology. Hence, they now claim that its not chance but natural selection that produces the ordered usefulness of biological systems. But what slipperiness is this?
Evelyn Kellor in her fascinating little book The Century of the Gene exposes some features of the ideology behind mainstream biological science. There is an elephant in the room of evolutionary biology and it is the evident purposefulness of so much biological development. Now biologists committed to the ideology of meaningless randomness can not admit purpose, hence the slipperiness we see in Dawkins and elsewhere. To quote Kellor: "(Francois) Jacob saw the genetic program, written in the alphabet of nucleotides, as the source of the apparent purposiveness of biological development. Referring to the oft quoted characterization of teleology (the doctrine of final causes in nature) as a `mistress' whom biologists `could not do without, but did not care to be seen with in public', he wrote, `the concept of programme has made an honest woman of teleology'" (p.81).
Dawkins may try to slip around this evident purposiveness in biological development with the suggestion that its no longer chance but natural selection but he answers none of the really hard questions. You can deny the dogma of chance but how do you then explain the repetitive appeal to a natural selection that has the supposed powers of foresight (selecting or choosing good mutations, while rejecting nonviable ones), planning (holding and building good mutations till they can function in a new system or organism), direction (moving toward the more perfect organisms that Darwin spoke of), and all the other powers that look suspiciously like the very powers assigned traditionally to God/gods. Biologists need this purposiveness and organizing and assembling ability, this design-like power of the mistress, but still refuse to acknowledge her presence. And they never explain exactly where these powers come from or how they actually operate (in any verifiable detail). Its such a silly game. Claiming the scientific and rational high ground while appealing to a materialist god-of-the-gaps that is hardly different in principle than the creationist's god-of-the-gaps. Would it not be more scientific and reasonable to be honest like Kellor and Davies (The Fifth Miracle) and others and admit that you need the evident purpose in biology for anything to work and that it is there all over the place even though you may fear the fact that it points to something greater, something that undermines all this meaningless randomness dogma?
It is just plain dishonest to use purpose and then ignore its presence or to try to subsume it under chance explanations which only lead to the current illogical and irrational explanations of natural selection as an organizing and supervising force which supposedly expresses blind chance. How is this a genuinely scientific argument as is currently claimed? It appears illogical, unreasonable and irrational in the truest sense of these words. And it is plainly and simply cheating. Don't claim to represent science with this ideological slipperiness. Dawkins has cheated before with his algorithm purporting to show the trajectory of evolution. It included an element of front-loaded design that enabled it to move evolution along in the limited time frame for life to develop on Earth. He needs the mistress but refuses to be seen with her in public.
This contradiction in natural selection arises from committed naturalists trying to explain evident purpose or intelligence in terms of undirected natural causes (blind or dumb chance). To use one theorist's words, "They try to make a physical cause do the work of an intelligent cause. They try to subsume intelligent causation under physical causation". Hence, in order to make a blind and aimless physical cause do the work necessary to organize and develop life, the physical cause must be explained in terms that bespeak intelligent powers. This is how natural selection is commonly described. It is an endeavor to conflate two mutually exclusive forces into one. It simply does not work but dogmatic committment to an ideology leads to such irrationality.
Read also Dr. Lee Spetner's treatment of mutation research in Not By Chance. Kellor's work on the gene similarly raises many issues regarding recent discoveries that appear to undermine the selfish gene type theories. Such as the facts that mutations are weeded out by DNA, that mutations do not add information to the genome but appear to destroy information, that preserving constancy over generations appears to be a main function of DNA, and that genes do not influence the phenotype (the overall organism). And so much more.
Let me add this thought- a basic assumption of extreme materialism is that there is physical reality and nothing else. The materialist's view of natural laws also derives from this same scientifically unwarranted assumption. It follows logically for the materialist to then believe that everything else must be explained in terms of this foundational assumption. Natural laws are then viewed as purely physical phenomena and as purely physical realities they are presented by materialists as the causal origin of everything else in the material realm, including information. They validate a purely physical explanation of life. And yes, in a limited fashion they do offer explanatory power in physical reality. But to assume they are expressions of material reality and nothing else is a huge and unwarranted leap of assumption.
Listen to this comment by Christopher Langan: "Distilled to a single sentence, the prevailing scientific view of nature and causality is roughly this- `nature is associated with space, generalizable to a spacetime manifold, permeated by fields under the causal influence of which objects move and interact in space and time according to logico-arithmetical laws of nature'. Despite its simplicity, this is a versatile causal framework with the power to express much of our scientific knowledge. But the questions to which it leads are as obvious as they are unanswered. For example, where do these laws reside? Of what are they composed? How and why did they originate? What are their properties? How do they function and how are they sustained?" (From Uncommon Dissent, p.237).
David Chalmers (The Conscious Mind) makes a similar conclusion about natural laws. He argues that we don't really know what they are all about but at some level we have to take them as they are and work from there. This is necessary for science to function in some useful manner. But it is not license to automatically assume that natural laws are indeed purely `natural' and a validation of the materialist viewpoint. "After all, we really have no idea about the intrinsic properties of the physical" says Chalmers.
Jeff Rockwell in his review here quoted Max Planck and James Jean noting their comments that conscious and intelligent Mind appears to be the matrix of matter. Physical science is heading in the direction of a non-mechanical view of reality. The universe appears to be more of a great thought than a machine. Mind is the creator and governor of matter says Jean. Natural laws could then be simply an expression of what Joseph Campbell called the Universal Mind, greater Consciousness or God. This is a more rational, reasonable and logical conclusion than the claim that they represent meaningless nothingness. In the same vein Chalmers stated that materialism is false (the belief there is physical reality and nothing else) and some form of dualism is the true nature of reality. These scientists are simply confirming what the ancients have long known intuitively and universally.
It would appear from the comments of many of the most respected scientists that the basic facts of physics undermine Dawkin's materialism. |
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Scott Plunkett (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-19 00:00>
Whether you are an atheist or not, Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion is a striking and brilliant explanation of why religion shouldn't be heralded as the cause of our existence, and shouldn't run our lives. He brings such a compelling argument to this book, after you read it, you may never be the same. It gives the positive side of atheism, and explains why religion is truly a malevolent institution in our world, from its beginnings, to its current status. His main points explain how there is no such thing as a "muslim child" or a "christian child" and how teaching these doctrines to children at such a young age is the cause for such radical views of religion, and the main reason behind the fact that so many people inherit their parents beliefs. He goes on to tell how we don't need religion to be a moral people, and brings up unrefutable evidence against a higher being in my personal favorite chapter, "why there almost certainly is no god". Throughout the book, his incredible wit, unmatched rhetoric, and beautiful counter arguments all make this book essential to anyone who has ever questioned their parents beliefs, or who know they are atheist, and want to read a supportive "manual" on the subject! 5 Stars! Kudos to you Mr. Dawkins.
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Vincent Poirier (MSL quote), Japan
<2007-01-19 00:00>
Here are some of the points you'll find brilliantly argued in this book.
- A distinction between the God of Einstein and the God of Abraham. The first is what Albert Einstein meant whenever he used the word God and it's just a poetic way to label the structure of the Universe but it is in no way a personal god. The second is a personal god who if he existed would care about us and talk to us. Dawkins is an atheist in that he does not believe in any personal god such as Odin or Yahwe or Jesus.
- A refutation of all the common proofs for God's existence and a case made for not turning to faith in the absence of proof.
- A persuasive case made for the non-existence of God, but this case is not a proof since logically you cannot prove the non-existence of anything. Dawkins makes the point that the God of Abraham is as likely to exist as are Odin, Zeus, Jupiter or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. However, the existence of God is logically even more unlikely than the existence of the universe he supposedly created, so onus on religion to prove its case, and NOT on atheists to prove theirs.
- A refutation of the thesis that religion is the basis of morality. It turns out that people from different cultural backgrounds and religious affiliations come up with similar solutions when faced with ethical dilemmas. Morality seems to be hardwired in our brains.
- A refutation of the thesis that religion is a necessary source of comfort. It can bring solace, but atheism also offers ways to console us through hardships and Dawkins gives many examples. Further, religion can also be a source of anguish, e.g. all those people terrified as children by visions of an imaginary hell.
Dawkins tackles more questions. Should we admire people who have faith? Says Dawkins, no. Even if we don't believe, can't we still "believe in belief", i.e. isn't religion a good thing? Says Dawkins, no. Is raising your child to believe in your religion a form of child abuse? Says Dawkins, yes. If you're an atheist, is it OK to go to a friend's church wedding? Says Dawkins, sure it is.
If as a bright you ever need to argue in favour of your naturalistic world view, you'll find this book an invaluable help in articulating your thoughts. |
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