The McGrath Delusion – a response to The Dawkins Delusion, yet another theologian adding nothing!
The McGraths, although I suspect more Alister McGrath, created ‘The Dawkins Delusion’ an odd book which I read hoping to find some sort of logical argument against Dawkins. Right at the start of the book McGrath expressed a God Delusion moment of realisation, after a lecture someone came up to him stating that he had to rethink his position on atheism. Still I can’t really find any argument for the religious cause in the book other than a lot of misunderstanding on behalf of McGrath; to simply state that any belief might be justifiable although not provable is a comfortable place to sit since you don’t therefore have to add anything to the debate and no one can argue against you, one belief which is dismissed is intelligent design which is fair enough. Let’s look at these evil fundamental atheists who would teach their dogma to their children, throughout the God Delusion Dawkins never once said that children should never be taught about religion rather that children should be told about all religions. The concern for McGrath is, reading between the lines, that we atheists would teach our children to be intolerant towards religious people (or that God is reduced to the level of the tooth fairy). Umm… You should perhaps read my new rule about tolerance! Dawkins position is to teach every child about all religions, something Dennett agrees with and something which I think should be part of everyone’s education. That is not an aggressive stand point!
I think the biggest issue in science is somehow presented by Dawkins as something which battles religion, I agree completely with this although I don’t think it is a true representation of Dawkins work. McGrath argues that the God Delusion disproves God and the core assumption for all Dawkins followers is that there is no God. Neither of these points are correct, the God Delusion never disproves God, at most it disproves religion and secondly Dawkins at no point has ever said that with absolute reason there is no God just the high likelihood that there is not. So for McGrath to claim that Dawkins does not understand the difference between God and religion is intelligential dishonest, bearing this in mind McGrath also cites that a number of scientists claim to believe in a God which they can communicate with and this is evidence to the fact that religion and science don’t null each other out. What is presented in The Dawkins Delusion is a survey conducted which asked scientists about God which they can communicate with not a religious God which might entail a number of rituals or rites; to me at least this suggests that McGrath himself cannot separate the two. Paul Davies, a scientist, is said to have dismissed the Christian God but not that there is divinity out there somewhere. This is a perfectly acceptable claim because first it does not define God and secondly it does not make claims to knowing what is right. The argument by Dawkins is that religion has its own definition of God and knows of its claims to truth; this is not addressed by McGrath anywhere. What is shown by McGrath, giving examples of religious scientists, is that scientists can sit within religion while not rejecting it. This does not make it compatible, it shows we can all be irrational.
Another issue that McGrath has, although admittedly on the same theme, is that of atheists doing bad things, citing the example of the Tamil Tigers and former Soviet Union, who removed religion with force and violence. This is compared to Dawkins statement that no atheist would cause 9/11 only those who are religious would perform such an act. What surprises me is when you compare The Soviet Union (& perhaps China today) with the societies which are very religious such as El Salvador or Iran, you tend to get the same result. Nasty things happen normally to those who are at the end of “have rights” list, this argument is tired because its one dogma with another sort of dogma whether it happens to be religious or not. On the other hand comparing the countries mentioned so far with European countries, which happen to have the most atheists in them, you see something completely different. A healthy society which has and is becoming fairer, the European convention on Human rights which has been ratified almost completely is an example. McGrath does mention to his credit that there are some things within religion that do need amendments, still remember this both McGrath and Dawkins were brought up in the UK. The UK has laws which forbid the discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation, gender and race apart from when it’s under one label – Religion. McGrath please clean up your own house before throwing stones at atheists.
A few more things that McGrath gets wrong, Darwinism is based on everything being accidental, this is not the case, see my earlier writings on this matter. Darwin’s theory of evolution is not the best explanation in science about how we got here because it’s been over a hundred years, we’ve moved on a little bit since then in our understanding. McGrath has outdone himself on this point “It is far from clear why Dawkins neglects to engage with Freud”. The reason behind this is very simple; Freud was not a scientists and even Popper who is mentioned in the Dawkins delusion never considered any explanation by Freud to be one of a scientific nature. So it should be quite clear why Dawkins never uses Freud in is arguments since no scientist would ever do so! This brings me to the final point, one which I have to admit I kind of agree on; Dawkins does not really have the ability to explain the psychological aspect of religion. I don’t think that McGrath is best placed to do so either, he used the world cognitive (or thinking) without an explanation many times and suggests that more work needs to be done in this area. Although I think post-structural psychologists would argue that explanations are out there and Sam Harris’s work in the future will be of particular interest hopefully in the next few years. Overall, I was hopeful that the Dawkins Delusion would actually have some content to it, sadly it appears to be an empty book. The attack on Dawkins work is not structured even though it might be of some worth on the theology book shelve I would like to use on of McGrath’s own insults towards Dawkins – You need to live in the real world! We are left in the position of asking the McGraths if you had some serious points to make, why did you not make them?
