Battling Delusions
This week's New Scientist contains a review of The Dawkins Delusion, by Alister McGrath. I noticed this in the Leicester branch of Waterstones when I dropped in to kill a bit of time before my coach home after Redemption (and somehow left by another door, hence getting hopelessly lost). I thought of buying it, but ultimately passed because (a) my rucksack was heavy enough already, (b) I've got far too many unread books to get through as it is, and (c) it's pretty slim for eight quid, when Waterstones are flogging Dawkins' thumping great tome for a tenner.
Bryan Appleyard's review in NS doesn't shunt it any further up my must-read list. Of course, a one-page review can't even begin to convey the depth of argument in an entire book, even one with not many pages, but if McGrath has got anything of clout to swing against Dawkins then Appleyard must have overlooked it. The best he (Appleyard) can come up with is the line of theological defence drawn by Richard Swinburne (a philosopher according to Appleyard, a theologist according to Dawkins - the terminological distinction is not an arbitrary one). Dawkins, in The God Delusion hauls Swinburne over the coals not once but twice, noting in passing that it was Swinburne who defended the Holocaust 'on the grounds that it gave the Jews a wonderful opportunity to be courageous and noble'. If he's the biggest gun that McGrath can bring to bear, I don't expect a heavy bombardment from his book.
My hyperlight perusal of The Dawkins Delusion hardly gave me time to get much handle on any of McGrath's arguments, but I was less than impressed by the one bit I did notice, his claim that there is 'too much science' in an evolutionary account of the roots of religion. This, from what I gathered, is a reference to chapter 5 of The God Delusion, in which Dawkins considers a number of hypotheses without committing himself to any of them. How this can be too much science is beyond me - the more hypotheses there are, the more likely it is that one of them will turn out to be correct (or indeed a combination of two or more, for they are by no means mutually exclusive). That none of them have yet been proven is by the by. If I wake up one day and find a dead sheep in my living room, am I justified in citing divine distribution of ex-ovines simply because I can't think of a rational way it might have got there? I don't think so. I don't deny that it would be a perplexing puzzle to which I might never find the answer (though if it happens to me next week I'll promptly suspect one of you lot), but that in itself proves nothing. And as Dawkins demonstrates at considerable length, accounting for our religious propensities isn't all that difficult. Nowhere near as hard as explaining away a dead sheep.
Obviously I should read the book before dismissing it further, but I can't say I'm in any hurry. Appleyard notes that McGrath spends some time covering much the same ground as other critics of Dawkins polemical opus, not that I've read them either (and yes, yes I know I should), and in the process observes that their common line of attack - Dawkins' theological ignorance - is a wasted one. To Dawkins, theology is nothing but a field of ignorance in its own right, wholly dependent on the tenuous contention that there is indeed a God. The existence or otherwise of God is the crucial question, for if there is no God, there is no point to theology. And to Dawkins, of course, there is no God.
The other point that Appleyard makes, and I agree with, is that Dawkins deserves credit at least for igniting a long-overdue debate over the issue of atheism, as attested by the letters page in the Grauniad if nothing else. But Appleyard, like others, can't see why Dawkins is so hostile to religion and, more importantly, can't put the finger on where Dawkins goes astray in defending his hostility. The God Delusion is really two arguments wrapped up in one book. Firstly there's the case for atheism as a tenable, rational understanding of the universe. Here Dawkins is on top form, from his demolition of 'proofs' of God's existence to his demonstration of our religious and moral senses being a product, or perhaps by-product, of our evolutionary history. Secondly there's his assault on religious belief itself, not on its tenability but on its legitimacy to be held in the first place. Darwin's rottweiler goes in with jaws agape, but does he really know what he's savaging?
I make no secret of being a Dawkins fanboy, but I have to admit that I'm not so impressed with this section of The God Delusion (chapter 8 - What's Wrong With Religion?). It's not that Dawkins can't come up with good reason to be hostile to certain manifestations of religion, from homophobic t-shirts and ultra-rightwing hate mail to lynchings and officially sanctioned executions. But this is a cherry-picking exercise, and one that misses the underlying question - why does religion sometimes manifest itself in such ugly ways when much of the rest of it is at worst inoffensive, if not just as outraged as Dawkins at the atrocities committed in the name of belief?
Terry Eagleton, in his review of The God Delusion points out the apparently obvious: "Apart from the occasional perfunctory gesture to ‘sophisticated’ religious believers, Dawkins tends to see religion and fundamentalist religion as one and the same." Actually it's not quite that simple, but all of the examples Dawkins cites to justify his hostility to religion do seem to be based in fundamentalism of one sort or another. There is an implicit underlying assumption that religion leads inexorably to fundamentalism, and this, I think, is where he goes wrong. The history of fundamentalism gets a thorough and highly readable treatment in The Battle For God by Karen Armstrong, which I read last summer and highly recommend. It's fascinating social history if nothing else. It's also conspicuous by its absence in Dawkins' bibliography. Fundamentalism, by Armstrong's argument, arises out of the polarisation of religion that occurs when it is confronted by modern secularism. Religion must either seek some sort of accommodation with the secular, or reject it, and Armstrong documents this process as it has occurred in the USA, Egypt, Iran and Israel. Fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists are poles apart, and one does not lead to the other. Dawkins would indeed seem to be more than a little muddled here.
Appleyard, in his review of The Dawkins Delusion, asserts that "the idea that science entails an assault on religion has long been rejected", citing no less than Stephen Jay Gould. Dawkins also quotes Gould on this very matter: "The magisterium of religion presides over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value." (Gould, Rocks of Ages) But as Dawkins then says, "This sounds terrific - right up until you give it a moment's thought. What are these ultimate questions in whose presence religion is an honoured guest and science must respectfully slink away?"
What indeed? Armstrong refers to them to, several times, in The Battle For God, but never says what they are. She places them in the realm of mythos, the way of thinking that "provided people with a context that made sense of their day-to-day lives", and without it "we fall very easily into despair". Well, maybe, but not everyone needs mythos. Dawkins certainly doesn't seem to, and he does believe that 'science entails an assault on religion' because religion is devoid of any empirical basis to its claim to truth. Personally I think this is going too far, if only because it stands to alienate useful - religious - allies in the more crucial conflicts between science and faith. Dawkins savages Michael Ruse, for example, for conscripting Christian support in the fight against creationism. Ruse regards the enemy of an enemy as a friend, but Dawkins has no truck with that. He comes down instead on the side of geneticist Jerry Coyne, who regards evolution vs creation as a sideshow of what Coyne calls 'the real war', of rationalism against superstition. Get rid of religion and you'll never have to worry about creationism ever again.
Yeah right. You might as well eradicate crime by killing everyone. Religion isn't going to go away in a hurry, however desirable its departure might be. Rationalism is just going to have to settle down and learn to live with it. I believe it can do so, at least I certainly hope it can do so, and without compromising any stand against fundamentalist subversion of science. Some religion, quite a lot of it in fact, is in the end mostly harmless. There's no need for a war, still less for a war that is almost certainly unwinnable.
I suspect it's Dawkins' strident antipathy to any and all religion that really gets up the noses of his critics. There's certainly no stopping him once he gets in full flow, and his rhetoric is bound to arouse feelings one way or the other. As an avowed atheist I found it captivating, and finished The God Delusion itching to march on Poland. But less atheistic persons will inevitably find it rather less than captivating. Ultimately it ends up as something of an own goal by Dawkins - that The God Delusion is an excellent argument on behalf of atheism is obscured by it also being a much weaker argument for the kind of militant atheism that Dawkins espouses.
Bryan Appleyard's review in NS doesn't shunt it any further up my must-read list. Of course, a one-page review can't even begin to convey the depth of argument in an entire book, even one with not many pages, but if McGrath has got anything of clout to swing against Dawkins then Appleyard must have overlooked it. The best he (Appleyard) can come up with is the line of theological defence drawn by Richard Swinburne (a philosopher according to Appleyard, a theologist according to Dawkins - the terminological distinction is not an arbitrary one). Dawkins, in The God Delusion hauls Swinburne over the coals not once but twice, noting in passing that it was Swinburne who defended the Holocaust 'on the grounds that it gave the Jews a wonderful opportunity to be courageous and noble'. If he's the biggest gun that McGrath can bring to bear, I don't expect a heavy bombardment from his book.
My hyperlight perusal of The Dawkins Delusion hardly gave me time to get much handle on any of McGrath's arguments, but I was less than impressed by the one bit I did notice, his claim that there is 'too much science' in an evolutionary account of the roots of religion. This, from what I gathered, is a reference to chapter 5 of The God Delusion, in which Dawkins considers a number of hypotheses without committing himself to any of them. How this can be too much science is beyond me - the more hypotheses there are, the more likely it is that one of them will turn out to be correct (or indeed a combination of two or more, for they are by no means mutually exclusive). That none of them have yet been proven is by the by. If I wake up one day and find a dead sheep in my living room, am I justified in citing divine distribution of ex-ovines simply because I can't think of a rational way it might have got there? I don't think so. I don't deny that it would be a perplexing puzzle to which I might never find the answer (though if it happens to me next week I'll promptly suspect one of you lot), but that in itself proves nothing. And as Dawkins demonstrates at considerable length, accounting for our religious propensities isn't all that difficult. Nowhere near as hard as explaining away a dead sheep.
Obviously I should read the book before dismissing it further, but I can't say I'm in any hurry. Appleyard notes that McGrath spends some time covering much the same ground as other critics of Dawkins polemical opus, not that I've read them either (and yes, yes I know I should), and in the process observes that their common line of attack - Dawkins' theological ignorance - is a wasted one. To Dawkins, theology is nothing but a field of ignorance in its own right, wholly dependent on the tenuous contention that there is indeed a God. The existence or otherwise of God is the crucial question, for if there is no God, there is no point to theology. And to Dawkins, of course, there is no God.
The other point that Appleyard makes, and I agree with, is that Dawkins deserves credit at least for igniting a long-overdue debate over the issue of atheism, as attested by the letters page in the Grauniad if nothing else. But Appleyard, like others, can't see why Dawkins is so hostile to religion and, more importantly, can't put the finger on where Dawkins goes astray in defending his hostility. The God Delusion is really two arguments wrapped up in one book. Firstly there's the case for atheism as a tenable, rational understanding of the universe. Here Dawkins is on top form, from his demolition of 'proofs' of God's existence to his demonstration of our religious and moral senses being a product, or perhaps by-product, of our evolutionary history. Secondly there's his assault on religious belief itself, not on its tenability but on its legitimacy to be held in the first place. Darwin's rottweiler goes in with jaws agape, but does he really know what he's savaging?
I make no secret of being a Dawkins fanboy, but I have to admit that I'm not so impressed with this section of The God Delusion (chapter 8 - What's Wrong With Religion?). It's not that Dawkins can't come up with good reason to be hostile to certain manifestations of religion, from homophobic t-shirts and ultra-rightwing hate mail to lynchings and officially sanctioned executions. But this is a cherry-picking exercise, and one that misses the underlying question - why does religion sometimes manifest itself in such ugly ways when much of the rest of it is at worst inoffensive, if not just as outraged as Dawkins at the atrocities committed in the name of belief?
Terry Eagleton, in his review of The God Delusion points out the apparently obvious: "Apart from the occasional perfunctory gesture to ‘sophisticated’ religious believers, Dawkins tends to see religion and fundamentalist religion as one and the same." Actually it's not quite that simple, but all of the examples Dawkins cites to justify his hostility to religion do seem to be based in fundamentalism of one sort or another. There is an implicit underlying assumption that religion leads inexorably to fundamentalism, and this, I think, is where he goes wrong. The history of fundamentalism gets a thorough and highly readable treatment in The Battle For God by Karen Armstrong, which I read last summer and highly recommend. It's fascinating social history if nothing else. It's also conspicuous by its absence in Dawkins' bibliography. Fundamentalism, by Armstrong's argument, arises out of the polarisation of religion that occurs when it is confronted by modern secularism. Religion must either seek some sort of accommodation with the secular, or reject it, and Armstrong documents this process as it has occurred in the USA, Egypt, Iran and Israel. Fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists are poles apart, and one does not lead to the other. Dawkins would indeed seem to be more than a little muddled here.
Appleyard, in his review of The Dawkins Delusion, asserts that "the idea that science entails an assault on religion has long been rejected", citing no less than Stephen Jay Gould. Dawkins also quotes Gould on this very matter: "The magisterium of religion presides over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value." (Gould, Rocks of Ages) But as Dawkins then says, "This sounds terrific - right up until you give it a moment's thought. What are these ultimate questions in whose presence religion is an honoured guest and science must respectfully slink away?"
What indeed? Armstrong refers to them to, several times, in The Battle For God, but never says what they are. She places them in the realm of mythos, the way of thinking that "provided people with a context that made sense of their day-to-day lives", and without it "we fall very easily into despair". Well, maybe, but not everyone needs mythos. Dawkins certainly doesn't seem to, and he does believe that 'science entails an assault on religion' because religion is devoid of any empirical basis to its claim to truth. Personally I think this is going too far, if only because it stands to alienate useful - religious - allies in the more crucial conflicts between science and faith. Dawkins savages Michael Ruse, for example, for conscripting Christian support in the fight against creationism. Ruse regards the enemy of an enemy as a friend, but Dawkins has no truck with that. He comes down instead on the side of geneticist Jerry Coyne, who regards evolution vs creation as a sideshow of what Coyne calls 'the real war', of rationalism against superstition. Get rid of religion and you'll never have to worry about creationism ever again.
Yeah right. You might as well eradicate crime by killing everyone. Religion isn't going to go away in a hurry, however desirable its departure might be. Rationalism is just going to have to settle down and learn to live with it. I believe it can do so, at least I certainly hope it can do so, and without compromising any stand against fundamentalist subversion of science. Some religion, quite a lot of it in fact, is in the end mostly harmless. There's no need for a war, still less for a war that is almost certainly unwinnable.
I suspect it's Dawkins' strident antipathy to any and all religion that really gets up the noses of his critics. There's certainly no stopping him once he gets in full flow, and his rhetoric is bound to arouse feelings one way or the other. As an avowed atheist I found it captivating, and finished The God Delusion itching to march on Poland. But less atheistic persons will inevitably find it rather less than captivating. Ultimately it ends up as something of an own goal by Dawkins - that The God Delusion is an excellent argument on behalf of atheism is obscured by it also being a much weaker argument for the kind of militant atheism that Dawkins espouses.