Atheism

Richard Dawkins

No blog or discussion on the nature of God or the intersection of science and religion would be complete without reference to Richard Dawkins. He is a great source of interesting posts and someone I shall be returning to frequently. He has become something of a high priest to atheists and with that in mind I had a little chuckle when I read about his pilgrimage to the Galapagos Islands.

I first came across Dawkins in the 1980’s when I first began reading books about the philosophy of science. The Selfish Gene is a brilliant book, popular science writing at its very best, explaining complex ideas with ease. It was the New York Times who classed it as ‘the sort of popular science writing that makes the reader feel like a genius.’

I have mixed feelings about Dawkins. He is clearly a top level scientist and a great writer. He is however a lousy philosopher and a lousy metaphysician. His anti religious rants are not derivable from his scientific evidence, rather they are merely piggybacked on his science and the impression is given that the one follows from the other. It does not. Since The Selfish Gene Dawkins has produced a number of other great books, but seemingly with each step has moved further away from the popular science genre and increasingly taken on the role of waging all out war against Religion. The great writer of popular science has become a savage anti-religious polemicist – preaching rather than arguing his case. In some senses he has become what he detests most.

Now I wouldn’t wish you to think that I am here to mount a knock down argument in the defence of religion. I am not. Much of what Dawkins argues – even at his worst – I can quite happily agree with. I probably agree with 99.9% of everything he writes. But at the core I am deeply unhappy with the fundamentals for which Dawkins argues. The case against God has not been proven. The case for scientific materialism has not been successful. Dawkins embraces everything he says with a materialist spin as if that is how evolution needs to be presented. It doesn’t. And the offensive part of Dawkins words is not the evolution but that materialist spin.

My second gripe with Dawkins is with his proposal for what we should do with the concept of God. He wishes to banish it from speech altogether so as not to give succour to those who he despises. He argues that scientists should cease giving acknowledgement to the God of Spinoza and of Einstein – The Rational God – because the ordinary reader confuses this Pantheist version with the Theist one. This is somewhat backward thinking. If scientists believe the concept is a valid one to have then they should not be browbeaten into naming it something else. Spinoza’s God is a clearly defined, internally consistent concept and can give us deep insights into the ultimate nature of existence.

In conclusion I would like to point out that Dawkins anti-religious views are not something which can be proven false by some scientific evidence. Yet neither are they self evident from the scientific facts as Dawkins generally assumes. The philosophical positions that Dawkins imports into his belief system are not the easiest to defend, and in the case of materialism are generally considered to be false by everyone. There are philosophical positions different to those of Richard Dawkins which can represent the scientific facts in an equally adequate way. For Dawkins to represent his philosophical viewpoint as scientific fact is disingenuous at best and anti scientific at worst.

Atheism Symbol

Atheism Symbol

I had intended to move on from atheism and theism and look at pantheism but I came across an article about atheism symbols and became intrigued.

I touched upon the definition of religion in an earlier post. Religion is not just having a belief in God but extends to include purpose and worship of artefacts, places or even symbols. Proudly displaying a symbol is a basic sign of religious behaviour and it seems the atheist community are scrambling around in an attempt to come to some agreement as to what that symbol might be.

An atheism symbol certainly takes atheists one step closer to becoming a religion. Whatever next? Soon we will see organised groups of atheists taking a pilgrimage to the Galapagos Islands in tribute to their founder. Will Galapagos become the New Jerusalem? An atheist location as a place of ultimate worship, hmm, another criterion ticked for what it is that defines a religious group.

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Compare Theism and Atheism

Compare Theism and Atheism

There are a number of ways that we can compare theism and atheism. In a debate that is increasingly politicised, in the USA at least, it is important to understand the objective or emotion of any person who is engaged in such a debate. This post is a brief look at the charge levelled against atheists that they too are expressing religiousness.

The simple view would be that to compare theism and atheism is trivial as one side (theism) offers a position of belief, whilst the other (atheism) counters with the negation or rejection of that belief. However, there are a number of different ways we can make a comparison particularly when we see either side stray from the real notion of what they are in fact supporting or denying.

Emphasised in earlier posts has been the point that theism is the assertion that there is a God who exists separately from the universe that he has created. Atheism is the denial of this claim. This is the “in a nutshell” definition of what theism and atheism entails.

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Define Theism and Atheism

Define Theism and atheism

The definitions of theism and atheism should both be very clear. Yet at times because of the heat of debate in which theism and atheism are discussed the real meaning of each becomes blurred. Dictionaries are often considered the arbiters of definition, though reaching for a dictionary should be a last resort. Dictionaries are not definers of words. Dictionaries list words and how they are used in common speech. As a philosopher it is quite legitimate to define ones own terms provided one is clear that is what you are doing. If a philosopher defines a term to have a specific meaning then the dictionaries definition is irrelevant. Should a philosophers use of a term become standard then it will be the dictionary that adapts to the new usage. It is not the public who adapt to a dictionary definition, rather the dictionary changes to how words are used.

Theism can be a difficult word to define because theists themselves have so many different ideas of what their theism entails. Not only are there three primary theist religions, there are a number of sub groups within each religion further diluting any notion of there being a clear and distinct definition.

Atheism is easy to define. Atheism is the belief that theism is false. But as that definition rests on our understanding of what theism entails we are back to the problem of seeking a clear definition of theism. So for the purpose of this blog I shall make clear precisely how I define the concept of theism and by default how atheism then becomes defined.

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Theism Vs Atheism

Theism vs. Atheism

Though Darwin didn’t casually forsake his religious faith, many of his scientific descendents have been much less reticent to equate evolutionary theory with atheism. Indeed, many theists see their religious belief system as incompatible with evolution; consequently the theism vs. atheism debate is often fought in the theory of evolution arena. This is unfortunate as the idea of evolution has no bearing on the claim that God does or does not exist. Evolution no more proves that God does not exist than gravitational theory.

Theism is at its most embarrassing and cringe worthiness when it adopts a contrary position to evolutionary theory. It plucks out of the air a ridiculous idea called creationism and subverts its own self by imposing the artificial claim on the bible that it is some kind of ancient scientific text. Any value that the bible has is immediately lost as it is used to propose an alternative unscientific account of the creation of the universe.

At a stroke, creationism turns what was once a sacred text into a competing scientific treatise. It was never the intention of the biblical authors to create a mundane scientific document, yet today that is what the most determined literalists insist it should be. If we are to view the bible as something which should be of scientific interest then we completely miss the intentions of the biblical writers.

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