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The God Delusion (Part 2)
The God Delusion (Part 2)
Now, I would like to turn to a portion of the book which I thoroughly enjoyed. Most of the information in this section of the article will come from Dawkins’s chapter entitled “Why there almost certainly is no God”. The main topic I was anxious to hear Dawkins reference was the argument of design, or as he calls it, the argument of improbability. Dawkins summarizes the argument by saying:
“Some observed phenomenon—often a living creature or one of its more complex organs, but it could be anything from a molecule up to the universe itself—is correctly extolled as statistically improbable.”
I will try to put it in other words. If you see a building, you know there was a builder. No sane human being would look at the Empire State Building and declare, “No one built that building!” In the same way, no one would look at the Mona Lisa and declare, “No one painted that painting!” Logically, the same principle can (and must) be applied to creation. The creation we see all around us is absolute proof that there must have been a creator (see Romans 1:20). Dawkins argues that this is not so. He says:
“The argument from improbability is the big one. In the traditional guise of the argument from design, it is easily today’s most popular argument offered in favor of the existence of God and it is seen, by an amazingly large number of theists, as completely and utterly convincing. It is indeed a very strong and, I suspect, unanswerable argument—but in precisely the opposite direction from the theist’s intention. The argument from improbability, properly deployed, comes close to proving that God does not exist.”
Basically, Dawkins counter argument goes something like this: things are so complex in the universe, that if there is a designer, he would have to be almost infinitely more complex than the design itself, therefore the designer does not exist. This counter argument is, in my opinion, ironic. Dawkins rejects the argument of design on the exact premise that many theist’s reject evolution. We say, “This incredible creation could not have happened by accident.” And he says, “The creator that created the creation could not have happened by accident.” Because of this, Dawkins refers to God as, “the ultimate Boeing 747” (Dawkins coined this terms because of an analogy originally used by Fred Hoyle. The analogy went along the lines of: evolution creating life is about the same as a hurricane producing a Boeing 747, which is statistically impossible.) Thus, we come to the “First Cause” debate. Dawkins comes down to the classic objection of, “Who made God?”
But, does Dawkins’s logic really apply? Again, let’s come back to a building. Does the fact that a builder is more complex than a building mean that the builder can’t exist? Based on Dawkins’s thinking, yes. If the person who built the building is really more complicated than the building, it is very likely that the builder himself can’t possibly exist (because he is more complex than the building itself). “Nonsense!” You declare. I would have to agree.
So, I maintain my opinion that things are simply too complex to have happened by chance. Dawkins is adamant, however, that making a comment such as the one above shows ignorance on my part towards the subject of evolution:
“This, [the argument that creation proves that there was a creator] in a nutshell, is the creationist’s favorite argument—an argument that could be made only by somebody who doesn’t understand the first thing about natural selection: somebody who thinks natural selection is a theory of chance whereas—in the relevant sense of chance—it is the opposite.”
So, in Dawkins’s opinion, anybody who feels natural selection is chance simply does not “know the first thing about natural selection”? Theodore Rosazak (scholar and professor at California State University, East Bay), said,
“The irony is almost devastating. The main purpose of Darwinism was to drive every last chance of an incredible God from biology. But the theory replaces God with an even more incredible deity—omnipotent chance.”
Chandra Wickramasinghe (Professor of Applied Math & Astronomy, University College, Cardiff), said:
“Contrary to popular notion that only creationism relies on the supernatural, evolutionism must as well, since the probabilities of random formation of life are so tiny as to require a ‘miracle’ for spontaneous generation tantamount to a theological argument.”
In Dawkins’s opinion, I guess he doesn’t feel the two people mentioned above know, “the first thing about natural selection” and evolution? Probably. Based on what he states in The God Delusion, it doesn’t appear that he has a high view of anybody who disagrees with the theory,
“A lot more work needs to be done, of course, and I’m sure it will be. Such work would never be done if scientists were satisfied with a lazy default such as ‘intelligent design theory’ would encourage. Here is the message that an imaginary ‘intelligent design theorist’ might broadcast to scientists: ‘If you don’t understand how something works, never mind: just give up and say God did it. You don’t know how the nerve impulse works? Good! You don’t understand how memories are laid down in the brain? Excellent! Is photosynthesis a bafflingly complex process? Wonderful! Please don’t go to work on the problem, just give up, and appeal to God.”
Dawkins is also well known (and loved) by making statements that claim that anybody who does not believe in evolution is either, “stupid, ignorant, or wicked.” It is obvious that, no matter how much somebody knows about the theory of evolution, if they don’t accept it, Dawkins will consider them a fool who simply isn’t well educated. It is also obvious from reading his book that he doesn’t think there is any debate to be had on the question of whether evolution actually happened:
“I am no more fundamentalist when I say evolution is true than when I say it is true that New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere. We believe in evolution because the evidence supports it, and we would abandon it overnight if new evidence arose to disprove it.”
I think the above quote is very interesting. I have recently come across this quote by Dawkins from his book, The Blind Watchmaker:
“Even if there were no actual evidence in favor of the Darwinian theory, we should still be justified in preferring it over all rival theories.”
In case you are reading this article with skepticism (as you should be), and have suspicion of the above quote being taken out of context, perhaps it will help if I add that I found the quote on atheist websites. One of the websites I found the quote on asked, “What is your favorite quote by Dawkins?” The one quoted above was submitted. So, both of the above statements can’t be true. Will Dawkins follow the evidence where it leads as he says in The God Delusion? Or will he stick with evolution simply because it is preferred, “over all rival theories” as he says in The Blind Watchmaker? I feel confident in predicting the latter.
A while back, I wrote an article promoting the movie Expelled. Near the end of the film, Ben Stein interviewed Richard Dawkins and asked him something along the lines of, “What are you going to say if you die and do face God? I mean, He gave you a great life, bestselling books, everything. What could you possibly say?” Dawkins responded by saying (again, this is not exact wording), “Bertrand Russell put it best when asked a very similar question. He said, ‘Why did you go through such pains Sir, to hide yourself?’” Thinking about that response now, I can’t help but think of verses such as Romans 1:20:
“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”
I think the point I am about to make can easily be made by simply quoting Dawkins; so again, we turn to The God Delusion. In the portion of the book I am about to quote, Dawkins is providing a brief summary of the points he made in his chapter, “Why there almost certainly is no God”:
“1. One of the greatest challenges to the human intellect, over the centuries, has been to explain how the complex, improbable appearance of design in the universe arises. (emphasis mine)
“2. The natural temptation is to attribute the appearance of design to actual design itself. In the case of a man-made artifact such as a watch, the designer really was an intelligent engineer. It is tempting to apply the same logic to an eye or a wing, a spider or a person.” (emphasis mine)
He also admits:
“We live on a planet where we are surrounded by perhaps ten million species, each one of which independently displays a powerful illusion of apparent design.” (emphasis mine)
So what is Dawkins saying? There is a natural temptation to attribute design to a designer, there is an improbable appearance of design in the universe, and the millions of animals on the planet provide a powerful “illusion” of design! Unfortunately, Dawkins will not concede to the evidence he admits is staring directly at him. We now return to his point summary of his chapter “Why there almost certainly is no God”. His third point states:
“The temptation [to attribute apparent design to a designer] is a false one, because the designer raises the larger problem of who designed the designer. The whole problem of explaining statistical improbability. It is obviously no solution to postulate something even more improbable. We need a ‘crane’, not a ‘skyhook’, for only a crane can do the business of working up gradually and plausibly from simplicity to otherwise improbable complexity.”
With the above information presented, I am going to make a statement that I am sure atheists would go up in arms over. Dawkins is no atheist. Dawkins does not believe in the God of the Bible, the Koran, or any other religion; but he is no atheist. Why do I say that? Because of claims such as this one:
“Maybe the psychological reason for this amazing blindness [believing that God has ‘finely tuned’ the universe] has something to do with the fact that many people have not had their consciousness raised, as biologists have, by natural selection and its power to tame improbability.”
Natural selection, as clear as day, is Dawkins’s God. He admits that the universe displays signs of design, and that the odds of it happening by chance are nil, but does he follow the next step and believe in ‘God’? Not in the form of religion, but in the form of natural selection. But make no mistake, Romans 1:20 never hit me harder then while reading The God Delusion. Creation leaves all men without excuse. Let’s now return to his answer to Stein (“Why did you go through such pains Sir, to hide yourself?”). Dr. Dawkins, atheist, agnostic; God is not hiding Himself at all. The evidence for His existence is right under your nose, literally.