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A Review of
Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion Part III
August 3, 2007, Wausau, Wi — In part II
of my review of Richard Dawkins’, “The God Delusion” I pointed out that atheists, like
the educated elites, have constructed a world view based on assumptions that
leads them to their conclusions. One
can clearly see this in Dawkins description of the atheist’s view. Dawkins writes, “Human thoughts and emotions emerge from exceedingly complex
interconnections of physical entities within the brain. An atheist in this sense of philosophical
naturalist is somebody who believes there is nothing beyond the natural,
physical world, no supernatural
creative intelligence lurking behind the observable universe, no soul that
outlasts the body, and no miracles – except in the sense of natural phenomena
that we don’t yet understand. If there
is something that appears to lie beyond the natural world as it is now
imperfectly understood, we hope eventually to understand it and embrace it
within the natural.” (p 14)
Dawkins
starts with what seems like a statement of science about human thoughts and
emotions, and from there expands it into a view of atheism. Yet this statement about human thoughts and
emotions is not a statement of scientific fact, but is at best a statement of atheistic
belief or maybe even hope. This is
because we do not know how we think and feel, and there are lots of competing
views.
In the
early days of computers, it was assumed by many that as computer technology
grew and developed, before long we would have machines that could really think
and would someday be conscious. In science
fiction there are many examples of conscious machines such as Hal, the computer
in 2001 A Space Odyssey, and Commander Data in Star Trek.
Yet as
computer technology developed and programs grew more and more complex, the more
we came to realize how little we actually understood consciousness. As a result the hold field of Artificial
Intelligence has largely transformed itself away from creating conscious
machines, and into simply handling complex decision making processes. While
there are still those who hope to one day create a conscious machine, many have
grave doubts that it will ever happen.
From this questionable
belief about how we think, Dawkins goes on to defines an atheist as “somebody
who believes there is nothing beyond the natural, physical world.” This also is not a statement of science, it
is a statement of faith. Atheist often
try to avoid the fact that this is a statement of faith, by claiming that this
is a justified conclusion, because there is no proof that there is anything
beyond the natural, and it is irrational to ask them to prove that there isn’t.
As I
discuss in my book, Christianity and Secularism, there are several problems with
this argument, but a key one is that the whole concept of proof is very
subjective and is greatly determined by one’s world view. Notice how in his statement Dawkins insulates
his view from problems. He leads in with
what seems to be a statement of science to say human thoughts are explained,
and thereby implies both that atheism is a scientific view, and that there is
no need to seek any further explanation.
He then rejects that there is any supernatural, God, soul or miracles.
Finally, those things that science can’t yet explain are handled with the
“hope” that we will someday figure it out.
As a
result, Dawkins’ claim boils down to a claim that the atheist worldview is
correct, because within the atheist world view there is no proof that there is
anything else. But this is circular
reasoning. This problem is not unique to
atheist, it is a problem all world views must confront, and why ultimately faith
and hope plays a role in all world views, even the atheist’s.
For
Christianity, the idea that faith and hope are important parts of the Christian
world view is both accepted and embraced.
But for atheism they pose a major problem. This is because atheists so
strongly identify themselves with science and much of their attacks on religion
centers on attacking faith and hope, particularly faith. In fact many atheists will strongly try to
insist that atheism does not depend on faith and dogmatically reject any claim
that is does.
But dogmatic
denials do not change the fact that the acceptance of atheism requires the
acceptance of a naturalist world view that cannot itself be proven, but must be
accepted on faith. You can see this even
in Dawkins statement of “hope” that the issues out there that have not yet been
understood, will be eventually be understood in a naturalistic way, when by the
very fact that we have not yet understood them means we do not know what the
explanation will be. In short, Dawkins has faith that the explanation will be a
natural one.
As I point
out in my books, while atheist often criticize Christians for having a faith
contrary to the evidence, this is
actually the case with them in areas such as their claim that the origin of universe
does not require something beyond the universe, or their claim that the origin
of life was a natural process. In both cases, the evidence is not only strongly
against them, it has been getting worse for some time.
So a key
component of atheism is faith, just as faith is a key component in all world
views. As such, when the atheist like Dawkins attacks Christianity for relying
faith, they are also attacking themselves.
This is
Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.
See www.consider.org for additional information.
The book and press materials are available upon request.
To schedule an interview with Elgin Hushbeck, Jr.
contact Aletheia at 715-849-8328