Notes on "The God Delusion"

[ciphergoth]

ergotia and lilithmagna got me Richard Dawkins's "The God Delusion" as a present - thanks! Here's some bullet points on my reactions to it:

• Those who know my views well won't be surprised to learn that Dawkins isn't atheistic enough for me. Dawkins considers the existence of God to be a hypothesis that can be scientifically examined. As an ignostic I can't see that the word "God" refers to any concept meaningful enough to be put to the test.
• The book claims that one of its aims is converting the faithful. I don't believe him; certainly a book with so strident a tone could never succeed in that department. Instead, its primary goal is to rouse nonbelievers to stand up and be counted, for which purpose the tone will help some and hurt some.
• Critics of the book often write that he only engages with fundamentalists, and simply pretends that they characterize all religious people. That just isn't so; he has anticipated that criticism and is explicit about avoiding that error all the way through the book. However, I'd like to have seen a more direct attack on moderate religion than simply saying "well it isn't true and it opens the door to fundamentalism" - or at least more space devoted to the latter charge.
• The most useful service the book performs may be that of naming and attacking "NOMA" - the idea that science can rule in its domain but should refer to religion for what is religions domain. This is a theme I could develop further :-)
• You can't calculate the probability of God. Setting aside my ignostic objections (or possibly just casting them in a different light) in order to apply Bayes theorem as he does, you need the "a priori" probability of God, and there's no good way to choose that value. Certainly the reasoning suggested by several people that he quotes, that since we don't know either way we should assign a 50/50 a priori probability, is no way to go about things.
• Jesus got off far too lightly in the discussion about morality.

Comments

[henry_the_cow]

I recently listened to a discussion about science and religion in which a panelist made the point that militant atheism is not going to persuade many fundamentalists; only moderate believers are likely to achieve that. Of course, the speaker was a moderate believers and was at the time criticising militant atheists, but actually this might be a good point. That is assuming that anything at all can persuade a fundamentalist. Unfortunately I don't see many moderate believers leading the charge - perhaps they're all being too nice and reasonable about everything, or perhaps they still see atheism as a bigger enemy than their own extremists.

(FWIW, the discussion happened during the panel session of the University of Edinburgh's Enlightenment Lecture - see http://henry-the-cow.livejournal.com/22783.html).

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

It's definitely possible for people to leave religious fundamentalism. But I don't know what influences are going to be most effective. I can imagine circumstances where outspoken, uncompromising atheism would be more likely to convert than either moderate religion the kind of little-considered unbelief that many people have, and I can imagine circumstances where it would be the last thing to work. But in any case one chooses one's beliefs on the basis of what best seems to reflect reality, not what makes an effective polemical tool.

So I'm not saying that Dawkins's atheism is too militant to convert - I'm saying that his tone is too uninviting.