Alister argues that there must be reason to believe that God exists otherwise there would no need to write a book like The God Delusion. And this is, I believe, a fair point although Dawkins has retorted by saying this is because science has not yet disproved it. Which comes on to another point on which the two don’t agree and that is whether or not faith and science can overlap? Alister argues that ‘the natural sciences, philosophy, religion and literature all have a legitimate place in the human quest for truth and meaning’ and this is in fact a widely held view in the world and in many sections of the scientific community too. This is something however that Dawkins totally disagrees with.
Another big topic in the God delusion is the question of whether or not science has disproved God although its one Dawkins is exceedingly vague on. He claims that it has but he is not confident in his writing and his reasons sources and theories aren’t very well put together and lack structure. Dawkins claims that science leads to certainty and that it will prove anything worth proving but Alister argues that it has been the long help philosophy of science that anything is possible and all science is provisional. Which Is a very fair point and one I believe counters Dawkins well. Another argument Alister uses is that science is what he calls a ‘extremely’ useful tool but can’t answer the basic childlike question like ‘why are we here’. This I think is a good point but slightly unjust not to mention the huge understatement of science being a ‘useful tool’. Another good point that Dawkins uses not so much on the subject of science disproving God rather that it has explained the origins of it is the idea of science being a meme. A meme is the name for almost any idea or theory that could spread through minds and reproduce itself not unlike genes. Dawkins argues religion is a meme just on a rather large scale which fits well with the idea of a virus of the mind. But like the virus of the mind this idea can be turned right back on Dawkins saying that maybe atheism is the meme. But Dawkins says that atheism is not a meme but in fact more like a ‘non-meme’ though other atheists admit that it is. This brings up the question of which meme is right. Although at points this argument can be bewildering I think it is on both sides a good argument that really helps Dawkins cause. Although there’s still the obvious point that if science has either disproved God or explain the origins how come there are so very many religious scientists that find God so much in science for example Owen Gingerich discovery of a evidence of playing a large part in the origins of the universe. Or Francis Collins’s discovery of Gods footprint in the Genome Project.
One idea that they both do agree by both disagreeing is with Stephen Jay Gould, arguably one of America’s leading evolutionary biologists. His idea of NOMA (non-overlapping magisteria) is the belief that science and religion can’t overlap. Though they disagree for very different reasons: for Dawkins it is because Gould is still entertaining the idea of a possible second reality; where Dawkins says there is only one and that is our reality. McGrath theory (POMA) that there is a partially overlapping magisteria; is the idea that science and religion don’t and can’t completely overlap but there are various points that they agree on and this I think is the most sensible and correct point. Alister helps his theory throughout the book by naming numerous scientists who do in fact believe that they can overlap and scientist’s who do indeed believe in God. This also is directly proving Dawkins wrong who quotes the fact that serious scientists do not believe in God. Alister’s examples include quoting Steven Jay Gould’s: “Either half my colleagues are enormously stupid or the science of Darwinism is equally compatible with religious beliefs and atheism”. And to all of these points Dawkins replies with an irrational and juvenile response: an example of this is when Freeman Dyson, a leading theoretical physicist and mathematician, famous for his work in quantum mechanics, who in a prize acceptance speech expressed his interested in the Holy Trinity and told the crowd that he was in fact a Christian. To this Dawkins says that ‘he is pretending.’ Dawkins uses similarly illogical argument in response to quotes from others such as Steven Jay Gould, Michael Ruse and John Paul II.
Richard Dawkins created two Channel 4 programs: The Root of all Evil and The Virus of Faith. More of his ‘narrow minded and bigoted’ views, as Alister would say. In these he first criticises people who believe everything the Bible says; both those who take it literally and those who don’t which I can understand. He then goes on to criticise people who take just some of the Bible and God’s teachings. he says that they are not committing enough, on which I think he is wrong for there are lots of good teachings in the bible, if put in to context. Then after this he criticises non-religious people who take Good from the bible therefore making the only ‘right’ choice is to be atheist and to take nothing from the Bible. This suggest that he would want Christians to see their wrong and go to the ‘proverbial light’ by turning to atheism. However when offered way of showing Christians the theory of evolution in the form of a letter from Pope John Paul II, endorsing Darwinism, Dawkins responded by calling the Pope a hypocrite who was pretending to be rational; here he is hurting his own cause by being so bigoted and narrow-minded.
One of Dawkins most valid points I believe is Religion causing violence and intolerance. This it does but is it because of religion or is it because of man. Whatever the view weather it be religion, atheistic, political there will always be extremists and fanatics who will fight and die for what they believe. Richard Dawkins makes it out o be as if all religious people whatever there background are extremists because of the few that are, if I were to say that because of the violence in Pakistan over Benazin Bhutto all political people are violent I would be thought to be mad yet that it what Dawkins says about religion In his Channel 4 programs. In which he takes 4 of the most extreme religious believers he could find and interviews them yet he puts them forward as if they were picked at random without knowledge of there sanity. Whatever the field there will be fanatics and that is the problem not religion.
Through out the God Delusion Dawkins is judging religion and justifying his belief of religion being ‘bad’ and trying to prove this through science. Yet in his 2003 book ‘A Devil’s Chaplain’ he says that that science has no way of deciding what is ethical so how then can it prove religion is bad? Researchers took a selection of 100 evidence based studies on the subject of whether or not religion had a negative or positive impact on well being. Out of those 79 showed that it did have a positive impact and only 1 had results to suggest that it had a negative impact. This evidence neither proves nor disproves God they do however destabilize Dawkins idea that religion is bad for you. The last 2 are points that Alister McGrath put across in his lecture at Churches College to which I attended, and they are two very valid points that I totally agree with and that completely undermine Dawkins’s summarize of religion and as some would say the conclusion to the God delusion.
Both the idea of religion being ‘bad’ and is causing to violence brings up the vast question of whether or not religion is in fact the ‘root of all evil’. This has already been partially covered over the idea of violence sprouting from almost and views it being the extremists and the fundamentalist who cause the evil not the religion. There is also the fact that when you look in to it all religion preaches a message of peace and the end to violence for as Alister says wasn’t ‘Jesus the object, not the agent, of violence’. This and lots of what I have written already I think shows the religion is not the root of all evil. Undoubtedly the root of some, and a lot, of evil and even more is in the name of it. Though there is also so much good in it and so much good comes of it.
In conclusion I think that although it is the root of some evil religion is a good think that in this day and age, even with both Dawkins and McGrath’s arguments can neither be proved, disproved or properly judged and even if we are one day to find out that it is not real or true it has been a great attribute and pillar for society and the human race that has, I think in the long run, had a positive impact on the world.
