Posted on 01/13/2006 10:06:18 AM PST by SirLinksalot
Dawkins is wrong about God
Roger Scruton
Faced with the spectacle of the cruelties perpetrated in the name of faith, Voltaire famously cried ‘Ecrasez l’infâme!’ Scores of enlightened thinkers have followed him, declaring organised religion to be the enemy of mankind, the force that divides the believer from the infidel and thereby both excites and authorises murder. Richard Dawkins, whose TV series The Root of all Evil? concludes next Monday, is the most influential living example of this tradition. And he has embellished it with a striking theory of his own — the theory of the religious ‘meme’. A meme is a mental entity that colonises the brains of people, much as a virus colonises a cell. The meme exploits its host in order to reproduce itself, spreading from brain to brain like meningitis, and killing off the competing powers of rational argument. Like genes and species, memes are Darwinian individuals, whose success or failure depends upon their ability to find the ecological niche that enables reproduction. Such is the nature of ‘gerin oil’, as Dawkins contemptuously describes religion.
This analogical extension of the theory of biological reproduction has a startling quality. It seems to explain the extraordinary survival power of nonsense, and the constant ‘sleep of reason’ that, in Goya’s engraving, ‘calls forth monsters’. Faced with a page of Derrida and knowing that this drivel is being read and reproduced in a thousand American campuses, I have often found myself tempted by the theory of the meme. The page in my hand is clearly the product of a diseased brain, and the disease is massively infectious: Derrida admitted as much when he referred to the ‘deconstructive virus’.
All the same, I am not entirely persuaded by this extension by analogy of genetics. The theory that ideas have a disposition to propagate themselves by appropriating energy from the brains that harbour them recalls Molière’s medical expert (Le Malade imaginaire) who explained the fact that opium induces sleep by referring to its virtus dormitiva (the ability to cause sleep). It only begins to look like an explanation when we read back into the alleged cause the distinguishing features of the effect, by imagining ideas as entities whose existence depends, as genes and species do, on reproduction.
Nevertheless, let us grant Dawkins his stab at a theory. We should still remember that not every dependent organism destroys its host. In addition to parasites there are symbionts and mutualists — invaders that either do not impede or positively amplify their host’s reproductive chances. And which is religion? Why has religion survived, if it has conferred no benefit on its adepts? And what happens to societies that have been vaccinated against the infection — Soviet society, for instance, or Nazi Germany — do they experience a gain in reproductive potential? Clearly, a lot more research is needed if we are to come down firmly on the side of mass vaccination rather than (my preferred option) lending support to the religion that seems most suited to temper our belligerent instincts, and which, in doing so, asks us to forgive those who trespass against us and humbly atone for our faults.
So there are bad memes and good memes. Consider mathematics. This propagates itself through human brains because it is true; people entirely without maths — who cannot count, subtract or multiply — don’t have children, for the simple reason that they make fatal mistakes before they get there. Maths is a real mutualist. Of course the same is not true of bad maths; but bad maths doesn’t survive, precisely because it destroys the brains in which it takes up residence.
Maybe religion is to this extent like maths: that its survival has something to do with its truth. Of course it is not the literal truth, nor the whole truth. Indeed, the truth of a religion lies less in what is revealed in its doctrines than in what is concealed in its mysteries. Religions do not reveal their meaning directly because they cannot do so; their meaning has to be earned by worship and prayer, and by a life of quiet obedience. Nevertheless truths that are hidden are still truths; and maybe we can be guided by them only if they are hidden, just as we are guided by the sun only if we do not look at it. The direct encounter with religious truth would be like Semele’s encounter with Zeus, a sudden conflagration.
To Dawkins that idea of a purely religious truth is hogwash. The mysteries of religion, he will say, exist in order to forbid all questioning, so giving religion the edge over science in the struggle for survival. In any case, why are there so many competitors among religions, if they are competing for the truth? Shouldn’t the false ones have fallen by the wayside, like refuted theories in science? And how does religion improve the human spirit, when it seems to authorise the crimes now committed each day by Islamists, and which are in turn no more than a shadow of the crimes that were spread across Europe by the Thirty Years War?
Those are big questions, not to be solved by a TV programme, so here in outline are my answers. Religions survive and flourish because they are a call to membership — they provide customs, beliefs and rituals that unite the generations in a shared way of life, and implant the seeds of mutual respect. Like every form of social life, they are inflamed at the edges, where they compete for territory with other faiths. To blame religion for the wars conducted in its name, however, is like blaming love for the Trojan war. All human motives, even the most noble, will feed the flames of conflict when subsumed by the ‘territorial imperative’ — this too Darwin teaches us, and Dawkins surely must have noticed it. Take religion away, as the Nazis and the communists did, and you do nothing to suppress the pursuit of Lebensraum. You simply remove the principal source of mercy in the ordinary human heart and so make war pitiless; atheism found its proof at Stalingrad.
There is a tendency, fed by the sensationalism of television, to judge all human institutions by their behaviour in times of conflict. Religion, like patriotism, gets a bad press among those for whom war is the one human reality, the one occasion when the Other in all of us is noticeable. But the real test of a human institution is in peacetime. Peace is boring, quotidian, and also rotten television. But you can learn about it from books. Those nurtured in the Christian faith know that Christianity’s ability to maintain peace in the world around us reflects its gift of peace to the world within. In a Christian society there is no need for Asbos, and in the world after religion those Asbos will do no good — they are a last desperate attempt to save us from the effects of godlessness, and the attempt is doomed.
Muslims say similar things, and so do Jews. So who possesses the truth, and how would you know? Well, we don’t know, nor do we need to know. All faith depends on revelation, and the proof of the revelation is in the peace that it brings. Rational argument can get us just so far, in raising the monotheistic faiths above the muddled world of superstition. It can help us to understand the real difference between a faith that commands us to forgive our enemies, and one that commands us to slaughter them. But the leap of faith itself — this placing of your life at God’s service — is a leap over reason’s edge. This does not make it irrational, any more than falling in love is irrational. On the contrary, it is the heart’s submission to an ideal, and a bid for the love, peace and forgiveness that Dawkins too is seeking, since he, like the rest of us, was made in just that way.
later read maybe ping.
bump
That is the main difference between Christianity and Islam. Jesus gave everyone the free choice ot denying him (and spitting upon him) or following him. Mohammed (the guy that wipes with his leftie and dabs it in water) would slit an old ladies's throat if she even looked at him wrong.
Not unlike the goal of Islam?
Dawkins is a Brit
Yes, and his hatred of religion is, in part, fueled by his hatred of the American love of religion. It is sort of a "chicken or the egg" argument - does he dislike America because of religion, or does he blame religion for the actions he dislikes in America? I'm not too sure, but he makes no bones about how he feels regarding Americans and their love of religion:
http://www.sundayherald.com/53499
"Dawkins describes all religious faith as “a process of non-thinking”, although he seems to have been particularly fired up by the current fusion of free market forces, neo- conservatism and Christianity in the United States, which he equates with the Taliban in its insidiousness. “In Britian, religion is slowly dying the death it deserves. America is very different, a country in the grip of a lunatic religious mania.”"
Considering his hatred of religion, America and free markets, Mr. Dawkins is a free-thinker along the same lines as Marx and Chairman Mao...
Yes, but in Dawkins the combination is hilariously incoherent. Barr is a physicist, himself, his review's worth a read.
Does Dawkins even acknowledge "truth"? As I understand it, the scientific method is not a method for arriving at truth, but rather at precise measurement and repeatability--in other words, consenus among professionals, definitely not the same thing as truth.
A gene that enables the host to get along well in a group...
I would think that getting along is more a rational action than a genetic one, don't you think? Is there a gene for getting along? Of course self-preservation is innate, but getting along (or not) seems to be more social than innate.
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I would suggest that it is, as with most things, a mixture of the two. There are certainly chemical imbalances in the brain that cause people to develop the inability to act socially, and they certainly do have genetic components. And the ability to act rationally is a factor of our brains, and our brains are certainly determined in part by genetics.
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Take an extreme example, a person who commits murder at the age of 10, would be deemed by society to have acted in a way contrary to group coherence, and would be locked away in jail, thus reducing the chances of reproductive success.
This would assume that having a predisposition to committing murder is genetic. Perhaps it is. But if it isn't, then locking the kid up will have no effect on evolution.
And even though, as you say,... the gene's chance of replication is determined in part by the environment that the gene is in... may be true, the environment effects only the whole individual not the gene per se.
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The individual host of the gene is part of the environment of the gene.
Of course, what we are doing here is radically simplifying the situation.
I think it's more accurately described as reductionism. You could also, if so inclined, reduce it all to chemistry
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Meh! Chemistry is just applied physics!
“All science is either physics or stamp collecting.”
-Rutherford
Considering his hatred of religion, America and free markets, Mr. Dawkins is a free-thinker along the same lines as Marx and Chairman Mao...
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And not content with the dumb comparison to Hitler, you now bring in Marx. Dawkins has made no comment about free markets. Tell me, have you actually READ any of his books, or seen the documentary in question? I doubt that you have.
Well, that is just somewhat silly, as there is no contradiction at all between any of the three Dawkinses (is that plural of Dawkins?). One can very easily be a rational humanist evolutionary biologist.
Yes, but in Dawkins the combination is hilariously incoherent. Barr is a physicist, himself, his review's worth a read.
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Perhaps you could point out the incoherency?
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Does Dawkins even acknowledge "truth"? As I understand it, the scientific method is not a method for arriving at truth, but rather at precise measurement and repeatability--in other words, consenus among professionals, definitely not the same thing as truth.
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Well, having read his work, Dawkins does seem to acknowledge truth. Indeed, he has often said that evolutionary biology is true. In the same sense that it is true that the earth and the sun orbit around a shared centre of mass.
OK, so now we're finally at an interestig juncture. To wit, absent our own solar system in which to apply an abitrary time scale, how many universes have come and gone on a grand macro scale? In each of these universes, what is the predisposition of atomic matter to form the elements found in our current universe? Given these elements, is it a function of natural law that a replicating system (eg DNA) will emerge? And if so, what is the frequency of religious evolution amongst any civilisations that may eventually exist?
...Dawkins describes all religious faith as “a process of non-thinking”...
Interesting point of view. The deepest thinking, questionning and searching I do is when I am praying.
Dawkins displays arrogance but not wisdom. Love, forgiveness, redemption, sacrifice are all ignored in his "Evolution Dogma".
Dear Wormster, please read the entire post. Yes, I have read Dawkins work, and I have followed him for DECADES. Let me quote to you from them, with links and direct quotes provided, and analysis from a leading Marxist forum on why Dawkins is considered by many to support Marxist theory in some levels:
Richard Dawkin's Review of "Not in Our Genes"
Not in Our Genes: Biology, Ideology and Human Nature
by Steven Rose, Leon J. Kamin and R.C.Lewontin (Pantheon Books, 1985)
Reviewed by Richard Dawkins in "Sociobiology: the debate continues", New Scientist 24 January 1985
http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/WorldOfDawkins-archive/Dawkins/Work/Reviews/1985-01-24notinourgenes.shtml
EXCERPTED:
"Sociobiology, it seems, makes the two assertions "that are required if it is to serve as a legitimization and perpetuation of the social order" (my emphasis). The "Panglossianism"—J. B. S. Haldane’s term is (mis)used without acknowledgement—of sociobiology "has played an important role in legitimation", but this is not its main feature:
"Sociobiology is a reductionist, biological determinist explanation of human existence. Its adherents claim, first, that the details of present and past social arrangements are the inevitable manifestations of the specific action of genes."
Unfortunately, academic sociobiologists, unaccountably neglecting their responsibilities towards the class struggle, do not seem anywhere to have actually said that human social arrangements are the inevitable manifestations of genes."
END EXCERPT
Now this is not an endorsement of Marxism - but his attitudes towards America, capitalism, and religion have been more strident lately, and they have gained wide acclaim in many leftist circles. Of course, being Dawkings, he aslo dismays them, for they would like him to be far more strident regarding politics in general.
Mr. Dawkins is considered by many in the *Marxist* community to be Marxist-leaning in nature. A wonderful (and actually quite refreshing) discussion of Marx/Dawkins can be found at the leftist forum RevolutionaryLeft.com...
http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/lofiversion/index.php/t43487.html
Now, whether or not Mr. Dawkins is even remotely Marxist is extremely open to interpretation. He appears to have attempted to keep "politics" out of his science, but in his quest to debunk religion, he has become diadatic himself, and prone to the same zeal that he derides in the religious community. The article I quoted from earlier is a from a review of Dawkins new documentary, and they seem to indicate this zeal taking him to deeper levels of emotion, in this case specifically against Americans and free markets:
O Come All Ye Faithless:
http://www.sundayherald.com/53499
Oh come all ye faithless
A new series depicts religion as dangerous bunk. But is presenter Richard Dawkins just preaching to the converted? By Stephen Phelan
EXCERPTED:
When Dawkins was commissioned for The Root Of All Evil?, he was already writing a book on the same theme, titled The God Delusion. The programme is not a TV adaptation of the book, he insists, but “most of the script for my voice-over and pieces to camera are pretty much taken from it”. Producer Alan Clements will accept credit for the original “uneasy and timely idea” of making a documentary about the apparent “rise of faith and retreat of reason in modern society”. He stands by the finished product 100%. “I think these are important films,” says Clements, “and programmes like this need to be made and watched. But I can’t take credit for the philosophy of it and the way it’s expressed.”
This is, then, for better or worse, a programme that lets Dawkins be Dawkins. His views, already well known, are expressed here with often electrifying clarity. He deconstructs such “fairy stories” as the assumption of the Virgin Mary with witty, angry and rigorous academic passion. But by his own admission, he has nothing particularly new to say, or to learn, about this subject. “I pretty much knew what I was going to find when I started making the films, which didn’t make it any more palatable or acceptable, of course.”
Dawkins describes all religious faith as “a process of non-thinking”, although he seems to have been particularly fired up by the current fusion of free market forces, neo- conservatism and Christianity in the United States, which he equates with the Taliban in its insidiousness. ****“In Britian, religion is slowly dying the death it deserves. America is very different, a country in the grip of a lunatic religious mania.”**** (asterisks added by me to emphasise DIRECT DAWKINS QUOTE).
END EXCERPT
Now, this is a direct quote from Mr. Dawkins, from his TV series. As you can see, his tone has changed from his earlier works. This is indicative of his turn away from science towards social commentary and didacticism. In this, he DOES resemble Marx - in Marx's work, the science of economy and class struggle became corrupted into a war against religion and self-determination. So too with Dawkins - his earlier (and quite frankly brilliant) works in science are being corrupted by his zeal to debunk religion. It is not a crime to become zealous, but it does need to be seen for what it is. Do not judge Dawkins alone on what he has written - see what he has to say in lecture and on camera, if you are going to have an accurate picture of his work...
Barr does it quite well, himself. The Devil's Chaplain Confounded.
You might be interested in a little piece I wrote exposing the sophistry of Dawkins book "The Blind Watchmaker":
http://RussP.us/Dawkins.htm
REPOSTED FOR CLARITY
Dear Wormster, please read the entire post. Yes, I have read Dawkins work, and I have followed him for DECADES. Let me quote to you from them, with links and direct quotes provided, and analysis from a leading Marxist forum on why Dawkins is considered by many to support Marxist theory in some levels:
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Sorry, not particularly interested in what other people have to say. I am interested you finding an actual reference from Dawkins own words on the subject of "hatred of the free market". The fact that Marxists claim him as a supporter is as irrelevant as a very irrelevant thing.
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Now this is not an endorsement of Marxism - but his attitudes towards America, capitalism, and religion have been more strident lately,
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And yet you have found NO words from Dawkins on the subject of capitalism at all. Words from other people, but nothing from Dawkins himself.
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and they have gained wide acclaim in many leftist circles.
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Such wide acclaim that you cant find any quotes at all. -- Of course, being Dawkings, he aslo dismays them, for they would like him to be far more strident regarding politics in general.
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Now, whether or not Mr. Dawkins is even remotely Marxist is extremely open to interpretation.
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Well, yes, everything is open to interpretation. But generally speaking you would have to have something to interpret. And as yet you have offered no quote from Dawkins on the subject of free markets or capitalism.
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He appears to have attempted to keep "politics" out of his science,
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And yet somehow, despite this, you seem to think you know his views on politics. Interesting.
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but in his quest to debunk religion, he has become diadatic himself, and prone to the same zeal that he derides in the religious community. -- Oh yes, he is very zealous on the subject he does expound, but capitalism is not one of them.
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The article I quoted from earlier is a from a review of Dawkins new documentary, and they seem to indicate this zeal taking him to deeper levels of emotion, in this case specifically against Americans and free markets: Dawkins describes all religious faith as “a process of non-thinking”, although he seems to have been particularly fired up by the current fusion of free market forces, neo- conservatism and Christianity in the United States, which he equates with the Taliban in its insidiousness. ****“In Britian, religion is slowly dying the death it deserves. America is very different, a country in the grip of a lunatic religious mania.”**** (asterisks added by me to emphasise DIRECT DAWKINS QUOTE).
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Yes, that is a reference to RELIGION in America. Not about free markets or capitalism.
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Now, this is a direct quote from Mr. Dawkins, from his TV series. As you can see, his tone has changed from his earlier works. This is indicative of his turn away from science towards social commentary and didacticism. In this, he DOES resemble Marx - in Marx's work, the science of economy and class struggle became corrupted into a war against religion and self-determination. So too with Dawkins - his earlier (and quite frankly brilliant) works in science are being corrupted by his zeal to debunk religion. It is not a crime to become zealous, but it does need to be seen for what it is. Do not judge Dawkins alone on what he has written - see what he has to say in lecture and on camera, if you are going to have an accurate picture of his work...
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I have read what he says. I have seen him lecture twice, and I watch every time he is on TV as I find him very entertaining. And I have never seen, heard or read a mention of free markets or capitalism.
'REPOSTED FOR CLARITY'
I must say, that's BETTER! I had just been struggling through the above post, and was surprised because you usually format quite well. I appreciate the time you took to format it in the second round.
I'm afraid our biggest difference here will never be resolved. You are not keen on my references, or won't accept them (even though some of them are from his own website) but when it comes down to it, the difference in opinion lies in the way you and I interpret his words.
That, I believe, is perfectly acceptable, and I don't really think that it's a problem for you to think differently of Dawkins than I do. I have followed Dawkins through the years, and have become dismayed by his movement away from science and towards stridence. You are perfectly okay with that, and continue to defend him. I can accept your right to your opinion, while continuing to believe I'm right in my opinion.
Can you do the same or do you feel that I must see things from your point of view alone? What would Dawkins do? It would make a very interesting and cool bracelet:
WWDD?
'REPOSTED FOR CLARITY'
I must say, that's BETTER! I had just been struggling through the above post, and was surprised because you usually format quite well. I appreciate the time you took to format it in the second round.
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I dont understand actually, I formatted the first one the same, but it got munged. Much strangeness afoot.
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I'm afraid our biggest difference here will never be resolved. You are not keen on my references, or won't accept them (even though some of them are from his own website) but when it comes down to it, the difference in opinion lies in the way you and I interpret his words.
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Well, if he had said ANY words about free markets and capitalism, then you would have had a point. But he didnt. The problem seems to be that you think because he is against one thing you like (religion), he must be against all things you like (free markets included).
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That, I believe, is perfectly acceptable, and I don't really think that it's a problem for you to think differently of Dawkins than I do. I have followed Dawkins through the years, and have become dismayed by his movement away from science and towards stridence.
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He has ALWAYS been strident. But that is not the point here. I asked you for a single quote from Dawkins about free markets or capitalism. You have provided none. Zero. Nada. Zilch.
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You are perfectly okay with that, and continue to defend him.
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I dont defend him. I dont agree with him on many issues. I simply asked you for one single quote. That is all. One single solitary quote. That shouldnt be hard to find, should it?
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I can accept your right to your opinion, while continuing to believe I'm right in my opinion.
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Despite the fact that you offered no evidence that he said anything about capitalism or free markets.
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Can you do the same or do you feel that I must see things from your point of view alone? What would Dawkins do? It would make a very interesting and cool bracelet:
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I dont really mind how you see things. I just appreciate EVIDENCE when claims are made.
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