god delusion

By Richard Dawkins

Reading Richard Dawkins (God Delusion, Magic of Reality) makes me want to write about my own atheism. Especially because I disagree so much with Dawkins. Not on whether the science argument on the origins of the universe is valid; but on the posturing of the God v. Science debate. 

In an argument I had with a friend about this recently, she asked me the inevitable "so what do you think was there before the Big Bang then?" 

I could have said simply emptiness. Nothing. But that's not what I want to say.

I wanted to instead ask why the origins argument is so crucial. 

I would think that it is a question that reads back into thousands of years of history can not be thought of as a question that is being asked in the context of today. I argued with her that even asking this question in terms of creation of the universe is a predominantly Christian way to think about God (as creator, omnipresent, omniscient and so on) and so the rational scientific answer which then falls back on evolution and the Big Bang to explain away Adam and Eve (or Brahma or whatever else one may believe created the universe) the arguments always succumb to the same trap of thinking about a definite moment of origin to explain the nature of the universe. (Which then would either "prove" whether God exists or not). 

To think about religion on religion's terms would be to think about it in terms of faith, and to think about science on science's terms would be to think about it in terms of reason and rationalism. To apply one's terms to the other is definitely not something that may have merit. Imagine telling a child that you need to believe in the atom just because. I think it's about as ridiculous to try and "prove" or "disprove" God using terms that have been defined for and by science. This is the root of my discomfort with Dawkins.  

What I did enjoy about his writing was the way he outlines and classifies every kind of thought there is on god and religion. This systematic summary of arguments was quite interesting to read. By the end of the third chapter though, all his arguments fall into a similar style of dismissal. He relies on Darwin and the theory of evolution to dismiss the creationist arguments. He regularly makes tongue in cheek comments about things he may not have great arguments for. He repeatedly uses quotes from Douglas Adams' interviews to spice these up. (Somewhere in the middle of Chapter 4, after a long Adams quote, he suddenly says "Douglas, I miss you." At this point I just went AAAAA! very loudly.)  

Says he, "I am not advocating some sort of narrowly scientistic way of thinking. But the very least that any honest quest for truth must have in setting out to explain such monstrosities of improbability as a rainforest, a coral reef, or a universe is a crane and not a skyhook. The crane doesn't have to be natural selection. Admittedly, nobody has ever thought of a better one. But there could be others yet to be discovered."

This quest for "truth" though is a quest that has been laid out in direct opposition to what religion offers as a belief system based on faith (I guess). It makes it boring and uncomfortable for me to argue in direct contradictions, especially because it often results in running around in circles, calling names and in all parties involved feeling like the other's a bit of an idiot. (Actually, wait, which argument doesn't?)

It's a good read though, something I definitely would suggest to someone who is thinking about their own belief system.

Edit.

From Salmon of Doubt, Douglas Adams. Excerpt from an interview with American Atheists:

"Well, in history, even though the understanding of events, of cause and effect, is a matter of interpretation, and even though interpretation is in many ways a matter of opinion, nevertheless those opinions and interpretations are honed to within an inch of their lives in the withering crossfire of argument and counterargument, and those that are still standing are then subject to a whole new round of challenges of fact and logic from the next generation historians and so on. All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.

So I was already familiar with and (I'm afraid) accepting the view that you couldn't apply the logic of physics to religion, that they were dealing with different types of truth. (I now think this is baloney, but to continue...) What astonished me, however, was the realization that the arguments in favor of religious ideas were so feeble and silly next to the arguments of something as interpretive and opinionated as history. In fact they were embarrassingly childish. They were never subject to the kind of outright challenge which was the normal stock of trade f any other area of intellectual endeavour whatsoever."