(Houghton Mifflin, Oct. 2006, 406pp, including 26pp of appendix, books cited, notes, and index)
(Post 1)
Here are the first four chapters (out of ten), which deal with the arguments for and against the existence of God, summarized in 3700 words. Note that Dawkins refers to many other authors and their books, and frequently quotes. I’ll only allude them in passing.
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1, A Deeply Religious Non-Believer, p9
Einstein quote.
Deserved Respect – author describes a boy (later the author’s chaplain) laying in a field, feeling a mystical response to nature. Isn’t this religion? No; it’s on par with the end of Darwin’s book, or Sagan in Pale Blue Dot, both quoted. How ironic that religion never acknowledges the wonders of the universe as revealed by science—preferring their own, smaller but personal god. Also quotes Weinberg.
We need to distinguish between Einsteinian religion and supernatural religion; the former is what Hawking used when referring to the ‘mind of God’. Awe at nature is about being a naturalist, as most scientists are; they aren’t religious in a supernatural sense. (Mentions the short Baggini book p13b and Martin Rees p14)
In fact when Einstein wrote a paper explicitly denying his belief in a personal god, it caused an uproar; he was denounced from the pulpit, people wrote letters telling him to go back where he came from. Samples p16-17.
A ‘theist’ believes in an active personal god; a ‘deist’ in a god who created the universe but has since left it alone; a ‘pantheist’ uses the word God as a synonym for nature…
Einstein used ‘god’ as a metaphor, and author wishes physicists would stop doing so; it creates needless confusion. To deliberately confuse the two is an act of intellectual high treason.
P20: Undeserved Respect — So the title of the book refers to supernatural gods only. As a second matter to clear up, the issue of giving offense and respect. Author is amazed at the extent to which religion is deferred to in society, especially America. Long quote from Douglas Adams, 20b. Thus to attain objector status from the draft, one merely needs to state that one’s a Quaker. Conversely, religious conflicts avoid using religious terms—Catholics vs Protestants, etc. p21.
In the Supreme Court, a religious argument trumps others (e.g. whether a ‘religion’ may use a psychotropic drug). Author signed support for Salman Rushdie. Now religious parents claim ‘freedom of religion’ as the basis for wearing t-shirts with offensive statements in school—the ‘right’ to be Christian.
The most absurd recent case was the ‘offense’ Muslims took to cartoons published in a Danish paper, which were deliberately spread with false information around the world in February ’06, causing riots and violence (ironically). While no one calls out the Muslims on the offense they give to Jews…
So author will not go out of his way to offend—but will speak plainly where necessary.
2, The God Hypothesis, p29
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: “jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” Only someone first encountering him as an adult can appreciate the horror. Example of Churchill’s son reading the Bible for the first time.
But it’s an easy target. By the ‘God Hypothesis’ in this book we mean not specifically the OT God, but the generic supernatural intelligence who designed the universe and everything in it. The alternate view of this book is that intelligence comes into being only as the product of gradual evolution… The god of the former hypothesis is a delusion.
P32 Polytheism. It’s assumed that polytheism is more primitive than monotheism, without explaining why. Some writers dismiss polytheism and atheism on apparently equal grounds. In fact society exhibits monotheistic chauvinism, with tax breaks, and so on. Yet the Roman Catholic church is virtually polytheistic, what with the trinity, and Mary, and thousands of saints, angels, etc., all shamelessly invented. Jefferson dismissed it as sophistry.
And there are many varieties of religion other than the three great monotheistic religions; but life is too short, and this book will refer to ‘God’ as representing those three. (Refs to Frazer, Boyer, Atran 36.3)
P37. Monotheism. A Gore Vidal quote dismisses the ‘sky-god’ as patriarchal and bringing much misery. The three major religions all derive from Judaism, the cult of a desert tribe obsessed with sexual restrictions, charred flesh, etc. Then Paul of Tarsus founded Christianity. Islam added violent conquest, and so did Christianity in its crusades, witch hunts, etc. The Abrahamic God is presumed to be a personal one—one who answers prayers—unlike the 18th century god of the enlightenment, an altogether grander being. Thus the fate of Thomas Paine.
P38 Secularism, the founding fathers and the religion of America. Were the founders deists? They were secularists, as many statements indicate. Barry Goldwater (quote) railed against churches trying to tell him how to vote. The treaty at Tripoli in 1796 explicitly denies that America was founded as a Christian nation.
Ironically, American has become much more religious, in contrast to England, with its state-run church. Why? Possibly because American let religion became a matter of free enterprise. Jefferson, however, stressed reason; he would be called an atheist today. Madison and Adams made similar remarks, p43. Now we have Bush Sr. denying the citizenship of atheists.
Atheists are more numerous than generally realized, but they are discriminated against. Story of a man protesting a faith healer—the police threatened *him* with violence. It’s impossible to be elected for anything as an atheist. The founders would be horrified.
P46, The Poverty of Agnosticism. Isn’t that a reasonable position? It’s ok for topics when there really is no evidence, such as the existence of extra-terrestrial life. (Don’t rely on ‘gut’ feelings.)
But there’s a difference between TAP, temporary agnosticism in practice, as being one of waiting for the evidence, and PAP, permanent agnosticism in principle, which means believing a subject can never be decided, that evidence cannot apply.
Author claims the existence of God *is* a scientific question. TH Huxley invented the word (agnostic), and he meant not a creed but a method—that of following reason. (Quotes p49)
We can certainly discuss the *probability* of the god hypothesis, and we can describe a spectrum of probabilities from 100% certain there is a god to 100% certain there isn’t. Not knowing doesn’t equate to 50% likelihood either way. Consider the spectrum of probabilities, p50, from 1, strong theist, to 7, strong atheist. [[ I would be a 6 on this scale. ]]
Compare Bertrand Russell’s ‘teapot’ hypothesis (quote), one in orbit of the sun but undetectable. Similarly we are all tooth fairy agnostics. Other examples. The Flying Spaghetti Monster might exist. But we can pretty sure such things don’t exist.
As always, the burden is on the believer. We’re all atheists about Zeus and Baal. What matters is whether the existence of God is probable.
P54 NOMA. Still, theists stress the unprovability of God’s nonexistence, as if that implies the opposite, or at least makes it equally likely. Some scientists bend over backwards to be nonthreatening to theists—Gould’s ‘non-overlapping magisteria’ or NOMA (in ROCK OF AGES). Compare Martin Rees (OUR COSMIC HABITAT) who seems sympathetic to NOMA. Science and religion don’t intersect.
But why then should theologians (does the topic exist?) have any authority about anything? As opposed to the gardener or cook? E.g, why should religion be allowed to say what’s good and bad? Which religion? How to choose from them all? Why not leave out the middle man and make moral choices ourselves? Some scientists bend over backwards to not offend religion.
If such a god exists who can suspend natural laws (to make ‘miracles’) it would be a quite different universe than one without.
Contrarily, if DNA were discovered to support Christ’s virgin birth, you can bet believers would *not* shrug and say science doesn’t apply—they would trumpet the evidence. NOMA is popular only because there *isn’t* evidence for any of these things.
Anyway evidence for miracles is required for sainthood; most people do believe their prayers are answered. They don’t believe in NOMA. They believe God helped them win, or saved them a parking space.
P61, The Great Prayer Experiment. It was double-blind, with 1802 patients, and results in April 2006 detected no difference in whether patients were prayed to or not. (Author offers mocking example of Bob Newhart sketch about this.) Theologians opposed the project—after the results were in, and offered rationalizations—prayers must be for a good reason, say. Oxford theologian Richard Swinburne actually defends suffering (even of Hiroshima!) in typical such reasoning, and suggested that ‘too much evidence’ of god’s existence would be a bad thing. Other theologians dismissed the study too; you can be sure they would not have had the results been positive.
P66, The Neville Chamberlain School of Evolutionists. A broader issue concerns attacks on science in general from certain political groups. Defenders stress NOMA. A sort of Neville Chamberlain school of evolutionists. One of these is Michael Ruse, who criticized Dawkins for playing to the creationist base; Jerry Coyne properly replied that the real war is between rationalism and superstition. Creationists fight dirty, by conflating evolution with atheism. Examples with comments by Dennett and Myers.
P69 Little Green Men. Move from the teapot example to the existence of ET life—that we can make estimates about the likelihood of. The Drake equation. We have more evidence now, and we can certainly imagine what kind of evidence it would take to convince us of their existence. (Mentions of Hoyle, Sagan, Clarke, Galouye, 72-73.) In fact, ETs might well be godlike—but they wouldn’t be gods. It’s a matter of provenance. Gods are skyhooks, not cranes.
3, Arguments for God’s Existence, p75
Thomas Aquinas offered five, easily exposed as vacuous. The first three (The Unmoved Mover; The Uncaused Cause; The Cosomological Argument) involve infinite regress, with ‘God’ presuming to be the end of it; of course there’s no reason to imagine such a terminator to regress to have all the other qualities we ascribe to God, 77b. But not all things infinitely regress—one can subdivide an amount of gold only until reaching a single atom. The fourth argument, from degree, is hardly an argument. The fifth, from design (the teleological argument), is the one still taken seriously by some (but of course can be explained by natural selection).
P80, The ontological argument and other a priori arguments. The most famous is the notion that since a perfect thing is conceivable, and to be perfect it must exist, then this perfect thing, god, must exist. Author considers this argument ‘infantile’. But it gave even Bertrand Russell pause. But similar logic can prove the opposite. They didn’t understand Zeno’s paradox. Hume and Kant provided the definitive refutations of this argument. One can similarly argue that God does *not* exist, p83. Other examples, p84-5.
P86, The argument from beauty. How do you account for Beethoven? But, the logic is? Improbability of a genius? Jealousy that such an artist could exist unless created by god?
P87, The argument from personal ‘experience’. The most common. A man converts after hearing the devil during a camping trip in Scotland… which others would recognize as a devil bird. Many people hear things or see things; some are called mad; enough of them make a religion. (Quote from Sam Harris p88.)
The brain runs simulation software of the world, rather than perceiving the world directly. Thus optical illusions; thus a bias toward perceiving faces and hearing voices. Author recalls hearing a voice that turned out to be wind through a keyhole.
Explaining mass visions is harder—e.g. the 70,000 pilgrims in Fatima who saw the sun tear across the sky. But explaining how this could happen and the rest of the world not notice—let alone if the earth had actually torn apart—is even less likely. Cf Hume. [[ anyway how could anyone verify that 70,000 saw the same thing? ]]
P92, The argument from scripture. Some people believe because scripture says so. CS Lewis: Jesus claimed to be son of god, so he was right, or insane or a liar. (Or was honestly mistaken.)
People aren’t used to wondering who wrote something down, when and why, what their biases were, etc. [[ of course simply claiming it was inspired by god is the answer here. ]] In the case of the gospels, the issue of whether Jesus was born in Bethlehem was handled differently (p93); two of them assumed he must have been, because it was prophesied. Similarly there are many contradictions in the Christmas stories (cf Tom Flynn in Free Inquiry), and many elements of the myth were lifted from other religions of the time. But many unsophisticated people do take the bible literally… presumably without having read it closely. Generations from David to Joseph. As explained by Bart Ehrman in recent books.
And there were other gospels, 95b. With stories even more implausible than those in the four canonical ones. Footnote about mistranslations, from ‘carpenter’ to ‘virgin.’ 96b. So too is The Da Vince Code entirely fiction.
P97, The argument from admired religious scientists. (Note Bertrand Russell quote.) Yes Newton said he believed, as did Faraday and Kelvin, but up to the 19th century virtually everyone *said* they believed. These days it’s hard to find prominent scientists who claim to be believers—though he names three Brits (99.4), and Francis Collins, etc. Very few Nobelists, or Royal Society members. Studies by Shermer (How We Believe) and others show a negative correlation between education or IQ and belief.
P103, Pascal’s wager— But this isn’t about belief, but about feigning belief. Wouldn’t God know? Anyway, why is it so important to God to believe, moreso than being kind, generous, etc.? And what if, per the wager, one died and discovered that Baal was the real god who existed?
P105, Bayesian Arguments. A writer named Stephen Unwin published a book recently trying to use Bayesian arguments, a series of set theory estimates combining various factors… Unwin provided his own estimates of six facts (evil things happen, etc), ran the calculation and got something above 50%–then added a fudge factor of ‘faith’ to bring the result to 95% (!).
Unwin considers the existence of evil is a factor (against God, actually); but it’s not one that concerns author much. Religious people seldom distinguish between what they believe, and what they wish to be true. Another solution to the problem of evil might be that god is simply nasty—or he has better things to worry about, or that evil is a trial, etc. etc. All rationalizations that have been made.
The much more powerful argument, from improbability, is to simply wonder, who made God?
Ch 4, Why There Almost Certainly is No God, p111
P113, The Ultimate Boeing 747. This is a clincher for most people—that the world is so improbable, God must have done it – but author claims it’s a clincher in the opposite direction, but indicating why God almost certainly does not exist.
The reason is a variation of Fred Hoyle’s 747 argument—he said the probability of life originating on earth is as likely as finding a 747 blown together by a hurricane in a scrapyard. It’s the creationist’s favorite argument because they have no clue about how natural selection actually works, thinking it some theory of chance.
The reason is that God is the ultimate 747—if god created life and the universe, then God is himself even more unlikely, for what is to explain God? Actually, natural selection is the only answer.
P114, National selection is a consciousness raiser. Like maps with the south pole at the top. Just as feminists’ use of ‘herstory’ was for author. It makes one aware of possibilities one wouldn’t have considered. Douglas Adams read earlier Dawkins’ books and was converted to ‘radical atheism’. (See The Salmon of Doubt.) The principles of natural selection apply to other sciences; in a sense cosmology was born with Darwin and Wallace.
Theists who thinks evolution is god’s method of achieving creation—they don’t get it. With natural selection, there’s nothing for God to do.
P119, Irreducible Complexity. The favorite ploy of creationists is to cite ‘irreducible complexity’ – as in many examples of lifeforms in a Watchtower published booklet about how life got here – as the reason ‘chance’ can’t explain life, implying that therefore design (by God) is the only explanation. (They omit natural selection, because they don’t understand it or don’t want to, 120b.) But God just extends the problem. The real answer is a third alternative—natural selection, which has a cumulative power. Creationists take an all-or-nothing position, as if half an eye or wing is useless. In fact many intermediate forms exist in nature, and are useful. (Author cites own metaphor of ‘mount improbable’, with a cliff on one side, a gentle slope on the other.) Darwin anticipated these issues.
Creationists worship gaps—they seize upon them as evidence that their alternative explanation of design must be true. But it’s easy to imagine situation where part of an eye, or wing, is better than nothing. “The fact that so many people have been dead wrong over these obvious cases… “ 124.7.
P125, The Worship of Gaps. It is a faulty way of arguing—that if an apparent gap is found, God must be needed to fill it. Whereas scientists seize upon gaps as new opportunities for research. Example p126 about a frog’s elbow joint; ID is assumed as a Get Out of Jail Free card.
Gaps represent a failure of imagination; author has called this the argument from personal incredulity. But if you can’t figure out how Penn & Teller do a trick, that doesn’t mean the supernatural was involved.
An arch of stones and no mortar is irreducibly complex, but its construction can be easily imagined: by using a scaffolding subsequently removed.
Michael Behe is invented the term ‘irreducible complexity’ in 1996, using the flagellar motor of bacteria as a prime example. (Author cites Philip Pullman in a footnote here.) In the Pennsylvania 2005 court case Behe was presented with numerous cases to explain the immune system, and simply shrugged them off, as Judge Jones easily saw. (Note book by Kenneth Miller.) Examples. Another of Behe’s favorites, the immune system. Mention of Jerry Coyne. The explanation ‘God did it’ is simply giving up.
P134, The anthropic principle—planetary version. The origin of life itself is cited by theists as a ‘bigger’ gap, but it only had to happen once. The so-called anthropic principle explains why the origin itself can be extremely improbable—it only had to happen once. … Even if only one in a billion planets produced life, there are still billions in the universe that would have life. Theists assume that for Earth to be in a ‘Goldilocks orbit’, God must have done it. The anthropic principle says, since we’re here to ask the question, we must be one of the billion.
Oddly, religious apologists love the anthropic principle, thinking it an alternative to chance. It isn’t; it’s an alternative to design. Matt Ridley has suggested there may be other unlikely ‘gaps’—the origin of eukaryotic cells, consciousness—but the same principle applies.
P141, The Anthropic Principle: Cosmological Version. That we live in a friendly universe is perhaps a more difficult problem; Martin Rees cites six specific physical constants that if slightly different would result in a universe without life. What does this mean? Perhaps that God set all six numbers. That still doesn’t explain God. Yet many theists are satisfied by this answer, perhaps subject to the psychological bias of perceiving inanimate objects as agents, 143b. Another answer is for some reason the settings are necessary, or dependent on each other on some deep level.
Further ideas suggest cycles of big bangs, or many universes in a ‘multiverse’. Each universe might have slightly different physical laws. Smolin’s idea (in The Life of the Cosmos) of daughter universes, where each daughter might have different laws, in a sort of Darwinian inheritance.
Theists have odd responses to these ideas—Richard Swinburne admirably claims to prefer simple explanations, but then finds it amazing that every electron has the same properties, or that each particle retains its properties over time. Surely God is maintaining things? But then he says God by definition is a single, simple substance. Author is boggled—anything capable of maintaining such complexity (not to mention answering prayers etc) must be very complex. Others, Ward and Peacocke, have similar ideas.
P 151, An Interlude at Cambridge. Author was invited to conference sponsored by Templeton Foundation (which should have been a warning; they’d paid for the journalists who covered it) and found himself the token atheist, and dismayed by Freeman Dyson’s vague conciliatory responses in support of having won the Templeton Prize. In the discussions that followed, theologians response to Dawkins was to simply declare the subject to be outside science; to talk about ‘other ways of knowing’; to cite personal experience; to ask why there is something rather than nothing; or to dismiss Dawkins’ world-view as so 19th-century (i.e. discussing issues so bluntly is simply impolite). Which was the last time anyone could claim to believe in miracles and virgin births without sounding embarrassed.
Author summarizes the central argument of the book, pp157-8.
- Explaining the appearance of design in the universe has been a great challenge
- The temptation, as with man-made objects, is to attribute appearance of design to design
- That doesn’t work because it doesn’t explain the designer
- Only a ‘crane’ can explain how complexity arose out of simplicity; natural selection is the most powerful crane.
- The equivalent for physics isn’t as apparent, but may involve a multiverse theory of some sort
- A better crane in physics may arise, but what we have is better than the skyhook intelligent designer
This is the main conclusion of this book so far—that God does not exist. If we accept this, what good is religion? Why is it ubiquitous? Where does it comes from…?
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My general comment, derived from the “consciousness-raising aspiration” of science fiction, is that human religions are deeply parochial. They project human relationships and attitudes onto the entire universe. It’s just as likely that something entirely beyond the comprehension of human beings is responsible for the universe; or, even more likely, the universe just is, in some necessary way, without having been created.
