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A Review of
Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion Part IV
August 31, 2007, Wausau, Wi — I ended
part III of my review of Richard Dawkins’, “The God Delusion” by pointing out that atheism, like
all world views, involves a component of faith.
It is not the completely reason and evidence based system that it claims
to be. This time I want to look at what is
at best a strange line of argument made by Dawkins, but it is an argument which
is increasingly common among atheists.
On page 20,
Dawkins writes, “A widespread assumption, which nearly everybody in our society
accepts – non-religious included – is that religious faith is especially
vulnerable to offence and should be protected by an abnormally thick wall of
respect, in a different class from the respect that any human being should pay
to another.”
To anyone
even remotely familiar with the assaults to which Christians and Christianity
are routinely subjected, Dawkins statement will come as somewhat of a surprise.
To justify this strange claim, Dawkins points that “In Northern Ireland,
Catholics and Protestants are euphemized to ‘Nationalists’ and ‘Loyalists’
respectively.” Yet this hardly is
showing any deference to religion. What Dawkins’ neglects is the historical
fact that the conflict in Ireland existed long before there was any difference
in religion. In fact it is more likely that
the difference in religion was caused by the conflict rather than the conflict
caused by the difference in religion.
Another way
Dawkins’ attempts to show that religion has some sort of preference is that
religious leaders are sought out for their opinions on moral issues. While he says he does not want them excluded
from such discussions as he puts it “why does our society beat a path to their
door, as though they had some expertise compare to that of, say, the moral
philosopher, a family lawyer or a doctor?”
One reason
perhaps is that, while Dawkins may not like it, religion is a source of moral
teachings. So why wouldn’t we seek the opinions of those trained in a moral
teaching for their advice on morality? A
lawyer is trained in the law, so that might make a lawyer a good source of
legal advice, but what is legal and what is moral are two different
things. There are many things that are
legal and yet immoral. For example, most
everyone, including atheists, would agree that adultery is immoral. Yet it is
legal. In fact one of the big problems I see is that we, as a society are
thinking more in legal terms and less in moral terms. In fact one of the
universities I was associated with, required its instructors of ethics to be
lawyers. Thus a common defense we frequently hear for questionable actions is,
“but there was nothing illegal” as if that makes everything ok. Much the same can be said about doctors.
They are trained to give medical treatment, not moral advice. ‘Practices safe sex, and everything is ok.’
While the
moral philosopher has at least studied morality, one could just as easily ask,
what makes them automatically more qualified than a theologian? Moral
philosophers may be trained to think about moral issues, but what are they
using as a basis for their moral view?
At least for a theologian, the basis for their moral beliefs is pretty
clear. With many moral philosophers, it is not clear at all. The situation is
sort of like having two doctors, one who was trained at a school you know well,
and another whom you have no idea where or how they were trained. Which would
you trust with your life?
Several of
the other examples of the supposed “unparalleled presumption of respect for
religion”, involve Islam, and actually argue more for a special status for
Islam than for religion. For example, Dawkins
points to the recent incidence of the Danish cartoons that caused riots in the
Muslim world, and how newspapers “expressed ‘respect’ and ‘sympathy’ for the
deep ‘offence’ and ‘hurt’ that Muslims had ‘suffered.’” (pg 27) I know that
here in the United States, many news organization refused to even show the
cartoons.
The main
problem with Dawkins’ argument is that his examples are not representative of
religion in general. For example, with
the Danish cartoons, while deference and respect was clearly paid to Islam,
there is no such similar deference paid to Christianity. When Andre Seranno received a grant from the government to
place a crucifix in a jar of his own
urine in the name of art, most of the complaints were that it was government
funded. More importantly the newspapers were not sympathizing with the hurt
felt by Christians, but instead attacking them for being intolerant and trying
to stifle artistic freedom. There was
much the same reaction when, again in the name of art, a picture of the Virgin
Mary was smeared in Elephant dung. Then
there was the play that depicted Jesus has a homosexual. When Christians complained, and justifiably
so, about these and many other affronts, there were no calls to understand
there hurt, but rather they were label intolerant and were accused of
censorship.
In fact,
the affronts against Christianity and Christians are now so common, that even
many Christians accept them as a normal part of life in 21st century
America. Thus like so many of Dawkins’
claims, the claim that there is some sort of deference paid to Christianity, is
simply false, and shows a massive misunderstanding of the actual situation.
See www.consider.org for additional information.
The book and press materials are available upon request.
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