The God Delusion

I spent most of my Columbus Day holiday reading Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion", and I hope to finish it in the next couple of days. I have a couple of initial observations and criticisms, but overall I am finding the book thought provoking and, as hard as this is for a "religious" person to admit, dead on in so many ways.

Dawkins makes an excellent point when he argues that religious beliefs should be subject to discussion just like any other irrational beliefs and that they ought not to be privileged or out of bounds solely on the basis of their having a relatively wide distribution. Why, if I posit a supernatural premise, are my ideas beyond debate when the same ideas, without such a premise, are open to discussion? Why does adding a deity to the mix make my propositions any more legitimate than they would be without the deity? If I state that I hate homosexuals because I'm hateful and intolerant, I am a homophobic wanker, but if I state that I hate homosexuals because my invisible friend, the sky god, told me to, I will get a pass in many quarters. If I object to some aspect of the school curriculum because I think it is counterproductive, nobody gives a crap, but if I object to it because it goes against the edicts of my invisible friend, I will likely get a full hearing and free legal services. This makes no sense at all.

Dawkins also does a good job of taking on a number of the arguments for the existence of gods. My favorite is his treatment of the ontological argument. You know the one where if you can conceive a perfect being that being must exist or else it wouldn't be perfect. The same argument could be made that a creator is excellent to the extent that its work of creation is especially difficult. Therefore, a creator that labors under a disability would be more excellent than one who created with ease. What could be more disabling than nonexistence? Therefore, the creator must not exist.

Dawkins is especially hard on what he calls "agnostics", but I think he overlooks the category of agnostic into which I fit. I accept that it would be my burden to prove my irrational beliefs, not the burden of others to disprove them, if I had any interest in offering proofs. I also accept that my irrational beliefs are not suceptible to proof. They are entirely a matter of faith. I do not altogether accept Dawkins' normative assumption that reason is the sole arbiter of the validity of beliefs. It seems to be an unexamined metaphysical assumption of the author that the scientific method is the only legitimate means to arrive at belief about anything.

I am up to the point where Dawkins discusses his memetic theory of religion, and I reckon that he has a pretty good point when he speculates that the predisposition to religiosity is a by-product of the degree of gullibility with which we are endowed by natural selection.

I am not the least bit offended by Dawkins' perspective and even his animosity to religion as a force for evil. I actually share his views in this regard. There are few sources of such mischief as religion, and there is perhaps no better tool for authoritarians to use to bend populations to their will. I differ from Dawkins in that I harbor an irrational belief system, that the teachings of Jesus are right and that God's grace is infinite, which I freely confess. I did not choose to believe these things. Belief is involuntary.