Dawkins transcendent

Richard Dawkins had requested no photographer for our interview at his Oxford home last week, so instead artist Paul Winner came along and produced this numinous illustration. The results of the interview appeared in T2 today, as the cover, which was thrilling for me. Bloggers are already following it up, with one describing it as "refreshing". There's also a lively debate going on Dawkins' own site. More links to Dawkins copy on the TimesOnline Faith Page. (Updated: If you go here and scroll down, you will see a videolink. Dr Dawkins has written a defence of his own in The Times, and William Rees-Mogg has replied.)

It was when the company who made The Root of All Evil for Channel 4 employed me as  the fact checker for the documentary that I was alerted to the atheistic crusade about to be unleashed upon the western world and conceived a desire to interview Professor Dawkins. At about the same time, I dreamed a nickname for Dawkins, Mobius Dick. This is a reference to the two-dimensional Mobius Strip with its infinite edge, and the story of Moby Dick, the white whale who survives repeated attempts to hunt him down and kill him, and then turns on his attackers, destroying them.

I was expecting an angry man, impatient of my own unsophisticated faith. I was so nervous I tried first a bipartite approach, and wanted to take along a colleague who is an Oxford graduate. He resisted this suggestion. So I sort of smuggled in Paul, who read law at Oxford, as back-up in case I got stuck. But in the end I needn't have worried. When I finally went along last week to interview him I found an urbane, charming and ophisticated professor manifesting just a little of the anger against religion for which he is known, and I have to confess that much of that anger is justified.

What he is is passionate for what he describes as "the truth". Because he has aimed his writing, most notably in The God Delusion, at the fundamentalists he so detests, it carries something of the tone of the very preaching he decries. But with the rare and hugely appreciated luxury of being able to talk to him at
depth, I had the privileged opportunity of being able to explore precisely what he does and does not believe. And what emerged was a man whose mind is not at all closed to the possibility of the transcendent. I would say - and indeed I did say this to him  - that if some of our more intelligent and liberal Church of England and Episcopal bishops were quizzed in detail about what they really believed, and if they gave truthful replies, they might not be that far from the doctrine Dawkins is propagating. Indeed, I might go so far as to say that here we have a man who is in danger of founding a new religion
of his own, a religion we might want to call Dawkinism.

   We spoke for 90 minutes. It was one of the most absorbing conversations I've ever had.  The day before we met, I had received by email a promotion from the Richard Dawkins Foundation for a new DVD series for children, Growing up in the Universe. It looked superb, and I will buy a set for my young son. I told Dawkins how similar it was to receiving text from a religious company, the accompanying blurb almost like a creed. "You’re very close to being right," he admits. How could I be more right? "To be spot-on would be to say that this had nothing to do with the sort of religion which believes in a divine creator who forgives sins, answers prayers and listens to your inner-most thoughts, cares about your sex life does all the things that the Christian God is supposed to." It would be a "mysterious beyond-present comprehension, physics of the future."

He has no name for it. "It’s hard to have a word for it because part of it lies in the future. For example it would be hard to ask a medieval peasant for a word that sums up Boeing 747s and computers and televisions." He is indeed convinced that future physicists will discover something "at least as wonderful as any god you could ever imagine." So why not call it God? "I don’t think it’s helpful to call it God." Ok,
but what would "it" be like? "I think it’ll be something wonderful and amazing and something difficult to understand. I think that all theological conceptions will be seen as parochial and petty by comparison to it."

He also talked about the nature of the universe, confessing that he can even see how "design" by some gigantic intelligence might come into it. "But that gigantic intelligence itself would need an explanation. It’s not enough to call it God, it would need some sort of explanation such as evolution. Maybe it evolved in another universe and created some computer simulation which we are all a part of. These are all science fiction suggestions but I am trying to overcome the limitations of the 21st century mind." He adds: "Whatever it is it’s going to be grander and bigger and more beautiful and more wonderful and it’s going to put theology to shame."

Alister McGrath, author of The Dawkins Delusion, is among those who have attacked his "ideological fanaticism." Dawkins responded graciously to this and this provoked further correspondence in The Times letters page. McGrath also wrote an earlier piece for our Credo column. There is also an extremely intelligent case made against Dawkins in a recent series of sermons preached by Nicholas Sagovsky, canon theologian at Westminster Abbey.

For now, I thought it would be fun to explore whether "gigantic intelligence" fitted with any of the 72 names for God listed in the Hebrew Bible.

For this, I consulted my Orthodox Jewish friend Irene Lancaster, an academic and fellow blogger who last year made aliyah to Haifa and who is a regular commentator here.  She is currently teaching a university course which addresses this very subject. She tells me: "There are supposed to be 72 names of God. The words in the Bible represent all sorts of things, not because Judaism is pagan at heart, but because of our own limitations. Hence, God of war, God of the field, gods (elohim), which also stands in for ‘judges’, God’s representatives on earth. Then there is the name YHVH, which is unpronounceable as it is only made up of vowels, meaning ‘becoming’.  That is, ‘I am that I am’ at the burning bush is really, ‘I shall be that I shall be’. And Rashi says that that implies that God will be with us in all our troubles."

This means that the transcendent God is actually the one who is with us, while the God Elohim of every day is more one of justice, not so much love.

Maimonides in his Guide for the Perplexed said you can only talk about God in negatives, or what he isn’t. I myself am a member of the Church of England, but a pretty ignorant one. When pressed on my belief, I always tell my inquisitors: "The only thing I know absolutely for certain about God is that I'm not it." After speaking to Professor Dawkins I had another insight. I knew he wasn't it either, even though I have no doubt of his "gigantic intelligence". But the Jewish view, from which we derive our Christian theology, is certainly that God created the world, maintains it and is with us at all times, even if He is unknowable.
Irene speculates that the fact that there isn’t a Jesus figure in Judaism probably encouraged the development of Kabbalah in which the sephirot are "forces" representing various attributes, based on the Book of Chronicles.

These include from, Crown, Wisdom, Understanding, Knowledge, Loving Kindness, Severity, Beauty, Foundation, Glory, Victory  and Earth. These also relate to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet and to characters in the Bible. Joseph would be Yesod, foundation; Jacob would be Tipheret, beauty. Abraham represents loving kindness and Isaac severity. Jacob is a merger of both and is of course Isaac’s son. By coincidence Irene's husband Brian Lancaster, who runs an MSc in consciousness and transpersonal psychology and who holds the country's first chair in transpersonal psychology at John Moore uni in Liverpool, has put much of this in his book, Essence of Kabbalah. Irene says: "Dawkins’ description is definitely Jewishly OK, whether he likes it or not. Dawkins has tried to describe some sort of power, even intelligence, which does not include the word ‘God.’ The word for the Lord in Hebrew is Y-H-V-H-, which is a transliteration of the consonants in Hebrew which sound like vowels. This was before vowels came into use around the 7th or 8th centuries CE.

Maimonides talks about what God isn’t and says that we cannot describe the entity which God is. That is why in Hebrew a circumlocution is used, called ‘Ha-shem’, meaning ‘the name’. In other words, if you named that power, you might fall into the trap of thinking you really understood it."

Maimonides lived from 1135 to 1204 and influenced Thomas Aquinas and the whole Christian tradition. "So what Dawkins is describing here is the Jewish concept of God the creator," says Irene. As Professor Dawkins said at the end of our interview, there seemed to be very little we did not agree on. He just refuses to call it God. I still maintain, though, after our conversation, that he would be a worth recipient of the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. By making the religious among us examine and question our beliefs, he has brought about more progress than he might care to understand.

(Incidentally, Paul Winner also came with me to Rome, where he sketched the Pope and Rowan Williams, and has done a number of other drawings of top religious people. He has also been employed as the Government's official Holocaust Memorial Day artist and on a number of other projects. We are at present seeking a publisher for a book we are writing together, People of the Book.)

Bloggers discussing this include The Stuff of Life here and here, calling for the article to be "canonised"! Globalclashes critiques a "sugary excerpt".

Comments

[Gareth]

Hi guys. Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
I am from Marino and know bad English, tell me right I wrote the following sentence: "Offer travel agency services specializing in air tickets between india and usa."

Best regards :o, Gareth.

[Steve]

As a Christian who believes in the theological truth of the Bible and has been taught enough good science to think that asking questions is a necessary part of any belief system, I have to say that I think Richard Dawkins is becoming more guilty of bad science. I remember when I first read The Blind Watchmaker, thinking that here was an excellent argument, which could produce some positive Christian counter-arguments. Sadly, reading The God Delusion left me feeling that there is no good argument against it, except to say that I believe something different. Ruth's interview only reinforces my impression that Richard Dawkins has gone beyond good science to a place where he knows that he's right, and has begun using predictions and semi-mystical terminology to demonstrate it.

[jim rogers, sydney]

The ontological argument is a linguistic trick, and a good one, but obviously not a creed to follow as a way of life. There have been a lot of arguments put up against it. I believe those. It will always be there, but is an irrelevance. One argument is that it is logically impossible for a being to simultaneously instantiate omniscience and omnipotence; omnipotence entails the power to create free beings, but omniscience rules out the possibility that such beings exist. There are arguments either way. Regardless, arguments for a first cause are a long way from the concept that there is a God acting to change events within our world. "The idea of a Being who interferes with the sequence of events in the world is absolutely impossible" (Albert Einstein).

There are numerous arguments the concept of a personal, intervening God. How can an all-just God punish some in this world, including the seemingly innocent, yet reward others? Intervene here but not there, for some but not others? Can a God be all-just, and deliver punishment to some of His flawed, human creations, yet be all-merciful and forgiving to others? The existence of evil is an argument against God's existence that many feel can't be easily explained away. There are arguments against God's existence on moral and other grounds, and I know there are lots of counter arguments, but overall I find those for a God unconvincing, and I certainly don't find them compelling.

"Intelligent Design" is a cop-out way of explaining those things that science is yet to explain. Often it is used by people who don't understand, or can't be bothered sourcing, the explanations already available. The word "intelligent" in this setting is contradictory. The wondrous complexity and beauty of our world and universe deserves to be appreciated with appropriate awe, but without recourse to ID.

The "sacred texts" of all the major world religions are man-made documents, inspired by man's own inner search for meaning. They are filled with mythic legend, allegories, metaphorical writings, fables and tall stories. They may sometimes include real, and at other times embellished or fictitious, historical accounts of ancient peoples. They are sometimes poetry, legal codes, or wisdom sayings. The Old Testament encompasses a vast evolving reflection with unquestionably primitive polytheistic and animistic origins in the religions of the Near East, towards a tribal rather bloody-minded but single god (eg Judges), then gradually refined into a unique ethical monotheism. It often highlights its God to be malevolent, vindictive, capricious, childish and ruthless. He is at other times loving and benign. Of course, these are all human attributes, created within the minds of men. The multiplicity of religions and gods, and the varied and differing views of God, and the diverse religious beliefs based upon them, including those of monotheism, are staggeringly incompatible.

Enlightened, tolerant believers today may try to highlight the "loving side of belief", and the best of the golden rule. Lets just stick with that, and drop the dogmas. Maybe then mankind as a whole can avoid the all too prevalent problem of "basically killing each other to see who's got the better imaginary friend” .

[Joshua]

sorry ..correction

I did not read Dawkins other tomes bit I did read The God delusion.

[Joshua]

Michael
I think we may have our own blog here, so yes maybe we will be snuffed out. I admire the moderators patience.

I don't think I have misrepresented Dawkins or you. Sadly I don't have a copy of the GD to hand so I cannot check whether he made the fine distinction, as you do, between 'religious teaching child abuse' and 'religious indoctrination child abuse' - when I read the book it came across as one and the same. You said to Julia Langdon "I don't think any age is appropriate for religion, because I wholly disagree with religion" which is what I thought you and Dawkins thought all along and that calling it 'child abuse' was rhetoric because, as you say,"nobody's going to get the world's attention by sitting at the back of the room and clearing his throat".

So while it suits him to say 'this is child abuse' one day, he comes over all cuddly the next to say that children should know their Bible. I know very well you can fine tune the argument when required - that is again not my argument - it is that this kind of rhetorical argument is full of holes (errors and inconsistencies!). Yes, it gets you noticed but it doesn't inform it only entertains.

I said (first post) my picture of Dawkins is of a boy who hits out at all sorts of things and then he says he didn't hit the things you said he did (I got my grammar wrong but you probably understood).

Well, yes, for me he did hit them. He did come across as disapproving very strongly of religious education, as do you. So it is I think completely fair of me to say he is being inconsistent ( and I think that is the tone of Ruth's article too).

So now we come to the transcendent again. How can you know what something is not when you do not know what it is? Dawkins would say it definitely isn't God but he doesn't know what it is. Surely that does not make logical sense. It is not very open minded and it seems a little fanatical.

And remembering the phrase 'vast hordes' that it does rather sound idiotic.

---------

That was to be my ending but I see you have just posted 'science ..in other words.' Yes! Hooray!

Indulge me. I trained as a zoologist and remember reading Dawkins 'The Selfish Gene' in my second year. I thought it was brilliant and loved it. I read Dawkins other tomes but I did read the God Delusion. The difference between the two books could not have been more striking. His style was still entertaining but I found his logic and philosophy deeply flawed and all the rhetoric too tiresome. So the interview with Ruth really made me wonder about what he is trying to say and possibly what he is revising.

And, yes, science to me is amazing and wonderful and brilliant and hopeful. Francis Collins 'The Language of God' - good read.

[MICHAEL ANDREWS]

p.s. when you talk about God, I get the feeling you may be talking about science...in other words.

[MICHAEL ANDREWS]

Well Joshua, these might be our footnotes. We're probably the last ones still reading (hope you're still there), but maybe people will visit this web page down the track when they're "searching up" Prof. Dawkins and the thoughts he provokes.

One thing I hope is that they'll see your first post and its ill informed or deliberate misrepresentations, and they'll follow down through our discussions, until they read what you’ve closed with at the end. It shouldn't be lost on them that by the time you finish, you're talking exclusively about something in your first post that you devoted (in my pc format) 4 out of 21 lines to, and you haven't got a leg to stand on with regards to the first 17 lines. Granted, on re-reading I see you’ve connected your thoughts on atheism (3 lines) to the last 4 lines, but each statement stands alone.

NOW you’re saying these last 4 lines were the WHOLE THRUST of your first post. Nice try.

Well anyway let’s go back.
“I am not sure why … he (Dawkins) is ready to embrace all manner of other dimensions that physics serves up.”

Let me try to clear that up for you. It’s because they’re theories, not assertions, and they may one day be scientifically tested, and even hopefully maybe, disproved. God isn’t a theory, and faith by definition precludes scientific evidence. You say “I believe in God”, not “I believe in the theory of God”, and it’s not called the “Theory of the New Testament”, is it?

Okay, we could argue until the cows come home about the transcendent, and what you should call the start of existence (if there was one). But does the Bible talk about the 11th dimension? No. Then what’s it got to do with God, Jesus, Mary, Noah, Judas or the Psalms, and why, oh why should Prof. Dawkins be talking about God, in other words? You trot out - “Well, not quite, he (Dawkins) says … because there will be things”., and you mention the 11th dimension again. He’s talking about science. Not science in other words, not God in other words, just science. Much to many people’s annoyance he mostly does. He calls it beautiful etc (oh no!), even uplifting. And he says it will make religion and the very notion of God look stupid.

It’s not God in any sense of the word, and it never will be. It’s not science yet, but it will be one day.

I hear the cows …

[Joshua]

Michael,
The reason I hope we will not get thrown off this post is that I think I have been trying to echo the title and the substance of Ruth's article - 'God..in other words' and 'Dawkins transcendant' and thus my annoying, apologies, 'Geddit?'

Let me let me have another go - see if I can be clearer.

Dawkins is a materialist - all that is real is before us, what we can see and measure, no supernatural. Well, not quite, he says now, because there will be things, he mentions the 11th dimension, that will be amazing and awe-inspiring etc etc.

From the my first post I have been trying to articulate my agreement with the article that it sounds like Dawkins is describing God and that this in turn means, as he says, that he is concerned with 'saying it right'. Dawkins feels and, I suspect you concur, that by not using certain words like 'God' you are saying something radically different from what other believers, see above, mean. My opinion, for what it is worth is that you are not, that you are talking about God...in other words.

[MICHAEL ANDREWS]

Joshua -

Thank you for continuing this discourse with me. Hopefully we won't be booted off the thread.

You opened disingenuously again with -

"You say: teaching 'religion' to children (I never did, by the way, but that is not the point)..."

Firstly and for the 2nd last time - I did not say "teaching religion to children", I said religious indoctrination.

And I may have been wrong (sincerely), when I took this from you as agreement -

"I agree with you that religious indoctrination of the kind you suggest is bad..."

That said, bad how? Bad, but not as bad as some other mental and emotional child abuse? And, by the way, “religious indoctrination of the kind I suggest” is standard operating procedure.
I don't want to labour the point (I really don’t), but "religious indoctrination of the kind I suggest" is what Prof. Dawkins is talking about. Sorry, but it's NOT "teaching religion to children".

What you say next is dead wrong, and you've completely misunderstood me. When I said YOU should tell a child what YOU truly believe, I was talking about YOU, or Julia Langdon or anyone else, myself included: and I said it should be qualified with exceptions, by you, ME, Julia Langdon or anyone else. (I don't see how you missed that, please re-read.)

For example -

"Well Johnny, I believe (outline faith or lack of here), but there are lots of other people who think (a) there's a God / no God, (b) there’s a different God..." and so on.

That's what I would do, and I recommended it as an alternative to indoctrination, especially with regards to an omnipotent deity. The sad fact is indoctrination occurs because if you hold any religious beliefs up for comparison it only exposes the ludicrous nature of them all, yours included. You can't say to a child Hinduism has any more (or less) objective validity than Islam or Christianity, but that's what Daddy and Mummy believe (and if *you* don't believe, Johnny, you're going to Hell).

To close, I need to set the record straight on your presumption below –

"You say 'vast hordes of religious idiots' is hilarious but concede that Dawkins probably does not think so ie that it is not meant as a humorous remark but as a fair description and you even agree that for you this would include millions of Americans. (and I presume most of the rest of the world)."

Good point, but your presumption is incorrect. For example I don't think you're an idiot. (Duplicitous in your first post maybe, for reasons I outlined, but not an idiot.)
I would change my mind if you advocated creationism, though. That's idiotic, (I wonder what you would call it) and yes, millions of Americans follow this creed. Fortunately in Christianity at least, millions of people do not a majority make. Vast hordes, yes.
Once again you don't like the language, but nobody's going to get the world's attention by sitting at the back of the room and clearing his throat while much louder, real idiocy prevails.

I won’t close with a quip, but “Geddit?” was really annoying.

[jim rogers, sydney, australia]

Unfortunately, religion has often been a vehicle for intolerance and division. The conflict of ideas and beliefs over the course of history has led to bitter debate, aggression, persecution, oppression, and violence, for the other side becomes less worthwhile, and no longer equal. In history this often meant the other could be considered less human, or inhuman, hence genocide and slavery. Obviously some of this merely reflect xenophobia, and is not all due to religion, but the religious tags have been powerful ones in separating groups, races and nations into the enemy.
Had Judaism and Christianity not been so dogmatic for hundreds of years, would Muhammed and Islam have been as dogmatic? Would these other religions have crashed headlong into so much conflict, if The Church had shown the lead, and believed and preached that it is the ethical principles that count, not the implausible trappings of fundamentalist dogma? Unfortunately, this century is going to see a lot of conflict, with much of it involving religious conflict!

Religion has been an integral inspiration for a lot of evil acts, though I agree sometimes used to justify immoral action that was going to happen anyway, as well as the inspiration for many good ones. I think the way it has been delivered has often been immoral, and in part because there are so many outdated, crude, violent and (by today's standards) immoral recommendations in the old testament. Sometimes it merely reflected the low ethics of society at the time, but because religion was set up as an ethical framework, it has to take some of the blame for those ethical failures.

Dawkins' The God Delusion does have a hard tone at times, and he may sometimes appear tired of giving explanations; he has had to argue against many frustrating, narrow-minded believers over the years, who fail to see the obvious. I think most of what he says is truth, and do agree that atheism ( or non-theism, which has fewer negative connotations for some) is at least as valid as any form of theism, as no-one can prove or disprove the existence of a God. In one sense, everyone should be agnostic, if that means merely to believe or admit that it is impossible to know if God exists or not. Maybe "believers" should consider themselves agnostic theists (who would bet on there being a God), and the rest would be agnostic non-theists (like me who would bet there isn't)! This is too much of a mouthful, and atheist is simpler.

I'm happy to concede my beliefs are fallible and limited by my human nature. No argument from me that we know only a fraction of what is to be known. Some believers seem to think, that because they have a personal belief that there is a divine absolute authority, that somehow makes their belief more valid, because this belief held by them and by others proves that such a moral authority exists???? McGrath, Lewis, and many Christians imply that if a person states that, given his experience of life and the world, and knowledge he has acquired up to this time, that the existence of God is so unlikely that, to all intents and purposes, he believes God does not exist, then this is called by them "the height of intellectual arrogance". They can say there is no doubt that God exists, that this is THE truth of the universe, and are sure that they communicate with God daily. = not arrogance???? Why not say: I think it is likely, though not unequivocal, that God exists, and I feel as if I can communicate with a God, although this may be a fallacy, but I find it useful to act this way, and I will live my life accordingly.

Although millions believe and feel deeply that they "know God", it is not something that can be proved. There are scientific arguments, that I believe have a lot of validity, that this belief, like any other, is merely something that occurs within the human psyche, formed wholly within a thinking mind. For example, near death and out of body experiences likely come from the temporal lobes. Even the changes that occur in temporal lobe activity during meditation in Buddhist monks are very impressive. Areas in the brain can be stimulated by wires and currents to mimic sexual fulfillment, satiety, anger etc etc. The brain is so amazingly complex that it isn't known how to localise ephemeral ideas and concepts to various areas, and there are so many connections that they will likely never be localised to a single area, but all thoughts and emotions arise within or via brain cells, including moral / ethical ones. What we feel "in our hearts and souls" is in our heads. The wonderful feelings of positive reinforcement, empowerment, love, peace of mind, etc., that people experience from supposedly "knowing God", are similar in many ways to a host of sensations that follow life changing or "sea change" decisions, experiences, and choices that people make in life; these experiences of self-fulfillment occurs in atheists and theists alike during life, it's just that the focus and explanations are different. It's still all explicable within. (Osama bin Laden had these same experiences, unfortunately, in his own misguided way.) The evidence that we have a soul is still zero.

As children we like to know that we have the security of our parental love and authority. "God" keeps that feeling going into adulthood. It's a nice feeling, but that's all it is. Being a mortal human in a wide universe is more than many people can handle without an anxiety attack! Belief in God keeps that anxiety at bay.
Why people believe in God is complex. Dawkins mentioned somewhere that only 12% of people change their religion from that of their upbringing. Our development, involving nature and nurture, is obviously heavily involved in who we are, and what we believe. Changing from that belief of upbringing is stressful, and one could argue that after a religious upbringing , with a heavy dose of religion, love, possibly loss, identification with a very religious mother, father or other respected figure, with religious schooling thrown in, that people only have partial free will to abandon Christianity, such would be the stress response, which would involve a certain amount of loss of comfortable self-identity and self-respect. That isn't to say that believers don't feel as if they have freely chosen to believe and encompass faith, but merely that free-will is complex, and may be a fulfilling illusion much of the time, but all that we have to go by. Our decisions follow an impossible-to-dissect array of causal events and influences. My abandonment of religion is no doubt just as influenced by my experiences and my past.

If an impartial high court had to decide whether there was a soul or not, or whether Jesus was God, then the chance of a positive result for either of these would be extremely low. The evidence is too flimsy. Immaculate conception? Meaningless. Virgin birth? Water into wine? Other miracles like walking on water? Raising the dead? Resurrection? Ascension into heaven? Zero hard evidence exists, and the likelihood is remote, as the whole of science and our known experience tells us that these are so unlikely as to be unbelievable. They are myths, legends, fables. Dawkins and other atheists or agnostics would welcome any defining evidence to the contrary, but the evidence is unlikely to surface now if it hasn't yet!

This doesn't mean there can't be a God, but bible stories just don't give convincing, credible support to the idea. The idea of a personal God, or God made man, is very different to deism or cosmic consciousness/knowledge. This doesn't mean following some of Jesus' (or other prophets') teachings to become a better person isn't worthwhile. We should just keep our feet on the ground of common sense and reason. He was a product of his own upbringing, and fallible, as you and I are, and no doubt he made good decisions and bad. He believed the OT stories from Genesis on, as fact, as did everyone back then. However, his supposed (as we only have the bible to go on) teachings, as with most things, aren't absolutes. A leader who chose to "turn the other cheek" on behalf of his people if threatened with extinction by a foreign enemy, and decided to lay down arms, leading to a massacre, would be acting wrongly. Circumstances must be taken into account in judging what is moral. Even the Golden Rule is open to variation. Do unto others as you would have them do to you? Or do as you judge they would like you to act? Or do what you think is best for them, regardless? Or merely don't do what you judge they don't want you to do? Or what they actually don't want you to do but you think is best? Do you ask first? Or do you just imagine first? Hopefully a considered decision will be a truly moral one, though may need to be refined or changed to be the truly best one.

There has been an evolutionary drive towards higher orders of animals over time, with hominids the end of the chain. Higher order animals are more intelligent than lower order ones. Dogs etc can show affection, grieve and act "bravely", but lack the self-awareness and language development to be moral in our full sense of the word. Other primates get closer. Early hominids (eg: Homo Erectus) leading to Homo Sapiens, were more intelligent again, and along the line, developed socially to the point that they would act, not just selfishly for their own "happiness" or benefit alone, but for the good of their family or group. This was human nature and natural evolution leading to the development of an ethical sense. As groups became tribes, then larger again, higher orders of rules and conventions developed, with religion and a host of gods being constructed (by man, for man) to help explain the vagaries of life and the natural world, and to further develop a social order and morality. Thus man is by his nature, an ethical being. Obviously it has taken a long time for those ethics to reach the level seen in much of society today. Man has a huge capacity for immorality as well, which has muddied our past and present. However, most people are on the plus side when it comes to being more moral than immoral, and that is a part of our evolution as a species, and is independent of any supernatural force.
Mankind doesn't need salvation, but merely needs to continue to develop ethically. Any help in leading to that end is a positive thing. Religious dogma isn't helpful. We are not intrinsically evil, needing salvation, just human, and intrinsically good-but-flawed, and will ever be thus, but are moving forward, slowly, on a jagged line for the better.

Ethical principles are to be found in religion, secular state laws, philosophical discourse, literature, the community at large, and other sources. No one area has a mortgage on them. I like Michael Schermer's arguments supporting that morality is not absolute, but provisional (rather than relative). Evil is only meaningful as an adjective applied to actions/thoughts/intentions involving humans.

One of the problems with religion in general is the belief that so many people have that there is such a thing as absolute truth or morality. I think this leads to extremism and fundamentalism, and religions are to blame for much of that. Books like "Why good is good...the sources of morality" by Robert Hinde , and "The science of good and evil" by Michael Schermer are worthwhile, and highlight for me the idea that man has developed as an intrinsically moral animal, by his nature, over the course of human and social evolution, and that moral sense developed independently of religion, though religion was then later conjured up as a way of explaining things now easily explained by science, and as a way of adding social order, developing moral ethics further, and formalising laws to control behaviour. Religion is a man-made system of beliefs and codes. Our morality stems from our nature, influenced by our culture (including our religions), and developed over our history, and is not dependent on any supernatural being.

The Ten Commandments are really only the ten recommendations or tenets, for we can think of numerous circumstances when the absolute statement of "Thou shall not..." should definitely not be followed for us to act morally, though they were a good place to start. The golden rule, with a few additions, is a better recommendation, and developed in India, China, Greece, the old testament, and elsewhere, before it hit the new testament.

Anyway, it's interesting reading and discussing this stuff. As with life in general, the journey is what counts, as there is no final destination.

[TW]

Joshua writes:
Dawkins is not happy with words like 'God' and 'faith' and prefers the language of science, things like 11th dimension suit him better but I think you must agree that the tone he is adopting does make one think he is starting to believe in something beyond, no?

Trying for an appeal to ridicule by bringing in Brane Theory (M-Theory etc) is a bit weak. Why do *you* find the 11th Dimension to be more non-sensical than anything else?

And, to answer your question, no I dont think that.

[Joshua]

Thanks Michael. Again difficult to take you seriously but I have a sneaky feeling you are trying to be humorous anyway.

You say: teaching 'religion' to children (I never did, by the way, but that is not the point) is, according to you and Prof Dawkins, child abuse. But if you do the same then it is ok because you will be saying 'what you truly believe'. This is strange kind of double-think, no? What you are saying is that you are only allowed to teach what Michael Andrews thinks - anything else is inappropriate.

You say "vast hordes of religious idiots" is hilarious but concede that Dawkins probably does not think so ie that it is not meant as a humorous remark but as a fair description and you even agree that for you this would include millions of Americans. (and I presume most of the rest of the world)

I do not doubt your sincerity but I admire your cheek.

I do agree with you that the universe is beautiful. But I find no limits imposed on me by faith. I find writings like the Psalms to be inspiring and I find the sayings of Jesus to challenge me in a way no other historical figure has done. I agree with you that the 'whatever' that is beyond us does not have to have words attached.

But again I feel you are missing the point I was trying to make.

I will let Richard say it for me - from the Times article.

“I don’t think you and I disagree on anything very much but as a colleague of mine said, it’s just that you say it wrong.”

Geddit?

[MICHAEL ANDREWS]

Ms Langdon -
Naturally you raise interesting points. To answer your curiosity, I don't think any age is appropriate for religion, because I wholly disagree with religion and I don't see any merit in religion that can't be attained through society and community by other means.

As it happens, the questions of life will usually come from the children themselves. "Why are we here? What happens when we die?"
I think the best way to answer is with what you truly believe, but you should add that there are many other people who believe other things, (maybe adding that two thirds of people in the world are not Christians) and tell your child they can find out about these beliefs if they want.

Forgive me for cutting down this section but I don't think it changes the context -

"...do you propose that religious parents not include their children in celebrations of ... religious and cultural celebrations that are important to THEM (emphasis mine) in favour of some sort of sterile upbringing until they can choose for themselves?"

My added emphasis demonstrates my answer. Religion is only as important to children as their parents make it, and it's only important to the PARENTS that little Johnny is a good Catholic, Baptist, or Muslim child. (And you won't have to look far to find Prof. Dawkins' view of this religious labelling of children either, as I mention below.)
We don't need to remove children from their parents to raise them in a secular manner. I just don't think parents should be religious to start with.
The biggest problem is with your view that secularism is sterile. You don't need religion to enjoy life, love, family and community. I do just fine, and so do millions of others. Even Prof. Dawkins celebrates Christmas. As he says, for many people it stopped being about religion a long time ago.

You asked - "I also wonder if you extend that sort of upbringing to political and/or nationalistic education?"

Parents, children and politics?
Julia, do you present your views on democracy to a six year old child, and send her to Sunday "democracy school” until she’s in her teens? I didn't think so. When children study politics it's in secondary school, but they learn about Hell before they get their training wheels. I paraphrase Prof. Dawkins - you wouldn’t call a child a “Marxist child”, but it’s perfectly acceptable to call him a “Catholic child”, and that's the problem.

Joshua -
You're back pedalling. I repeat - religious indoctrination is tantamount to child abuse. That's what Prof. Dawkins says and I agree. You don't like the language, but you agree with the point, (you said so), so what's the real problem? The truth is too confronting.

The phrase "vast hordes of religious idiots" doesn't conjure a bogeyman for me. I think it's hilarious. Prof. Dawkins no doubt finds it less so. Again context is important, and I'm sorry I don't have time to re-read the article. If he was talking about terrorists you have a point which I'll immediately concede, or was he talking about the religious right in America who want to teach creationism in schools and slow science to a crawl? Now they’re idiots, you can’t call them anything else, and they number in the millions. In any case Prof. Dawkins will continually be quoted out of context by people seeking to chalk it up as rhetoric.

Joshua, the universe is beautiful. It's magnificent, it's powerful, and to think of it and your own place in time and space is only to be appreciated more without the limits of the religious explanations for it. Prof. Dawkins "believes in" something beyond, alright. But something beautiful and powerful beyond our current understanding doesn't have to be called anything, least of all God.
Prof. Dawkins says as much directly in the above article, and it's well echoed by Ray Ingles in a post above –

"many religious individuals seem not to believe that something can be understood yet still be a source of wonder."

That's how it comes across to me, too.

[Joshua]

Hi
thanks Paul - this is a really funny site! Reminds me of the schoolboy quip... "Judas went and hanged himself...Go and do thou likewise".

I often think that atheists don't understand faith or belief they only understand the words and this site supports that.

Dawkins says he believes that this life and this material world is all there is and anything outside that is fantasy, yes? But in the above interview he also looks forward to a time of revelation, a time when even greater things will be explained, a time of new physics and many dimensions - I am paraphrasing but I do hope I am getting the sense of what he is saying.

So how is that different from other beliefs in something beyond us? It looks like it is religious language that is being objected to not the possibility that there may be another reality that is yet to be discovered.

The safe zone of "mysterious-beyond-present-comprehension physics of the future" is acceptable to Dawkins and, I presume, to other atheists - it is to me too - but stray into the idea that this 'mysterious-beyond-present-comprehension' has been revealed, say, though Jesus then suddenly there is wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Is this not 'having your cake and eating it'?

[Paul Caira]

Might I recommend
http://www.yourgodisimaginary.com?

[Joshua]

Dear Michael Andrews.

How kind of you to reply to my post.

I think you may have misunderstood me. I agree with you that religious indoctrination of the kind you suggest is bad but I don't think I misunderstood Dawkins that teaching religion to children was tantamount to child abuse. It is exactly the kind of rhetoric he uses. Take as another example - his remark in the Times to Ruth Gledhill that there are 'vast hordes of religious idiots' out there. Really? Is this based on real evidence or another bogeyman to help his argument along?

Remarks like that make it difficult to take him seriously but which made his interview with Ruth all the more surprising as he seemed to be trying to 'find God' but in his own way.

I apologise if you felt I mis-quoted Dawkins (tho I still believe I got the sense right) - I will now use cut and paste. He says:

"...mysterious-beyond-present-comprehension physics of the future - I’ll go along with awe-inspiring. Also, aesthetically appealing, uplifting. I’ll go along with aesthetically appealing and uplifting. Those aspects of it, yes."

Dawkins is not happy with words like 'God' and 'faith' and prefers the language of science, things like 11th dimension suit him better but I think you must agree that the tone he is adopting does make one think he is starting to believe in something beyond, no?

That's how it came across to me anyway.

[Dr. Irene Lancaster]

What Dawkins appears to be positing therefore is actually the way that religion is now presented in British schools.

To be more precise, schools tend to emphasis topics rather than study of texts in depth.

I should explain that Judaism at least doesn't really believe, at least in the sense that Christianity and Islam do. Judaism is not certain and leaves a great deal of space for doubt and questioning. I know that sounds odd, but Judaism does not have a creed.

It is a way of life and if people don't wish to follow it that is their own business.

In addition, Judaism enjoins argument and is of the opinion that 'two brains are better than one', to quote Ecclesiastes.

However, one of the consequences of the so-called objective approach of teaching religions in school is that the Bible is avoided and instead emphasis is put on topics.

This means that a whole generation has grown up without knowing the Bible.

This generation includes a small number who will want to become clergy. And their lack of Bible knowledge, together with the abandonment of Hebrew (and to some extent Greek) in clergy training colleges has often led to ignorance of the NT in context and certainly to ignorance and hence disdain of the Hebrew Bible, aka OT.

This was the gist of a conversation that I had on my recent trip back to England with a senior representative from Lambeth Palace.

No wonder then that on a whole stream of issues, as evidenced by your Tridentine Mass posting, reasoned argument has disappeared from the study of religions and puerile fanaticism has returned in the 21st century.

[Julia Langdon]

Mr. Andrews,
It seems that you agree with Dawkins assertion that there is a problem with parents imparting their religious faith to their children. I'm curious -- at what age do you think children are capable of receiving, understanding, and discerning among the dozens of religions in the world? And, before this age, do you propose that religious parents not include their children in celebrations of Christmas? Easter? Religious weddings, baptisms, funerals? In other words, do you believe it's far more beneficial for parents not to include their children in the religious and cultural celebrations that are important to them in favor of some sort of sterile upbringing until they can choose for themselves?

I also wonder if you extend that sort of upbringing to political and/or nationalistic education? Should parents also repress their democratic ideologies and encourage their children to study totalitarianism, socialism, and, yes, theism so that they can choose what system they would like to adopt and live under?

Well, perhaps we should just remove children from their parents and raise them as pure secularists with no messy cultural, religious, or political ties a la Huxley.

[Ray Ingles]

Ruth, I think I understand why you had such trouble understanding Dawkins' disclaimers. It's because you don't recognize a critical part of his (and my, and many other atheists') mental framework. You can say that something is 'numinous', but you seem not to understand the distinction between that and 'supernatural'. I've never seen it more clearly explicated than in a science-fiction novel called "Lord of Light" by Roger Zelazny.

A character in the novel admits that the 'demons' that beset the humans in the story have great powers, and lifespan, and all the other traits normally associated with 'demons', but denies that they are supernatural. When asked what difference that makes, he replies:

"It is the difference between the unknown and the unknowable, between science and fantasy - it is a matter of essence. The four points of the compass be logic, knowledge, wisdom and the unknown. Some do bow in that final direction. Others advance upon it. To bow before the one is to lose sight of the three. I may submit to the unknown, but never to the unknowable."

Dawkins acknowledges - as all sane people do - the unknown. What he objects to is the proposition of the 'unknowable'. Sure, there are things we may never know - but calling them 'unknowable' is a cop-out, an excuse to stop trying. And if you stop trying to understand something, it really will be unknowable...

Additionally, many religious individuals seem not to believe that something can be understood yet still be a source of wonder. But that's something that I've never understood. A baker can know exactly what went into a cake, and how they made it, yet still enjoy eating it. I don't have to believe a rainbow has a pot of gold at the end to enjoy looking at one, and pointing it out to my children.

[Oliver Nicholson]

Nature and Nature's law were hid in night
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.

It could not last. The Devil, shouting "Ho",
Exclaimed "Let Einstein be", restored the status quo.

[MICHAEL ANDREWS]

I don't know if this thread is still going, but I have to add my rebuttals to "Joshua's" disingenuous and misrepresentative post.

Joshua you said,

"...in the God Delusion he (Dawkins) describes teaching religion to children as being akin to child abuse, but now he says they should read the Bible."

"Teaching religion to children" as you've phrased it here is a heinously disingenuous interpretation of what Prof. Dawkins objects to, which is religious indoctrination. If you were being honest you would have said as much, but you need to skew your argument. If you want to teach a child religion, you can impartially present him or her with all of the world's religious beliefs. That is religious education. What Prof. Dawkins objects to, and what you no doubt advocate, is that when a child is born it should be told your beliefs only. This should be done as soon as possible and in such a way as to implant the belief to the exclusion of all others while the child still implicitly trusts your parental authority. The child should be told with certitude that there is a powerful invisible entity that can see all their actions and read their mind, and that this entity will punish them with eternal fire if they "sin" or do not believe He exists. And as for reading the Bible, Prof. Dawkins appreciates the Bible as a historical work of human literary creation, and posits that it reveals much about humanity, literature and history. It enhances a person's appreciation of these things, and therefore everyone should read it. Not exclusively, and not for anything to do with religion except that it (the Bible) demonstrates one.

"Numerous other inconsistencies and errors have been pointed out all over the internet..."

If the above is one example of a so called inconsistency and how you can make it seem like one by manipulation, I think you should have trawled the internet a little deeper.

"The real presence of God that millions of people feel every day is discounted by him."

And me. People do feel the presence of God though, because it comes from within them and their brains. It's no coincidence that you need to believe or strongly hope God exists before you can feel this presence. Please think about that.

"He (Dawkins) is now setting his gaze on something wonderful, uplifting, other dimensional, transcendent, awe inspiring. He has faith it will be revealed at some time in the future..."

Again you "edit" to skew your argument. Apart from planting the word “faith” as if it were the sole property of religion, you’ve paraphrased out of context. For the benefit of the people you seek to mislead, the following is true.

It's in the article which is the subject of this forum, from Prof. Dawkins himself -

"I think that all theological conceptions will be seen as parochial and petty by comparison to it."

In other words, ...He has faith it will be revealed at some time in the future, ... AND THAT IT WILL MAKE RELIGION SEEM LIMITED AND RIDICULOUS.

Me too. Amen? Oh brother.

As for atheism being a spent force, neither you nor I will be around to see the growth of science and reason that will prove you wrong. Science is an expanding, living thing, and religion cannot legitimately add to its own lexicon. You think majority rules, and 96% of people are religious, but 100% of people used to believe the Earth was flat.

Science will provide revelations, not the Bible.

[Paul Caira]

... and if God is indeed visible and tangible to you in the same was as your wife, why has he hidden himself from me, despite my spending twenty years searching for him? Some flaw in me, no doubt? Does God hate me?

[Paul Caira]

Dear Peter,
Why might I fear ultimate reality? Is this another version of the notion that the faithless are evil by definition? How can you judge anyone's ethical worth on the basis of their beliefs?
Could it not more likely be said that theists fear death and personal extinction (reasonably enough) and cling to the notion of God as it soothes this fear?

[jim rogers]

I recently read Alistair Mcgrath's book, The Twilight of Atheism, and enjoyed it. I agree that violent atheism has had its day in liberal western society. I can't speak for other societies, where fundamentalism and repression may rule. However, I don't agree with all his conclusions.

I'm surprised that the atheist who gets the longest personal mention in the book is Madalyn Murray O'Hair, who is philosophically and historically such an irrelevance, and an immoral wacko. It is a strange digression, in as much as it is so extensive. She is the Tammy Bakker of atheism, for sure, but a sideshow.

Once again I fail to identify with the hypothesis (for that is all it is) that atheism leads humanity to a cold, emotionally and spiritually barren wasteland. The idea that theists better appreciate the wonders of the universe, on a "spiritual and metaphysical level", for example as seen in a rainbow, is untested, and trite. It is the sort of garbage that Chesterton and Lewis throw around with abandon. All it shows is the psychological and spiritual limitations of those who believe such nonsense.

Few atheists or agnostics would argue against the sentiment that violent atheism should be left behind us, in the bastilles and gulags of history, along with violent, religious intolerance. That is a "no brainer". Whether Nazism was religious or atheist based is irrelevant. It was evil. As you know, Germany was not an atheist society at the time.

McGrath talks of the atheist refusal to believe. But what would he have them do? Atheists don't see their position as a childish refusal to believe. They merely and simply lack belief in a god, and more particularly in a capricious, malevolent, intervening one. McGrath and others may feel that the fact of evil is neither a point for or against a just god. However, many people, myself included, feel strongly that it is inconsistent with a loving, personal god. Atheists don't refuse to believe. They don't believe.

Lack of belief in god in no way implies a lack of belief in human morality, or an absent aspiration to grow morally. Modern day secular humanist atheists can follow moral and ethical codes, and the Golden Rule, and societies' laws, and practice charity and love of mankind, as strongly as any Christian does. Man is inherently a moral being, not a beast, though we all recognize man's potential for evil, which is all too often evident, in people of all religious beliefs and creeds.

Humans may well be made in such a way that belief in a divine deity, or the creation of such a belief, is part of our psychological evolution. This may well in the future be explained better as a purely human internal tendency, without necessarily having any basis in external fact. Cognitive science may not for hundreds or even thousands of years get to the bottom of it all, but I expect over time much more will become explicable. Even if a wavering agnostic or spiritually enlightened atheist feels an appreciation for the concept of a divine being, and many do (and many have been through that phase, so have experienced it), that is a long way from believing in the potential myth, miracles and fantasy of the Old Testament God and of Christianity. Atheists just don't believe in fantasy, however much a belief in a divine being may offer comfort and succour.

Pentecostalism may well offer inspirational faith that may help many through periods of emotional, spiritual and psychological need. However, its lack of factual credibility is one reason why it is can have a "revolving door" of adherents, like a fitness gym or weight loss centre. It can help some greatly in crisis, but the resolution often wanes and becomes less passionate over time.

Many Christians of today are less than 100% committed to their church and creed. If faith, belief in God, Jesus and the bible, and in church teachings, could be mapped on a scale, with zero = atheism, 0.1 = classic agnosticism, 1 = total belief, then over the centuries, and especially the last 200 years, faith has shifted. The church of old demanded 100% belief. As McGrath points out, Christianity has shifted. It happily counts among its flock those who tick a census as Christian, thus holding up its numbers, though many rarely set foot in a church, and don’t believe most of the bible miracles and unprovable magical happenings.

Atheism, and an inevitable growth in Christian common sense, have combined to bring about this shift. Atheists take heart that many Christians are Christian in name, with a theist leaning, but secular in almost everything in their day to day lives. But like any glass half full argument, more committed Christians find solace because these semi-believers don’t write nil as their religion on the census form.

Pentecostals who passionately live at 1 on the scale for a while usually slip back down the scale after a time, for their belief is running on emotion, neediness, and borrowed time, devoid of solid logic.

Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins point out the illogical nature of much Christian belief, and argue that fundamentalism only gets a toe hold because those down the scale fail to renounce fundamentalism despite its madness. There is truth in this. However, like most quiet atheists who just get on with their lives, so do quiet “lower scale” theists and Christians. Most people aren’t fussed with arguments in metaphysics or philosophy, or with dogma. There is too much else to do in living. And this majority of “agnostic believers” live happily alongside classic agnostics and atheists in a secular society, all following the same moral code, sharing friendships, marriage, and community.

Over time the bell curve will shift further down the scale. It seems inevitable to me that fundamentalism will always exist, but will always fail, eventually, to gain the support of the masses. Agnosticism will continue to grow stronger, as the curve moves away from fundamentalism.
Christianity, and all religions, may offer great cultural and social benefits to many. Terrific. Just don't use this as proof of religion's intellectual legitimacy in matters of philosophy, or a roundabout proof that religion's mysteries must therefore be based on fact.

Atheists may enjoy reading and watching science fiction, mythical novels and films, and all sorts of fantasy, but not believe it as fact. Some may, as may theists, believe in all manner of strange things, but it takes all kinds to make a world. Atheists can love poetry, music, art and culture, and feel deeply moved by such things. They can love life and nature passionately. They can feel optimism for the future just as much, and feel just as moved by a rainbow or sunrise, as any theist. The contrary view is without substance. Pessimistic and nihilistic Christians exist as well. Somehow, Christian writers refuse to accept that sensible, normal, everyday people may simply find their faith illogical. I find it on the one hand unreasonable for its unsubstantiated basis, but at the same time, in many ways, I can appreciate the spiritual and emotional growth that may occur in individuals who follow it, and can admire those adherents for their morality and character.

Atheism is less politically aggressive now because the secular age is with us. McGrath bemoans the decline of extremist atheism, despite having shown its flaws and fallacies. Maybe he looks with fondness at his past. Current atheists may be public and outspoken, but most are everyday citizens, quietly getting on with their lives. They are more likely to be seen manning a stall at the school fete, content and happy with their life, than marching in protest somewhere. This is less attractive to those who expect unending passion within atheism, but atheism has grown up, alongside a maturing Christianity, each influencing the other for the better. Secular humanism finds Christian belief unnecessary in living a worthwhile, moral, and optimistic life. Enlightened tolerant (non-fundamentalist) Christians and moral atheists are virtually impossible to differentiate on the basis of how they act. The curves have drawn close together. The zeitgeist of our times influences both groups. We live together comfortably as friends and family.

Why would atheists wage war on battles being won? I have little doubt that the Catholic Church will slowly follow many other humanist moral leads, such as recognising contraception as morally acceptable in all situations, and will allow marriage for its clergy, eventually, and will continue to be a shifting target, growing more liberal over time, as McGrath agrees it already has. Atheists see no need to battle in the areas of agreement.

The main intellectual war is against fundamentalism, and all its ignorance and arrogance. Enlightened Christians and atheists/agnostics will continue to join forces in an uneasy and variable alliance against fundamentalist dogma, for it threatens us all, intellectually and socially. Islam is the major battleground in this regard at the moment, though not the only one, for fundamentalism in the US remains problematic. Islamic free thinkers give us hope that even that spiritual front will slowly be pushed back, though it may take centuries for Islam to become an enlightened, tolerant religion, at ease alongside Christianity and atheism.

Over time, be it hundreds or thousands of years, formalized religion based on mystical, illogical myths will likely evolve and decline. It won't be a steady decline. It will rise and fall. History tells us so. Atheism/agnosticism won't be a tsunami, sweeping all before it. Change will be gradual, and punctuated. I take a longer view than McGrath has thus far. Science in numerous forms will further erode the fables. In hundreds of years the NT stories may go the way of Adam & Eve, Noah's Ark and the gods of Greece. Cognitive science will help further explain our passions and thought processes, including our spirituality. We are beings run by a higher cerebral cortex interacting with our limbic system, on legs. Man will still respond to his intrinsic spirituality. Man will still look to metaphysics and the divine, responding to his inner voice, but will better understand the many religious origins that arise within his psyche and synapses, and will hopefully be less prone to illogical conclusions.

[Alice C. Linsley]

Dawkins is a critical thinker and consistent with his personal premise. I can appreciate his thought without agreeing with everything or even accepting his premise. Critical thinkers recognize that he makes some good points.

[Joshua]

Marvellous article and discussion.

I keep seeing Dawkins as a precocious 12 year old with a very large bat with which he swings at anything and everything and, post mayhem, pretends he was aiming for something particular and never hit all those things he said you did.

For example in the God Delusion he describes teaching religion to children as being akin to child abuse, but now he says they should read the Bible.

Numerous other inconsistencies and errors have been pointed out all over the internet and Alvin Pantinga's Naturalism ad absurdum is superb.

Dawkins problem is he only accepts certain types of evidence. The real presence of God that millions of people feel every day is discounted by him. I am not sure why as he is ready to embrace all manner of other dimensions that physics serves up.

Atheism is struggling for breath at the moment. It does not have the answers we seek. It has had its day, it's a spent force and, for most of us, basically boring.

I think this is what Dawkins is coming to realise. He is now setting his gaze on something wonderful, uplifting, other dimensional, transcendant, awe inspiring. He has faith it will be revealed at some time in the future.

Me too. Amen, brother!

[Frank Schnittger]

The problem with any literalist interpretation of an ancient text is that succeeding generations interpret that text in different ways in a new and different context.

In any living faith, new texts of equal weight and authority are generated to take account of these new circumstance. This appears to be what has been happening in Judaism, as demonstrated by Irene above.

Thus there is nothing "unchristian" about understanding evolution or the Universe in Darwinian or Einsteinian Astrophysical terms. We are simply using our God given faculties to understand His Creation better and more accurately than the ancients could.

The problem with both Christian and Islamic Fundamentalism is that they attempt to "freeze" religion into a 2000 or 1500 year old cultural and scientific mindset.

This makes it a lot easier to use religion as a means of social and political control, but is pretty useless when it comes to understanding how the world now works.

The most extreme manifestations of this phenomenon are Christian Creationism and Islamic terrorism based on the simplistic interpretation of the Koran as mandating a Jihad against all non-Moslems, and in particular against Israel and the West.

Both are profoundly anti-modernist in their attempt to defy all advances in natural and social sciences as a means of resolving conflicts and improving the way in which all can live in and understand the world.

The problem for Moslems is that Mohammed appears to have allowed no scope for successors with equal authority to pronounce new doctrines in line with a more advanced understanding of the world..

The problem for Christians is that they are afraid of Christ’s injunction that “They are as Gods who hear his word and receive” and his statement that his followers would create greater miracles that he ever did..

Clearly these statements can be hijacked and abused by any crackpot to set themselves up as a new Christ.- hence the biblical injunctions against impostors.

But the bottom line, for Christians, is that Kingdom of God is within their gift to create. This means creating and understanding the world anew - as we always do – not harking back to a literalist transplantation of 2000 year old cultural and scientific concepts into the modern era.

Christian fundamentalism, is, at root, an idolization of the past for fear of the future. It is the ultimate denial of the Christian faith that the Holy Spirit will lead us forward to the Kingdom. It is for those who want to hide from the reality of today’s world, for those who cannot see the Divine in what is happening today.

[Dr. Irene Lancaster]

The giants of all three monotheistic religions in the Middle Ages were convinced that faith and reason are two sides of the same coin, and if at all possible - should be happily married.

Furthermore, the Babylonian Jewish scholars, known as the Gaonim (7th-12th C.) who decided that the 6th C Babylonian Talmud should have pride of place as an interpretative tool in any understanding of the Hebrew Bible, also stated that in those cases where religious belief and science or medicine disagree, science and medicine should be followed over religion.

It is perhaps relevant to point out here that a great many, if not the majority of, important rabbinic Bible commentators were also medical doctors, and so were a fair few Muslim commentators on the Koran, including ibn Sina (Avicenna).

[Julia Langdon]

Interesting. Indeed, every interview I've seen with Dawkins does show him to be arrogant and angry. When one is delving into the mysteries of the universe, arrogance is ill-advised.

He is dismissive of Christianity, with its accompanying lexicon, and it puzzles me how an academic, a seeker, can dismiss a historical and religious movement that seeks to explain the unexplainable. That is, after all, what he is doing -- with a different lexicon.

The advantage Christianity has, in my opinion, is to know when mystery should probably remain mystery. There is rest and peace -- and faith -- in that place. As a religious believer, I find it far more satisfying to know that, when my earthly existence has ended, these mysteries will be revealed by God and the clear, perfect picture will be developed.

When you think about it, Dawkins thought exists with an unacceptable number of "what ifs" and a limited existential plane. It is reliant on human thought and ingenuity which, in the current state of human affairs, is frightening, indeed! It would require completely altruistic humans of superior intelligence operating outside of market/economic/political pressures. For one who believes that humans are intrinsically political animals, that's far more difficult to believe than a transcendent Son of God who transformed within human institutions.

[William Beckett]

Mr. ap Rhisiart:

As for creation myths and gods, humans have invented a great many. The ones in genesis are no more cogent than most. They are contradictory; if they were true they would not be, even without being read 'theologically'.

True, taken literally and historically, the two creation accounts in Genesis appear contradictory. However, I still don’t see why you think they’re contradictory theologically. Provided that one understands the accounts are not meant to provide a scientific explanation of how the universe came to be, but rather a theologically sophisticated and spiritually reliable myth that provides a revelation of God’s purpose in creating the world, the contradiction is only apparent. In my view, the fact that Genesis provides two chronologically irreconcilable accounts only reinforces the theological point; viz, that no matter which of the competing scientific or religious views of the origin of the universe one holds to, the spiritual and revealed truth, namely that God created the universe, remains.

Furthermore, these accounts are not meant to be “cogent” in the sense that they were offered as “bottom up” attempts at rational, scientific cosmological speculation. They’re written by and for the faithful in order to provide a spiritual understanding of why the universe exists, who we are, why we're here, and what we're supposed to do. In any case, modern scientific thinking was foreign to the mind of the writer(s) of Genesis. They, or he, simply wasn’t capable of thinking this way. True, that makes Genesis scientifically unreliable; but it also makes modern scientific objections to Genesis impertinent.

Let me suggest that your reading of Genesis has been deeply influenced by fundamentalism. Fundamentalists believe not only that Genesis provides a reliable and accurate “scientific” account of the origin of the universe, but also that every orthodox Christian is obliged, for doctrinal and exegetical reasons, to confess that it does.

This is not the view of a large number of Christians (including myself) who think that while the Old Testament contains much that is historically reliable, (inasmuch as the God of Christianity and Judaism is a God who reveals himself in and through history,) it is first and foremost a theological work; a theological commentary on history, if you will. Therefore it’s both exegetically and historically unsound to read the OT as a scientific cosmology.

Mr. Andrews

The view that "questioning and reason are the enemies of religion" was (and I daresay still is) a view held by religious luminaries. While the view cannot be credibly voiced in this day and age, Martin Luther himself called reason a "whore, and the enemy of faith". St Augustine cautioned the faithful not to be tempted by the "disease of curiosity", and to not seek answers to the mysteries of nature.

You will find that these views are held by some, but not all, religious luminaries. I see you neglected to cite the views of, for instance, Thomas Aquinas and Maimonides, not to mention Jesus, concerning the relationship between faith and reason.

[Harry Harris]

The argument that God is paranormal or supernatural is surely falacious since if the Diety exists He is part of nature as it now is and therefore as normal as the wind. He is just not understood. As to the origin of existence, either existence never had a beginning nor will it have an end i.e. it just 'is' or existence was created by God who never had a beginning nor an end. No matter how far you push the frontier back eventually you come up against an eternal 'is'. As to the physical makeup of existence I wonder if it is a continuous chain reaction which in one dimension begins with a big bang caused by a black hole in another demension i.e. existence of each dimension begins with a big bang caused by a black hole and ends with a black hole which gives rise to another big bang. Is the unified theory of everything God or 'Is'? The fact of existence would seem to be more logically explained in terms of there being a God who is existence or who created it. As intelligence and compassion are part of existence it must surely follow that God or 'Is' has intelligence and compassion. As to religion there are so many that I think you pay your money and you take your choice as to which if any appeals to you

[Marc Draco]

Very interesting stuff, your interview with the great Prof. Dawkins.

I wish there were more like you around - particularly as some of us are facing militant theism from the likes of Sir Peter Vardy and Nigel McQuoid here in Middlesbrough. The point that seems most often missed in these debates is, perhaps, the most obvious: we don't need a faith in (or fear of) the supernatural to live moral lives. Christianity in the UK has become a easy synonym for secular humanism and it's this fact that a small minority like Sir Peter use to promote their own eccentric brand of faith in the supernatural to an unwitting audience. While the basic idea may be laudible, it's high time that this position was openly reviewed and reversed.

You might be interested in this short letter of mine that appeared in the National Secular Society's mailout:

** From Marc Draco:*
Alan Gore makes a valid point about fairies (Newsline last week), but perhaps the point of the petition was lost. As a parent, at no time have I been made aware of my right to withdraw my children from "fairy" worship (even though I am aware of it) and this applies to no less than four different schools.

Moreover, when I exercised that right at local primary, my children (10 and 6 at the time) were made to feel like pariahs; as was I. Eventually, for my children's social wellbeing I had to cave in and return them. When the elder one was choosing Secondary, the local comp (Peter Vardy's Emmanuel Schools Foundation-run King's Academy) could not guarantee that they could be excluded from religious worship or teaching in spite of my specific instruction. In the end, I chose a run-down comp several miles away at extra cost where they could and would (respect my wishes).

This raises some interesting points.

1. Why aren't all parents made aware of their right to withdraw children from fairy worship as a matter of course?
2. Why isn't there adequate provision for those children whose parents do feel this way?
3. Why is it necessary for a minority to impose a view on the majority who are Christian by default and in reality more likely secular or agnostic?
4. Why is the ESF (again) being allowed to trample on the rights of children to be educated as their parents desire?

The first two are the most important and it's high time we had an open and frank debate so that more parents could openly choose to be secular: perhaps with an option to OPT IN not opt out.*

Marc
www.marcdraco.co.uk

[Peter Farrington]

Dear Paul

I think you are rather playing with my words.

I cannot provide YOU with irrefutable proof of my wife's existence. Even if I introduced her to you it might well be that you decide to reject my assertion that she is my wife.

I am satisfied that I have reasonable proof of God's existence and that it is not an interior monologue. You certainly cannot prove to me irrefutably your own religious point of view which is that God does not exist.

I could very justifiably state that you only want to hope that Dawkins is right because you fear to face ultimate reality.

Dawkins is wrong because he profoundly misunderstands Christian experience, and therefore what he rails against is not something that most Christians accept as a description of their faith.

Every day I have proofs of God's existence, not an interior monologue at all but a constant series of external interventions in my life and that of others around me. That is plenty of proof for me.

But those who will not believe in God will believe anything rather than in God. Dawkins is evidence of this, and his increasingly desperate assaults on Christianity only serve to show that there is a God shaped hole in his life that he cannot fill. He is not very convincing at all, and certainly not very faith shaking, any more than you insisting my wife didn't exist would not shake my faith in her reality.

Visible and tangible...that only shows that you have no experience of God who is visible and tangible to those who know Him and are known by Him.

Ruth.. What is with the constant attacks on Christianity by the Times?

[Paul Caira]

Does Peter Farrington really feel no surer of his wife's existence than of God's? She's visible and tangible, for a start. We don't need irrefutable evidence to believe things - certainly not of that standard.

But there is NO trustworthy evidence of God that doesn't quickly collapse under cool analysis. We all have interior monologues, and in many cases, often because of our upbringing, these become dialogues, we believe that the person talking in our heads, consoling us, advising us, is not actually a part of our minds, but is really someone else, and we are encouraged, by Christianity at least, to believe that it is the creator of the universe doing it, and will sometimes state that we've had a wonderful relationship with "Him" for 40 years. But it really is a delusion.

People loathe Dawkins (I remember doing so myself) because they don't want to hear what he's saying: There isn't a Santa Claus, it's time to grow up. They loathe him too, because in their heart of hearts, they fear he may be onto something.

[Peter Aughton]

I note with astonishment and some concern that Richard
Dawkins has received yet more free publicity for THE
GOD DELUSION (God...in other words, Times 2, 10 May
2007. In addition, there is to be an article in The
Times on Saturday by Dawkins effectively further
publicising the book. There is significantly less
attention being paid to Alister McGrath's THE DAWKINS
DELUSION which logically destroys much of Dawkins's
arguments. I hope I am not alone in hoping that there
may be a redress to this imbalance and that McGrath
may be given the opportunity to present the
alternative point of view. He is particularly suited
to the task, being an ex-atheist.

[Peter Farrington]

Dear Heredal

I hope that you have not deliberately misrepresented Tom Jackson. Where did he say that there was no proof and no evidence? He merely stated that there was no irrefutable evidence.

I have spent the last 40 years in a wonderful relationship with God and find compelling evidence of His presence and reality every day. But I doubt it is irrefutable in the sense that by waving it in front of Dawkins he would have to say 'Fair cop. There is a living, loving God'.

Do I have irrefutable prrof that my wife exists? I don't think I do. The photo in my wallet could be forged. She might have disappeared when I take you home to meet her and have taken all her clothes with her. Would that mean that *I* had no reasonable evidence to believe that she existed merely because I did not have irrefutable evidence to convince you?

I don't think so.

Can we prove irrefutably that Amundsen beat Scott to the South Pole? I don't think so.

It is actually very hard to irrefutably prove anything. We usually work on probabilities and personal experience.

And in my experience and on the basis of a great deal of reasonable evidence I have faith in God, not blind faith at all, but faith in someone I know and who I experience day by day.

Faith is not hoping SOMETHING is true, it is trusting in SOMEONE.

[MICHAEL ANDREWS]

Mr Beckett.
The view that "questioning and reason are the enemies of religion" was (and I daresay still is) a view held by religious luminaries. While the view cannot be credibly voiced in this day and age, Martin Luther himself called reason a "whore, and the enemy of faith". St Augustine cautioned the faithful not to be tempted by the "disease of curiosity", and to not seek answers to the mysteries of nature.

Moving on, why is it so hard for people to imagine a "mind blowing" physical explanation for the universe and life, if not existance? For what amount of time did we (homo sapiens, a species 200,000 years old) believe the Earth was flat? Could it have even been imagined? A gigantic floating ball (so big you can't even tell it's [it is]round while you're standing on it) and you can't fall off it, even if you're underneath!

From Prof. Dawkins - "it would be hard to ask a medieval peasant for a word that sums up Boeing 747s and computers and televisions."

The future discoveries Prof. Dawkins envisages will be just as unimaginable to us, but no more attributable to the supernatural. This is the only thing history has shown us. Science advances. Religion retreats.

[Heredal]

An interesting piece, but does it tell us anything we didn't already know about Dawkins? TGD is far from his best work, but probably the only one lots of 'lay' people have read, and by 'lay' I mean non-scientists. TGD doesn't actually represent the man or his thoughts as well as some of his other works.

But to consider Tom Jackson who says:

"If I were able to produce irrefutable evidence of the existence of a Christian God, so removing the need for "spiritual apprehension of divine truth apart from proof", one of the foundational aspects of God's requirement of us would be redundant; to trust and believe in Him, to have faith."

That's rather the conundrum, isn't it? No proof, no evidence - just belief - bllind faith. Look at it through a child's eyes. As a child, you are born without a belief in a god. We are all born atheists, unpalatable as that might be. It then depends who gets to you first to instruct you with what god it is in which you should have this blind faith. Hence childen born to Muslim parents, for example, grow up to believe something quite different from children of Sikh, Hindu, Catholic, Mormon or whatever, although they can change their belief if they want to. That all may believe passionately that their vision of the spiritual dimension is the one true faith, at a cost of all others being false, is neither here nor there.

If there is no evidence or proof, and an essential requirement for a deity to 'exist' is that humans must have that blind faith, as Tom says, then clearly you are free to believe in absolutely anything at all, aren't you? Or indeed, in absolutely nothing at all, ie that there is no spiritual dimension, or if there is, it is not home to what others call "god". Both positions are equally valid, in that neither can be proved nor disproved.

In his intro to Hawking's A Brief History of Time, Carl Sagan says Hawking embarks in that book on a quest to answer the famous Einstein question about whether 'god' had any choice in creating the universe. Sagan says Hawking arrives at the conclusion in ABHOT that we live in "a universe with no edge in space, no beginning or end in time, and nothing for a creator to do". In its own way Hawking's book does much, much more to query God's pitch that Dawkins feeble rant.

When will Ruth be interviewing Hawking?

[Richard]

A lot of people are taking Richard Dawkins' admission that there may be something big and beautiful and thinking "Aha! He's hinting at the Christian God", presumably with all the things that entails.

You can't take the concept that there may be something big and beautiful underlying or in the world and from that deduce all that stuff about Jesus, or about the Bible, or about how people of other religions are wrong. It's like saying "Through this small keyhole I see a little bit of red, so there must be a London Bus there. I know about London Buses, so it must be!" when there may be just a small red tomato.

I find it easy to take Richard's description of something big and divine and beautiful in the world and think of my severely cut down ideas of Brahman. That may be nice for me, but I can't deduce anything else about Richard's beliefs from it. A Muslim may think of Allah, A Sikh of Sata-Nama and so forth. Some of the associated beliefs are mutually exclusive. They can't all be right.

[Alun ap Rhisiart]

Mr Beckett.
Unfortunately, delusion and wishful thinking are easy to fall into. Religion seems to be a good example. We could all believe in astrology, or a flat earth, or a moon made of cheese, but I prefer to base beliefs on evidence and reason (but not reason alone). If you base beliefs on evidence, and since new evidence is always possible, you must be open to revising your beliefs.
As for creation myths and gods, humans have invented a great many. The ones in genesis are no more cogent than most. They are contradictory; if they were true they would not be, even without being read 'theologically'. Much else in the bible is also either self-contradictory or contrary to what we now know about the world. Therefore, the idea that these stories are inspired by some omniscient being is simply not credible. Let's not even start with the whole business about us all being guilty of a crime we didn't commit, or that we can be let off by accepting a scapegoat, nor the statements about a benevolent creator which are clearly contradicted by what the bible itself says. However, this all gives too much attention one of very many gods, and not the most convincing one.
I agree, though, that there is a difference between a person and a set of beliefs that a person currently holds. The reason underlying beliefs in supernatural beings may be something I sympathise with, and people should not be castigated for it. That does not mean that religious superstitions get a free pass, however. Religion does not automatically deserve respect, even if people often do.

[Karen]

Ruth
A very entertaining interview. I have some questions for you. The way that Richard Dawkins describes the possibility of a "transcendent intelligence" indicates he is at most open to the possibility of deism, ie the belief in a supernatural creator who does not intervene in the world. He specifically says that he has a problem with belief in the resurrection. Your comments on this suggest that both you and he agree that intelligent Christians (and half of the bishops) are deists and do not believe in the resurrection. Furthermore by saying that "His main beef in fact is with fundamentalism" you imply that only fundamentalists believe in the resurrection. Is this the impression you intended to create? Belief in the resurrection is central to christianity. How can someone who does not believe in the resurrection recite the creed in church? If any bishop does not believe in the resurrection, would it not be more honest for him to resign his post?

(rg writes: karen, busy woman that I am, I will leave it to others here to answer these questions....)

[Dr. Irene Lancaster]

The miracles of science. After half a year of trying, or more, this time the trackback has worked.

I remember that when you first mentioned Richard Dawkins and his attack on the Bible, it was the Jewish holiday of Succot, after which we start saying the prayer for rain.

And it rained buckets and buckets here in Haifa. Then there were the great thunders and lightnings and it was obvious at the time that someone was very cross with Richard.

Then my computer was hit by one of the bolts on Mount Carmel and I had to get a new one (this was around New Year).

And, as I say, this is the first time for ages that the track-back has worked.

I think that this is completely symptomatic of your praiseworthy attempt to marry Science and Religion and that someone (I daren't use the G word) is no longer cross, but rather happy.

Yes, I think you should definitely be canonised, or at least the blog should, for achieving the near impossible - i.e. getting the Typepad track-backs to work.

The L--d certainly does move in mysterious way.

[simon (adams)]

Frank:Then came Einstein, who changed the whole ball game - the rotter!

Then came Bohr, Pauli and Heisenberg etc who didn't just change the whole ball game - they turned the whole thing upside-down and inside-out!

Lord Kelvin made undeniably significant contributions to the development of science - he shaped much of what we know in thermodynamics etc. And yet in 1900 he said "There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement."

The more complex and sophisticated science becomes, the less it encourages people to see that it is of itself limited both by the breadth of its remit, and by our own very partial understanding.

[Frank Schnittger]

Towards the end of the 1800's/early 1900's Scientists came to the dispiriting conclusion that all the major discoveries had been made and that the job of Scientists would from thenceforth be to fill in the gaps and the details.

Then came Einstein, who changed the whole ball game - the rotter!

There's always one.

[William Beckett]

I’m glad to learn Dawkins isn’t arrogant as he’s believed to be. Perhaps the problem is less with Dawkins than his followers. Don Gardner’s article, posted here by Michael Andrews, is a good example of what I mean:

“Well, it goes something like this: If you claim that something is true, I will examine the evidence which supports your claim; if you have no evidence, I will not accept that what you say is true and I will think you a foolish and gullible person for believing it so.”

It's sound judgment to reject claims for which there is no evidence (provided one has actually determined that there is in fact no evidence, rather than simply declaring in advance that certain kinds of evidence are out of court).

However, reaching a conclusion about the character and motives of the persons whose claims we reject is an altogether different procedure from assessing the truth or falsity of their claims. Sometimes such conclusions are pertinent and justified, other times not.

Therefore it's reasonable to charge a person with being angry, arrogant, and bigoted (and perhaps even fanatical) when this person concludes, as a matter of course, that all who can't muster sufficient or acceptable evidence for their beliefs are gullible fools. I think Mr. Gardner is open to this charge.

Mr. Mark Andrews:

Those who've been au courant since about, oh 1700 or so, know that Christianity has had to "stand up to it's [sic] feared enemy of questioning and reason" since the age of Voltaire. And I don't think anyone ever painted him, the most reasonable and polite of atheists, as a fanatic. But you're half right: "the traditional view dies hard." The traditional view, that is, that questioning and reason are the greatest enemies of religion.

Mr. Alun ap Rhisiart:

The creation accounts in Genesis are contradictory when read as historical, factual descriptions of the steps God took in creating the universe. However, when Genesis is read theologically, both accounts affirm the same truth: God created the universe, no matter how you account for the way he chose to create it.

PS, If you have time and are so inclined, I'd like to know what evidence you rely on to substantiate your belief that "all beliefs are open to question and revision."

[Emanuel Appel]

a letter from America

Dear Ruth,

Kudos. A very enlightening piece for which I congratulate you.

Knowledge and eloquence is to be admired. I have nothing else to say.

[Tom Jackson]

"So Prof. Dawkins says to you, Tom Jackson, "If you claim that something is true, I will examine the evidence which supports your claim..." and so on."

I am neither an evangelist, an academic or a fundamentalist so any attempt on my part to identify, collect and present evidence for the existence of God would be pointless and inappropriate. And that is where so many sceptics and atheists miss the point.

I maintain that is illogical to suggest the Universe that we know (and that beyond which still remains a mystery to us) does not have a design, a structure which reveals a supreme power and intelligence.

Once you accept that, I go on to suggest it is perfectly reasonable to recognise the severe limitations of our human experience and intelligence in relation to this supreme Being. It would therefore be foolish to formulate theories which deny the possibility of a God, from this limited awareness.

Now this isn't proof; there is no evidence which can be examined by the scientific community and any claim I make to "truth" is formed from personal experience - filtered through years of a growing familiarity with Christian teaching, beliefs and history on a level which, for example, equates with love between two people; it cannot be proved, there is no evidence but on some level, you either believe in it or you don't.

If I were able to produce irrefutable evidence of the existence of a Christian God, so removing the need for "spiritual apprehension of divine truth apart from proof", one of the foundational aspects of God's requirement of us would be redundant; to trust and believe in Him, to have faith.

I understand that is difficult for people who demand proof in every aspect of their lives, who find it difficult to subjugate their understanding of themselves as self-contained, self-sufficient individuals but many scientists and academics have made that leap when faced with the reality and exquisite balance of God's Creation.

[simon (adams)]

Great interview Ruth.

I love the way the following (the root of modern atheist belief);

At the beginning of the 21st century, humanity is approaching a staggeringly impressively near-to-complete understanding. It’s hugely exciting to be a member of this elite species at this time when our understanding of physics, biology and cosmology are so exciting and near complete.

...is shortly followed by;

“I think it’ll be something wonderful and amazing and something difficult to understand. [...]“But that gigantic intelligence itself would need an explanation. [...] These are all science-fiction suggestions but I am trying to overcome the limitations of the 21st-century mind.

Apart from the inbuilt contradiction in the idea that we nearly understand everything, but are at present not able to understand the most fundamental existential questions, I do get a sense that the prayers are starting to work! A thought that was thoughroughly reinforced by the next line;

"It’s going to be grander and bigger and more beautiful and more wonderful and it’s going to put theology to shame.”

Reminds me very much of a statement Aquinas made near the end of his life, which I'll describe with the help of Wikipedia;

Aquinas had a mystical experience while celebrating Mass on December 6, 1273. At this point, he set aside his Summa. When asked why he had stopped writing, Aquinas replied, "I cannot go on . . . All that I have written seems to me like so much straw compared to what I have seen and what has been revealed to me."

If only those nutty fundamentalists (on both sides) didn't spend so much time making religion look like something for the needy and stupid, the rest of us could have a far more interesting discussion. And after that interview, I'd find it hard to call Dawkins a fundamentalist anymore :)

[B. Les Lancaster]

In itself the notion that Physics may in the future discover something ‘wonderful and amazing’ is little more than a vacuous statement of faith. ‘Vacuous’ in the same way that ‘jam tomorrow’ is invariably unfulfilled, and ‘faith’ in that the statement depends on the supposition that all seeming mysteries are ultimately addressable through the tradition of science.

Dawkins’ additional comment that ‘all theological conceptions will be seen as parochial and petty by comparison to [the discovery in physics]’ raises further issues. In the first place, it reveals a naivety about theology that is unacceptable for a scholar who purports to have useful things to contribute in this area. But rather than discuss the sophisticated conceptions in religious traditions of the inner mystery that we inadequately label as ‘God’, I wish to consider two crucial points that are simply glossed over in Dawkins’ faith in Science. The first concerns the nature of Science itself, and the second relates more to my own discipline of transpersonal psychology.

The power of Science as we know it lies in the twin pillars of explanatory power and observation. A theory that may have recognisable explanatory power is not deemed to be ‘scientific’ if its terms and predictions are not observable. There are real questions today about the potential ‘observability’ of phenomena relating to the leading edge of theorising in Physics and Astrophysics (‘M-theory’ and the ‘multiverse’, for example). Note that this is not simply a statement about the limitations of current apparatus (as was the case in the past) but reflects the fact that these areas of theory extend beyond the absolute limits of observation (as understood by science) It seems that progress towards the kind of quantum leap forward that Dawkins envisages will be impossible for science as we understand it. A sophisticated grasp of the paths through which humankind extends its knowledge must recognise that science as we know it is limited and that the kind of ‘science’ that might be capable of the kind of breakthrough envisaged will differ from the traditional vision of science in critical ways. The only point I wish to make here is that a ‘science’ that holds to ‘explanatory power’ whilst compromising on ‘observability’ is not so far removed from the highest expressions of theology and mysticism.

The mention of ‘mysticism’ brings me to the second point. The defining hallmark of the term ‘God’ lies not only in its explanatory power but also in its closeness to the essence of mind and consciousness. This need not imply a simplistic concept of a personal God as some kind of father-figure. But it does suggest that consciousness entails a mystery that ultimately penetrates into the presence of meaning in the cosmos. The sense of continuity with a greater whole and the knowledge that some form of transformation to an enriched level of being is achievable form the foundation from which transpersonal psychology has grown. The rich literature of this discipline testifies to the ways in which these two core ideas – continuity with the greater whole and the potential for transformation – make a difference to our lives. This fact is not easily dismissed as reflecting the delusions of the weak-minded. On the contrary, it reflects the reality that now, as in the past, the deeply-thinking individual has a choice – whether to live in a cosmos that pulsates with meaning, morality and potential or to make an idol of the physical with its mantra of randomness. Dawkins is free to make his choice, but he seriously evades his responsibilities when he asserts that there is no choice for those of us who wish to truly examine the evidence.

[Graeme Smith]

Great interview and article and the one thought I was left with is that the Professor wants to limit this thing that he says will be "something wonderful and amazing and something difficult to understand". If he truly believes that this incredible 'being' will be so difficult for us humans to understand is he not describing a God-like figure? This leads to the conclusion that if it is difficult to understand its ways, why is it not possible for it to be interested in the small details of our own?