The God Delusion - Dawkins

 

The GOD Delusion is Ironic

Richard Dawkin's latest book, "The GOD Delusion" is a must read for everyone. Theist or Atheist, believer or non-believer, Dawkin's has, for the first time, placed the complete set of arguments about the existence (or non-existence as he would prefer) of God, into a single place for easy reference during after dinner conversation.  Not withstanding his relentless negative and somewhat emotional attacks on the believer, his arguments and counter arguments are well written and within easy grasp of all.  If you can read this book and maintain your own level minded perspective you will be in strong possession of significant knowledge to either impress your dinner guests or perhaps upset them to the point of keeping them from ever coming to your house again -- if that is your wish.  In the end, based on the comprehensive research he has provided, either perspective can still be argued, although he has clearly stated that he is trying to convert believers to his side -- but he has missed the best and perhaps newest argument due to a lack of evidence.   

Most of his arguments are old, 19th century as he has been accused, but never quite understood why.  And most contemporary believers have reconciled their faith with the natural science of the day.  However, he has one new intriguing thread with regard to the origin of religion and he pulls on it, but he freely admits it is arguably one of perhaps many threads that could have caused the human brain to develop religious beliefs as a bi-product of selecting for other things pertinent to survival, or whatever was deemed important during the selection process. And this thread bumps up against something far more important than religion -- It cries forth with the question of human consciousness and it's evolutionary development -- a.k.a. Julian Jaynes.  Alas Dawkins never crosses fully into the pursuit of consciousness and it's potential origins leaving us to wonder if Jaynes was a genius or a quack -- I wonder why?  If you prove consciousness is an illusion than absolutely you have proven there is no God.  He has unfortunately shied away from this subject.  It is the substance necessary to create not just artificial life but artificial intelligence.  A subject he never addresses -- although he poignantly relays the tragic end to Alan Turing, the father of AI, for a completely different reason.

More important to his writings, however,  is his insistence that it is the believer who is suffering from a the delusion, when it is just as clear that he suffers from some sort of emotional discontinuity, perhaps paranoia, that propels his own delusions about what is and what is not true religious faith. So here Dawkin's labors away, trifling with the Almighty, a personal God or natural selection -- no one should really care since both belief in the Almighty or the processes of natural selection are far stronger than Richard Dawkins.  Regardless of what they may believe during the good times, during the dark of night, or on their death bed, does not change the fact that the universe is really really big, perhaps infinite, and that he is far from unlocking the secrets -- something he freely admits in the end.  The secrets that he hopes to find, keep slipping through his fingers as the universe keeps expanding and the smallest building blocks of matter keep turning back into something that he cannot quite grasp. Yet the curiosity of science propels he forward in is quest -- with such conviction to know or finally know, that there is no God.  This is clearly a crusade of sorts for Dawkin's, yet he maintains that he is an atheist.  Somewhere in Chapter 2 though he rates himself a level 6 agnostic -- allowing for a very very small possibility that there actually is a God.  Or else he couldn't continue his quest, it wouldn't make logical sense.  So he too, is deluding himself.  By allowing himself a brief, if not unconsciously repressed uncertainty, about the meaning of life enables him to go on his atheistic crusade -- mimicking all of the same characteristics of religion that he so soundly criticizes.  This is his first state of irony.

Second, if social behavior including morals and values actually evolved as he suggests, including religion, then these things are hard wired into our physiology.  They are firmware, not software, which makes them real.  And no matter what delusion he thinks believers are suffering from -- he goes to quite some extent to explain why these actions are real and necessary -- believers, therefore, are not suffering from anything false.  They do what they do because they are supposed to.  They are behaving as their creator, designer, or natural selector would have them behave...hence reality, no matter whose side you are on.  So twice Dawkin's delusion has taken an ironic twist -- which is truly ironic.  And this makes for the best kind of after dinner conversation.

Dawkins most significant contribution to society, though this particular book, however has nothing at all to do with God or religion.  It has to do with the abuse of young minds.  His stance should be every parents stance and the brainwashing of young minds throughout history is indeed an affront to humanity.  Religion, no religion, God, or no God, we do not have the right to lie to our children in ways that would torment or terrorize their thoughts.  Particularly in ways that would fundamentally alter the way they brains are developing -- at least before the age of eight or nine.  To do otherwise would be the same as altering their bodies physically for instance, the heinous binding of a young girls feet in China.  Dawkin's carries this topic quite well -- but I'm not sure why it's in this particular book.

So in the end, Dawkins has given us a good book -- but has only raised more questions upon which the reader is still left to answer on his or her own -- science gives Dawkins his meaning of life, not humanity in general...and this is ironic.