The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins
Chapter 3: Arguments For God's Existence
From the preface: "Perhaps you have been taught that philosophers and theologians have put forward good reasons to believe in God. If you think that, you might enjoy Chapter 3 on 'Arguments for God's existence' - the arguments turn out to be spectacularly weak."
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7 comments:
Hey guys, first let me attack Zhubin. The reason I have not posted is I am on tour and have little to no internet access. You get to sleep in your own bed each night...I get mine once a week. Cut me some slack.
Secondly, I would like to respond to the God Hypo as it relates to the previous and current chapter. I do believe in a super-intelligent being who designed the universe and all in it. The "logic trap" you believe we are caught in is nothing of the kind. Dawkins claims that any actions of God would be quantifiable and empirically testable because of their effects on the real world. Yes, I would agree. The red sea has been shown to have extreme low and high tides which could have occurred when the Israelites went there...or the tide could have been altered by God and still be shown scientifically to be at an extreme low at that point. Dawkins would say that we just don't understand yet and I would say God had a hand in it...neither of which can be proved or has more validity for God could (and does) work within the framework he set up.
The main way in which he tries to disprove God is in the extreme improbability of his actually occurring. Two points on this:
1. Dawkins himself asserts in this book and his other works how insanely improbable we are as being here. Yet we are here so regardless of how improbable, it can be true. The same argument can be used for God in that no matter how improbable he is in the same company to a greater degree with life on earth and the laws of chemistry in the Universe.
2. Improbability does not, in any way, denote truth. Period. And Dawkins never gives us the scientific data he has used to calculate God's improbability.
I have more to say but have to get ready for the next show. Just wanted to give Zhubin something to attack for a while.
Finally, the reason for bringing up cognitive bias is that, in looking at the "discussion" up to this point, it has been in many ways the same discussion we have had many times (as Zhubin said)just with a new book and thus is in many ways a futile waste of time. Unless I am willing to give Dawkins some credence from the beginning or Zhubin think some of his points might be suspect or perhaps misrepresented, then it will just be an extended Perkins session and we have to ask what the point of the entire exercise is.
More later
I have taken the liberty in responding to your comment in the previous post, Chris, because 1) I want to maintain the categorization of our arguments to their respective chapters, and 2) your arguments are so very badly wrong, on so many different levels, that I didn't want to sink all of Chapter 3 with the voluminous response it would require.
I will address Chapter 3 later tonight, if I get the chance.
Initial thoughts on this chapter:
1) I like his "infinite regress" point. I find those logical proofs that always seem to end in a God termination to be very silly. Like he says, all you need to do is ask where God came from, and we just keep on going.
2) I do not get the ontological argument.
3) I certainly hope no one here actually believes in the Argument From Beauty. Yeesh.
4) Argument From Personal Experience. I am slightly hesitant to discuss this bluntly, so let me just start out that I don't mean to offend anyone here. That being said, this is the corollary to Joe's argument in the last post that "just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it doesn't make sense." Just because you guys think you've felt God doesn't mean you have.
And your individual experiences are all the more suspect with all the psychological studies that Dawkins points to, which are really just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the available science showing how the human mind distorts and shifts normal phenomena. This relates to Christopher's "cognitive bias" point earlier, except not in the way he meant it: with the human mind so falliable and easily deceived, see how desperately we need science to help sort out reality? Why should we even trust our personal experiences at all, let alone place them above empirical proof?
5) Argument from Scripture. I've read most of these before. The book that Dawkins references, Misquoting Jesus (what's with that footnote on p. 95? Why didn't Dawkins just ask around?) is also incredible, and goes into far more detail on the thousands of errors and mistranslations that riddle the Bible.
Can I tell a personal story? You guys remember Zach Best? He once told me, back in high school, that the Bible was perfectly copied from generation to generation since its creation. He even told me that when the monks were copying it by hand, and one of them made a single mistake, he would throw the whole thing out.
I remember thinking, "That can't possibly be right." And that stuck in my head all the way up until I opened up Misquoting Jesus and saw the pictures of all the mistake-ridden pages those monks had made. It was real closure, let me tell you.
Anyway, I think everyone will agree that it is basically untenable to argue that the Bible, or any holy book for that matter, has remained the same since its creation or is a reliable record of the past. So should that not affect your faith? How do you know what was there originally and what is, as Dawkins says, "ancient fiction"?
Let me also add this about Christopher's comment that "Unless I am willing to give Dawkins some credence from the beginning or Zhubin think some of his points might be suspect or perhaps misrepresented, then it will just be an extended Perkins session and we have to ask what the point of the entire exercise is."
I disagree. I know you don't agree with Dawkins, Christopher, but the point of this exercise is finding out your reasons for disagreeing with him. Do your cognitive biases withstand reasoned attack, or do you retreat to irrational posturing? And the same goes with me and McGrath.
Cognitive biases toward a particular position, after all, say nothing as to the validity of that position.
Let me first address my overarching problem with this chapter, and then move on from there. Many of these arguments are either ridiculous even to religious thinkers or too far outdated to be taken seriously. Others are not intended as arguments anyway. I accept, however, Dawkins' desire to address them all as parts of a whole, as well as our responsability as believers to answer for what we allow our own people to say out loud.
That said, I agree largely with Dawkins per the silliness of reducing a universal power to logical wordplay. I'm fairly sure this was just Religion's way of trying to maintain the appearance of relevance in a society steadily turning over to Reason instead. (Why it has always sought out the appearance and hasn't just tried to be relevant is still beyond me.) In short, no one I know of has ever used the word "therefore" in describing their conversion to any religion--so why keep harping on these dang things?
Personally, I stand behind the various incarnations of Infinite Regress. Even Dawkins concedes that there perfectly well may have been some "prime mover" of sorts, and his only rebuttal is that we need not ascribe it the characteristics of God. However, this argument very smartly avoids the nature of God, be it as it may--it is simply an argument for the existence of God (or something, at least).
Zhubin, although ontology itself is quite stimulating, the Ontological Argument presented here is silly (see my second paragraph above). Sadly, Dawkins gives it its full due, exactly as many churchgoers have embraced it.
Again in this chapter, Dawkins refers to anecdotes and email forwards, which I repeat, is possibly the most unprofessional thing an author can do in this kind of book. Brutal.
I would like to address the Argument from Beauty, if only to offer a clarification as I see it. A better treatment of this idea is not from specific examples of beauty, but rather from the presence of beauty itself in the universe. It's still not a great argument, but it should at least be confronted for what it is.
The Argument from Personal Experience shouldn't even be addressed here, because no matter how many ways one can explain it away as tricks of the mind, it is still possible that it is reality after all. Dawkins completely misses the point here, and shows it by ending this section telling religious thinkers that they may believe what they like, but that they should not expect the rest of the world to buy into it. Personal Experience is not meant as "proofs" anyway--apologetics isn't about persuasion, it's about defense.
In addressing the argument from Scripture, Dawkins engages yet again in one of my biggest pet peeves. He blasts religious thinkers for proposing "already-debunked" arguments (like the human eye as evidence against evolution), but does the same thing in the next breath. Almost every one of his "problems" with Scripture is tired, inaccurate, or conveys a hasty reading of the text. Nothing in the Gospel or our faith changes if Jesus wasn't a carpenter. We'll just have to redo some of our felt boards in the Sunday School room. The translation of "virgin" in Isaiah's prophecy is likewise a moot point, because the New Testament goes to extraorinary lengths to say Jesus had no earthly father. Whether or not the prophecy had been misread in the past was of no importance once the fulfillment was revealed. I was actually surprised to see Jesus' geneologies in Matthew and Luke even mentioned here. The Bible itself explains them! One is the lineage of Joseph, and one is the lineage of Mary. The point was to illustrate that Jesus could be a descendant of David without having an earthly father. Zhubin, Chris, and I have already discussed the presence of similar story elements in other religions--correlation does not imply causation, and Dawkins should know better.
In closing, I appreciate the breakdown of good and evil at the end. The presence of either bears very little on the existence of God.
I think the significance of the scriptural details (Jesus' occupation, the "virgin" translation) isn't that the differences have a huge impact on the religion.
My problem is that if the details are wrong it doesn't look good for the infallibility of the Bible as a whole. For something that is supposed to be the final word of God, it sure is susceptible to human error.
Another example: Christian holidays just happen to coincide with preexisting pagan holidays. Coincidence, or a clever political move to appease the ignorant peasants (who, after all, just want a break from their terrible existence, never mind which religion offers it)?
Scott, that's not another example. It's a new example of a different thing. Our holidays aren't mentioned anywhere in scripture--they're solely manmade phenomena.
Although, it is an example of arguments with already-well-established rebuttals. Maybe that's what you were going for (if so, my bad). My response, then, would be that everyone knows it was clever politics, appeasing the peasants, etc.
Back to your first objection, though: the details aren't wrong. That was my whole point.
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