Darling Street Anglican Church

"There was nothing new as far as I could see. So it was really quite a disappointment. Not that I wanted to be converted but I did think I would be challenged to think in new ways, or pushed to consider my faith anew. But, alas, I wasn't."

Richard Dawkins is a scientist who is passionate in his desire to convert people- he wants to convert them to atheism. He says, “If this book works as I intend, religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down” (p5). So it was interesting to embark upon reading this book. I did wonder what would happen. Here was someone setting out not just to unsettle people like me but to actually change their mind. I thought I would be challenged and provoked.

But it was a peculiarly unchallenging read. There was nothing new as far as I could see. So it was really quite a disappointment. Not that I wanted to be converted but I did think I would be challenged to think in new ways, or pushed to consider my faith anew. But, alas, I wasn't.

His basic premise is Darwinian. We are here because of natural selection. End of story. There is no heaven. There is no hell. There is nothing other than the natural world. Every single spiritual path is a delusion. There are a lot of very silly people on the planet.

Dawkins sets himself up as the objective observer. He can see through all the myth and delusion and see the truth. And now he is the harbinger of truth to us all. Allelulia!

He is zealous in his fervour to convert. He is the Billy Graham of atheists!! Which is why the book is so intellectually disappointing. It is like reading propaganda, rather than a measured and well argued presentation of an alternative view to a religious world view.

He has his heroes - Bertrand Russell; Charles Darwin; Gore Vidal; Einstein; Thomas Jefferson. And these heroes of anti faith are used to bolster his attack. Yet it is a peculiar approach. It is like their fame or significance means that there does not have to be a reasoned logic for his position, rather it is a bolshie push to disintegrate religion by ridicule and hyperbole.

In presenting his heroes views he presents arguments which in many cases have been around for centuries. I was disappointed. I did think there would be some new attack. And his attack is on such characters as Thomas Aquinas and Anslem. The quaintly amusing aspect was that he was attacking these Christians from many centuries ago as if he had something new to say.

His belief in science is absolute. And his view is that science excludes any spiritual faith. He is thus bamboozled by scientists who profess faith. He cites the faith of three prize winning scientists and says of them, “I remain baffled, not so much by their belief in a cosmic lawgiver of some kind as by their belief in the details of the Christian religion: resurrection, forgiveness of sins and all” (p99). He decides that anyone with faith and science is either a hypocrite or working from some motivation which is inaccessible to him. He sees that religion, “subverts science and saps the intellect” (p284), and so any scientist could not possibly be a believer.

The problem is that many scientists are believers. Many people of great intelligence are believers. But Dawkins stands above them all as the final mouthpiece of truth to the universe - there is no God. He is standing on his own intellectual mound alongside Nieztsche declaring loudly that if you are intelligent you must not believe.

I think this is part of his Darwinian view. We evolved from the polytheists; we then became monotheists; and the final stage of our development we will be atheists. Nothing new here. It is what Marx thought would happen. It is what Mao Tse Tung thought would happen. We would leave behind God and live in an atheist nirvana. But we haven't developed like that. Religion is flourishing worldwide.

He presents that if you are intelligent you will agree with him. It is the intellectual high moral ground. If you disagree with him you are stupid. You are in league with characters like Mother Theresa, “the sanctimoniously hypocritical mother Theresa” (p292). If you follow God, you are following a psychotic delinquent or a monster - which is how he describes God (p46). So if you are clever surely you will agree with him.

The trouble was the arguments were rambling. And there are other ways of seeing reality which he just dismisses out of hand. There was nothing really new to get your teeth into. And perhaps the lowest ebb is when he speaks of the bible.

His approach to the bible is astounding in how it lacks any real scholarship. He dismisses the New Testament in five pages and says, “The only difference between the Da Vinci Code and the Gospels is that the gospels are ancient fiction while the Da Vinci code is modern fiction” (p97). It is so disappointing that someone with his level of education could so blithely dismiss a whole corpus of literature on the historicity of the bible and the scholarship of the bible. He just jumps in and attacks, with inaccuracy (like Paul wrote Hebrews) and misrepresentation. Thus it was peculiarly lacking in challenge.

Yet the insults were not challenging as they were emotive condemnations rather than a reasoned response.

He is peculiarly moral. He seems to think if we obliterated religion we would live in peace and harmony. Let's just forget about Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Tse Tung. But I do wonder why he is so moral. He seems primarily utilitarian in ethics, so why not just do what is best to get ahead - personally and culturally? He also has some flexible moral views, such as, “Hitler seems especially evil only by the benign standards of our time” (p269).

The way he presents people of faith is so foreign to me. I could not read myself in the book. Nor could I read our church into his view. I go to church with many well educated people who have thought about their faith. I know many people who made an adult decision after much thought and reflection. Whereas he paints the religious as people who were indoctrinated as children and now can't break free of this superstition.

The one thing I found engaging was being the target of his desire to convert. He thinks I am deluded - and pretty close to stupid. I wonder how often I have not afforded people the dignity of their own position. It is very unappealing to be arrogantly spoken to in such a condescending fashion.



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