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The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
The God Delusion
by Richard Dawkins
The following is the view of one member of the Church, it may not represent the views of all members.
The underlying arguments espoused by Dawkins are that the 'God Hypothesis' should be considered and analysed as sceptically as a scientific hypothesis. Dawkins argues that:
- If God created the universe God MUST be complex and if so, how can he have come from nothing?
- All the information on Jesus comes from oral records, the Gospels weren’t written until long after his, and his disciples, death. Adding about the unreliability of oral records.
- The stories of a virgin birth and resurrection are scientifically impossible and were devised long after Christianity had developed into a major religion of the Roman Empire.
- The only scientific theory that can explain the world and its inhabitants is Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Dawkins also quotes Pascal’s wager but argues that an omniscient God would see through any false belief.
Pascal’s Wager: Pascal, a mathematical philosopher argued that: "It is better to believe in a God, because if you are right you stand to gain eternal bliss and if your wrong it won’t make any difference any way."
Now this writer trained as a scientist – a biologist, like Dawkin - and also taught at University about research methods. So, how does science work?
The first thing to recognise is that ultimately all hypotheses have to be testable - if a hypothesis cannot be tested it cannot be rejected and hence is not scientific.
The second is that hypotheses and theories do not have to explain everything, they simply have to provide the simplest and most likely explanation for the world as it presently observed.
Philosophy of science
- Law of Occam’s Razor. Occam was a religious philosopher when protestantism was beginning. Occam questioned the sterile arguments about ‘How many angels could dance on the head of a needle’. He espoused a practical rule of thumb which can be simply expressed as "All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best.” ie if two explanations are made a scientist uses the simplest explanation until the evidence collected causes its rejection.
- On the basis of Occam’s Razor. God is a complex explanation. NO scientist would consider including God in their theories – NOT because of lack of faith, but because scientific hypotheses MUST be disprovable, a God theory would stop us learning more. Consider –it is often, though wrongly argued that Bumble Bees bodies are too large for them to be able to fly on the basis of our theories of flight. If that is the case:
The God Hypothesis would simply be: Bumble Bees can fly because it is God’s will.
Compare that to two Scientific hypotheses: Bumble bees can fly because they move their wings very fast,
Bumble bees can fly because their wings move like rotors and hence give extra lift.
The two scientific hypotheses can be evaluated, models can be made to test the reality. From them our understanding of flight can be improved. Sadly, the God hypothesis stops us learning more because we can’t test it.
- Paradigm concept of a super theory which colours all research in a subject. Devised by Thomas Kuhn – examples: Biology - Darwin’s theory of evolution, Physics - Einstein’s theory of relativity, Chemistry – Mendel’s theory…. Such paradigm’s do not need to explain everything indeed there can be evidence against them, but that they must be the best working theory available.
- Darwin’s theory of evolution provides an explanation of the wide variety of life on earth and, an interesting explanation of the lack of different underlying forms. It is easy to understand, according to Darwin’s theory, the similarity between, lions, tigers, cheetahs and cats, but it is difficult to perceive why God would use the same bone structure in the wings of bats, birds, and the front arms of humans and the front legs of horses and cattle – surely God - creating each species uniquely, would not be so unoriginal? The strength of Darwin's theory is that it provides a mechanism as to how forms can adapt and improve and change substantially over millenia into, what are not just different species but are entirely different forms.
But, as we go nearer to the origin of life, the hypotheses become more and more just that - guesses as to what might have happened, with no experimental evidence that it actually did (incidentally, this writer does accept Darwin's theory of evolution as the best explanation of the variety of life on earth - though I might add that such a method could simply be the mechanism of how God worked!)
How valid are Dawkin’s arguments?
- Dawkins’ criticises evidence about Jesus’s life on the basis that oral evidence is intrinsically unreliable. In fact Dawkins is being simplistic; oral evidence can retain precision over long periods of time – the best method of accurate repetition is evidenced by ballads and songs. The same would be true of Jesus's method of teaching - the beauty of a parable is that such stories are memorable - the story of the good Samaritan is a timeless example of how a crucial lesson can be passed on accurately for generations.
Now, all of you - how did the Samaritan help the man set upon by robbers? What did Jesus say to the woman who simply touched his cloak as he was walking? - Scientific theories are not absolutes, they are simply the hypotheses which which have been supported by the most convincing evidence. Evolution has no hard evidence of the origins of life, the development of cellular life, the development of kingdoms and phyla etc. At most science has hypotheses – ultimately logical guesses.
- Worse, Dawkins is taking a biological theory and using it beyond its evidence and theoretical base to explain the origin of the universe.
- The problem for science is that, science is always looking for a convincing explanation to find the reason for something happening. Sadly for scientists, the origin of the universe is intrinsically inexplicable. Hawking’s ‘A Brief History of Time’ provides a mathematical rather than a scientific hypothesis - mathematical because it is untestable. The inescapable problem facing scientists is the conundrum - either something created the universe (and, if so, what was the origin of that - Dawkins criticism of GOD), or the universe must always have been here (which is, after all, something from nothing).
So we end with a choice of two belief systems
- God created the universe or,
- Either something came from Nothing or the universe is eternal and has always existed.
Both are beliefs and must be held on faith. Choose yours.
Graham Tall, B.Sc., M.Ed., Ph.D (Hull and Birmingham Universities)
Appendix
The above, has not considered the following:
- The stories of a virgin birth and resurrection are scientifically impossible and were devised long after Christianity had developed into a major religion of the Roman Empire.
The reason for this is that it is a side issue to Dawkins main argument which is against God, not against the Christian Religion per se. The criticism of virgin birth and resurrection is specifically against Christianity because Islam, for example, believes Jesus was a prophet but not that he was resurrected.
Many Christians would agree entirely with Dawkins. It is the fact that the virgin birth and resurrection are scientifically impossible that their occurrence is evidence of God. However:
Virgin Birth
Virgin Births of animals are common. The problem for humans is that sex appears to be determined by the presence or absence of the Y chromosome. Normal females have two X chromosomes, whilst males have one X and one Y chromosome - put simply, if Mary and Jesus have normal chromosomes, where did Jesus's Y chromosome come from? There are humans with different numbers of X and Y chromosomes, and according to a web search there is an instance of a woman who appeared to be hermaphrodite and apparently produced sperm AND became pregnant. But, the Christian view is clear, Mary was biologically an ordinary female and Jesus a normal male.
Scientifically, Dawkins shouldn't have said that the virgin birth was impossible simply that it was VERY, VERY, VERY unlikely. Dawson would, in fact, argue that there is no scientific evidence of a female being able to produce a male child without previously having had intercourse. In fact, of course, scientists would find it very difficult to accept any woman's account of a virgin birth - the unrepeatability of such an event under controlled circumstances, would mean disbelief of any woman's statement. Such disbelief of scientists is evident in paranormal research.
(In my own view, whether Jesus was born from normal or immaculate conception doesn't affect my belief as to whether Jesus is the son of God. Indeed, immaculate conception is a problem rather than a support for that belief - but then, I believe in a spirit as well as a body.)
Resurrection
There are cases of humans medically declared dead who have recovered. In that sense resurrection is demonstrably not impossible and Dawkins is guilty of gross oversimplification. However, that type of resurrection is not what Christians believe. Christians believe that Jesus was truly dead - killed by professional soldiers, who made sure of it by stabbing him in the side.
Christianity believes that Jesus died for our sins and was resurrected by God on the third day. So, whilst Dawkins is wrong in an absolute sense, Christians actually accept that Jesus's resurrection is 'scientifically impossible' - and hence its happening makes its occurrence a real miracle.
Graham Tall