Helping Dawkins : Richard tries to get through to his Daughter

I'm so worried about Richard Dawkins' daughter, Juliet. I shake my head. Shake, shake. Why does he set himself up this way? Perhaps we can help. I've made similar gaffes. Christians are fairly good at driving their children away, but it breaks the heart to see secularists following the path. Here is some of what Richard wrote Juliet when she was just ten. Ten. He did sign it, "Your loving Daddy." That was good. Love is good. Just before that, though, he exhorted her, "Next time somebody tells you that something is true, why not say to them: `What kind of evidence is there for that?' And if they can't give you a good answer, I hope you'll think very carefully before you believe a word they say." Ugh, Dad, that sort of thing drives ten-year-olds into crisis. Believe me, I've tried like an idiot. They see right through. They're hypocrisy hounds. I can see Juliet's furrowed brow now. She's itching to ask for the lab reports; what concrete scientific evidence do you have for your question itself?—and for Reason, logic, math, the scientific method, critical values? Dad says, "Observation always lies at the back of it." Okay. Give the journal cites, then. Scientific journals only, please.

Intellectuals have such a hard time with kids. Authority and tradition barely hold their mask together. It must be especially tough for Dawkins, being Humanist of the Year 1996 and all, yet voted only the third top intellectual by Prospect Magazine (Nov. 2005). Does it make his mouth crooked to be beat out by that upstart Umberto Eco? Eco is so much more fun to say, though. Eco. That tilted my vote.

Dawkins seemingly held onto his letter until his daughter turned eighteen. Good move, Dad. Eighteen-year-olds are much slower, though comfortable with abstract sermons; ten-year-olds demand more imagination. This Dawkins family letter is now posted all over the internet for the whole world to examine—search for "Good and Bad Reasons for Believing." Perhaps Juliet still hasn't got it for some reason. Perhaps she's not online. We could intercept and fix it before Dad sinks himself. He starts off on a weak footing, when in a preface to the letter, he concedes, "For most of her childhood, I unhappily saw her only for short periods of time, and it was not easy to talk about the important things of life." Oooh, bad start, Dad. Yellow lights blinking. Lots of ground to make up. It's a common rationalist affliction to believe that children will listen to serious, dogmatic, intellectual prose and ignore all our actions. Kids are too close to their bodies, though. They read our actions the way you read academic prose. Parse, parse, snip, hence. It's quite amazing to watch. Dawkins goes on to announce himself an ardent (don't say dogmatic) opponent of indoctrinating children.

Elsewhere, he calls Christian education "mental child abuse." In the preface to Juliet's letter, Dawkins says, "I had always been scrupulously careful to avoid the smallest suggestion of infant indoctrination, which I think is ultimately responsible for much of the evil in the world." Whoa, evil. Evil. Swinging around those bulky absolutes. Careful, there, Dad. You're still talking like a closet Christian, all this mummery about wickedness. Sounds a wee magical. Juliet is bound to cough a little. Lions and pythons and bats don't tend to talk that way. Maybe antelopes do. It's hard, though, for evolutionists to have the courage of their convictions when their own cubs are in view.

Then Dad waxes bitter about Juliet's upbringing, perhaps against some pesky aunt: "Others, less close to her, showed no such scruples [at avoiding indoctrination], which upset me, as I very much wanted her, as I want all children, to make up her own mind freely when she became old enough to do so. I would encourage her to think, without telling her what to think." If you read this quickly, it seems as if he wants "all children" to make up Juliet's mind. But there's a comma there. He wants her to do it herself— "think, without telling her what to think."

Still, Juliet can't avoid asking the obvious questions about this exhortation. It sticks out like a spear in the eye. I'm sure she'd speak softly. She'd ask what any eyelashed child would: "Daddy, how can you say you hate the evil of indoctrination but still impose on me epistemological individualism, a la Descartes? How is making each of us individual judges of all reality not a huge, unverifiable, unscientific claim? How is your imposition of individualism not already forcing me to think in secular categories?" Good questions, Juliet, I'd say. They rarely ask those sorts of questions in the science departments at Oxford. Most secularists can't even imagine what it would be like for individualism to be false. They think it's universal, common sense. When asked, they start talking the way Christians do about revelation—ultimate norms, inescapability, trust, practicality.

So how can we help Dawkins strengthen his letter to Juliet? Dad, you need to be honest. Kids hate hypocrisy. Stop pretending that you're not making huge, unverifiable authority claims. She can see through it. We all see through it, except anyone who writes for Free Inquiry. If you persist in your naivete, she might join us on the dark side.

1) A few personal "supernatural" experiences that have left very little room for doubt, and none of them with either Allah, Zeus or a pink unicorn. These I suspect you will immediately dismiss as hallucinations rooted in either substance abuse, mental infirmity, or the effects of extreme wishful thinking, so I won't bother you with the details unless you are sincerely interested in hearing about them.

But for harder evidence outside the realm of my own experiences:

2) Check this link ("The Impossible Faith -- or -- How Not to Start an Ancient Religion") for more details, but in a nutshell, nearly everything about Christianity should have ensured that it was stillborn. It's well worth reading but kind of lengthy (though the writer has pretty jovial, cheeky style which helps) so for just a few highlights:

a) It was WOMEN, not men, who first saw the empty tomb. This all by itself should have strangled Christianity in its cradle. In the ancient world, women were never to be taken seriously about anything they said. They were not even allowed to be witnesses in court. If the disciples were trying to gain popularity for their 'new religion', they would have concealed forever the fact that it was women discovered the empty tomb. Jesus himself did many things that broke the ancient codes about women, allowing them to sit at his feet as he taught, talking to them in public, allowing them to be among his larger circle of disciples, etc. To the extent that the religion ever gained any fame at all, it would have been as a laughing stock.

b) The ancient world would NEVER EVER have accepted a crucified hero or god. We are used to seeing crosses worn on necklaces even by devoutly secular pop stars, never mind at churches or on choir robes, etc., etc., to the extent that it has become "pretty-fied". We are millenia removed from horror and shame of crucifixion. Back then people refused to even talk about it at any level, so much so that the gospels are the only ancient writings that give anything like a graphic description of it. It would have been equivalent to writing about bodily functions, but even worse. Even Christians themselves were horrified enough by crucifixion that for centuries, the symbol of Christianity was the fish, not the cross.

It wasn't only that it was a excruciatingly painful way to die, note that I used the word shame. Crucifixion was not intended only to inflict physical pain, it was also a intended as a status degradation ritual. First, the crucifixee is bound or nailed in a symbolic and literal position of utter powerlessness. Then, as the crucifixee wore just a loin cloth (or was often naked) and would be on the cross for many hours, sometimes days, he would foul himself in plain view. It cannot be overemphasized how powerful a stigma crucifixion was in an ancient honor/shame society. The only thing comparable today I can think of would be if someone tried to start a religion claiming that John Wayne Gacy was the messiah.

Now to revere a man who died this way would also have gotten you laughed out of any local watering hole, or possibly even struck in the face for bringing up such a revolting topic. How much more so if you claimed this man who died like the lowest of the low was a god come to earth?

c) Jesus as God had another thing working against him. Keep in mind also that personages were so much-much-much more revered then (no matter what you might see on the Hollywood gossip shows) that social status was considered indistinguishable from the content of your character. If you were of noble birth from a well-known family with a name that went back centuries, you were automatically considered to be of high character. So much the more was required of someone you would claim was a deity.

It was not known at the time that Jesus was a descendant of King David, and in any event, his branch of the family was poor and probably no-one would have believed that he was the descendant of a king if he decided to mention it, which he apparently didn't. As far as anyone not devoted to him was concerned, Jesus was just an itinerant preacher from a backwater in northern Palestine whose only possessions were the clothes on him. No-one outside of Palestine ever even heard of him during his lifetime. So it was unthinkable to claim -- even if he had not been executed like a lowlife -- that a homeless bum of obscure birth was any kind of divine entity. The disciples may have been of low birth themselves but they were not stupid. They would have known as well as anyone that they had to come up with some other story.

d) To gain popularity quickly in those days (and today too), Christianity should have appealed to vices, not forbade them. As the site puts it:

Ethically, Christian religion is "hard to do". Judaism was as well, and that is one reason why there were so few God-fearers. Christianity didn't offer nice, drunken parties or orgies with temple prostitutes; in fact it forbade them. It didn't encourage wealth; it encouraged sharing the wealth. It didn't appeal to the senses, it promised "pie in the sky by and by." This was a problem in the ancient world as much as it is now -- if not more so. It would not appeal to the rich, who would be directed to share their wealth. The poor might like that, but not if they couldn't spend that shared dough on their favorite vice-distraction (not all of which were known to be "self-harming" and therefore offered an ulterior motivation for giving them up). Again, this is not an insurmountable hurdle; some Romans were attracted to the ethical system of Judaism, and would have been likewise attracted to Christianity. But it is very difficult to explain why Christianity grew where God-fearers were always a very small group. Not even evangelistic fervor explains that.

e) A related point, Christianity in those days (and often now, depending on where you live) had nothing to offer but suffering, persecution, ostracization, and later, even being fed to lions. It was certainly no way to make it to the top of the financial heap. What made it so attractive?

With all that and much more (again see link) so heavily weighted against it, what allowed Christianity to survive? What made the disciples persevere as they did, unless they genuinely believed Jesus rose from the dead? More importantly, what made it spread like wildfire to millions and millions throughout the Roman Empire who had obviously not physically seen Jesus, pre or post resurrection?

There was not enough persuasive power in all the world to overcome all these obstacles -- unless Something Else was at work.

Next, we'll go back to a more philosophical angle. Stay tuned...

PART 2

THE PHILOSOPHICAL/CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE FOR GOD'S EXISTENCE

1) The God Instinct: There has never been a civilization in the history of the world that didn't search for a Supreme Being or beings in one form or another, with the exception of Communism, which lasted only 74 years in the Soviet Union, and is crumbling everywhere else it still exists. Yes, generic Marxism still thrives on college campuses (something I think we would agree is not good) but only because they never have to actually put it in practice -- there, it's still perfection on paper constantly compared to the warts of real live democratic capitalism. But I digress...

I submit that the God Instinct is as powerful as our instinct for water. It may not be as immediate, but it is every bit as indelible -- what else can explain that only civilizations based on the belief in something beyond the physical world last?

2) The Universe Meaningless -- Atheism is nihilism: This a point I've obviously pounded on a bit, but it bears repeating. A meaningless universe can produce only meaninglessness. Yet the human soul instinctively cries out for meaning and purpose which cannot be found in an accidental, chance universe, again like looking for fresh fruit on a dead tree. Where does this cry come from? Sure, individuals may be able to embrace atheism for their entire lives but not societies. As Dennis Prager once said about Islam in Europe and how it is becoming so powerful and dominant there, "you can't fight faith with no faith." European secularism offers no compelling alternative to Islam, something crucial in assimilating immigrants -- it offers only a belief in accidents and atoms and that nothing is worth dying for, which is why Europeans are unwilling even to defend themselves. It also doesn't offer anything worth really living for either, something more transcendent and substantive than the next meal or party or America-blaming session.

This survival-threatening effect on society is not strictly psychological either. It's even reproductive. Secular people (of any political stripe) tend to have far fewer children than religious folks. If not for the heavy immigration into Europe of Middle Easterners and others, Europe's population would be dwindling.

Christianity offers a lifeboat from a dying world to a place of eternal bliss. Atheism offers only the same grim fate no matter what you do, which makes your every endeavor futile, just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

3) Morality is reduced to meaningless opinions. As Dostoevsky said, "if there is no God then everything is permissible." Why were the 9/11 hijackers "wrong"? They were just atoms colliding with other atoms, so it is a purely arbitrary, subjective act to assign it any more moral significance than a tree falling on an ant or a meteorite striking the earth.

Yet a desire for a transcendent moral code -- in spite of our flawed nature that prevents us from perfectly living up to it -- just won't go away no matter how we try to drown it out, like Lady MacBeth "Out, out, damned spot!" If that was not so, it would have been driven away by our other desires like leaves before a gale. This desire is either that God Instinct again or it's a birth defect of the human species because all other species on earth survive fine without it.

I probably have forgotten a few things, but that is more or less my circumstantial evidence for God's existence. As a species, our deepest desires are meaning, morality, and immortality (eternal fellowship with each other -- family at its ultimate), not mere survival as with all other life forms. You are left then with two possibilities:

a) These desires have an eternal source beyond the physical world, or:

b) These desires are a mistake of nature, and ultimately humanity's fatal flaw because once you convince a society that its very deepest desires are not rooted in anything truly transcendent but are nothing more than birth defects, that society will begin to die.

To sum up your two posts, would it be fair to say that your evidence that God exists is mankind's desire and need for a God?

It would be fair only for the 2nd post ("Part 2"), not for the first. But yes, the 2nd post is more or less my circumstantial case for God's existence.

Maybe you didn't read the first post (admittedly lengthy), but it mentioned my own personal experiences that left little room for doubt, though I didn't go into any details because, as I said, you would likely ascribe them to mental illness, substance abuse or severe wishful thinking. But also as I said, I am willing to discuss them if you are sincerely (as opposed to cynically) interested in hearing about them.

From there, I went to "The Impossible Faith", which was very specific to Christianity. I gave a link and then summarized a few of the key points about how in the context of the Ancient Near East, Christianity should have never expanded beyond being a tiny cult in northern Palestine, yet it spread like wildfire throughout the Roman Empire.

Doesn’t any old God fill that need, Allah, Zeus, Despater?

Not if that god doesn't exist.

I happen to know a few people who feel that Allah has touched their lives personally.

God has touched everyone's life personally -- first by bringing them into existence, and then every good or ultimately good thing (blessings in disguise) ever since. So it often happens that a Muslim will think it's Allah, etc.

I asked for evidence that wouldn’t apply to the other Gods, do you have any?

As I said above, I gave you some evidence very specific to Christianity but apparently you didn't read it.

Wishfull thinking and a severe lack of skeptical reasoning.

From there, I went to "The Impossible Faith", which was very specific to Christianity. I gave a link and then summarized a few of the key points about how in the context of the Ancient Near East, Christianity should have never expanded beyond being a tiny cult in northern Palestine, yet it spread like wildfire throughout the Roman Empire.

So your logic is that logically Christianity shouldn't have spread and because it did it means that Christ is God? Do I even need to refute that logically? With that logic I can prove anything that people happen to believe.

Doesn’t any old God fill that need, Allah, Zeus, Despater?

Not if that god doesn't exist.

Are you saying that Allah doesn't fulfill the religious needs of 1.3 Billion Islamists? By your own faulty logic the more worshipers a religion has proves its truth ^_^

As I said above, I gave you some evidence very specific to Christianity but apparently you didn't read it.

I am simply asking for evidence. Logic and reasoning should only be used to understand the facts in evidence.

The basis for any truth has to be evidence and facts, without that you have nothing and can believe anything.

Wishfull thinking and a severe lack of skeptical reasoning.

I'll take that as a no.

So your logic is that logically Christianity shouldn't have spread and because it did it means that Christ is God? Do I even need to refute that logically?

By itself it doesn't necessarily mean that Christ is God, but it does show that at the very, very least, something extremely out of the ordinary was at work. I am no biblical or Ancient Near East scholar, but I have studied up on it a little and only if you do so can you appreciate just how overwhelming the odds were against such a religion ever establishing itself even in just Nazareth, never mind spreading through the whole Roman Empire. No religion has ever spread so far so quickly in such an overwhelmingly hostile environment except through the use of equally overwhelming military force.

Anyway in context with all the other evidence, the compass pointing toward Christ as God wiggles around less and less. Note also that I have said that what ultimately converts anyone is an encounter with the risen Lord. I can only open your mind to the possibility -- prepare ye the way and all that -- but only Jesus himself closes the deal.

That said, some more evidence:

Jesus' enemies, with all the incentive in the world to shut him down, never denied that he performed miracles. They only said that he did these things with the aid of demons, and this is not the case just in the gospels but in Jewish writings after Jesus' death. More interesting are the Sadducees, who though they were officially priests, were very worldly and far more a political party than a religious sect. None of them believed in life after death. Many did not even believe in a soul or angels or apparently anything supernatural. Yet they likewise did not deny his miracles. They may have privately believed they were just magic tricks but the point is they never produced any evidence that this was so. And again, this is not just from the "biased" gospels, but also in Jewish writings after Jesus' death.

You may say that these were ancient and gullible people and ready to believe anything but as CS Lewis explains in "Miracles", ancient people nowhere near as dumb and gullible as they are made out to be. They knew as well as anyone else that virgins don't give birth, and that a touch doesn't heal blindness, and the dead don't get up and walk. (As we have seen, this would be especially true of the Sadducees.) That's why they called these things "miracles".

Also, no-one was able to produce Jesus' body, something the Pharisees, Sadducees and even the Romans would have had every incentive to do. (Remember that they placed Roman guards at the tomb to make sure no-one could steal the body and claim resurrection.)

With that logic I can prove anything that people happen to believe.

Proceed.

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