I've recently picked up a few new books, and just finished reading two closely intertwined books on religion, atheism, faith, science, and reason. Both books are written by outspoken atheists. The first is "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, who is the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, not to mention probably the world's most outspoken proponent of both atheism and Darwinian evolution and natural selection. The second is "Letter to a Christian Nation" by Sam Harris, a doctoral candidate in neuroscience, and previous author of "The End of Faith". Both of these books are currently lingering in the top 10 ofAmazon.com's bookseller list.
These books have been written on nearly parallel tracks, and in fact reference each other, as well as at least one other book I picked up but have not yet read, "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon" by American philosopher Daniel C. Dennett. Both Dawkins and Harris make similar arguments regarding the problems and perils of religious faith.
Dawkins makes a much more scholarly, scientific, and thorough approach, and clocking in at 406 pages, to Harris' 96 pages, one can see that these very similar books were intended for slightly different audiences. Dawkins begins with discussing respect, deserved and underserved, for religion. One of the central themes both authors have talked about is that in virtually all endeavors, we expect and respect things like evidence, conformity to reality, and verifiability. The major exception, they argue, is religion. Religion has been getting a pass where if it were any other subject, we would demand proof, especially in light of outrageous claims. We are told, from the earliest times, that religion is to be respected. That a person's belief should be respected, and that religion is sacred; that is that religion should not be questioned, or criticized, or taken to task when it is clearly spouting nonsense. Faith is to be cherished, and often in religion, where you have no proof that a thing is true, your faith in it, despite evidence to the contrary, is expected to be regarded as a noble virtue. Both conclude, as I would, that this is a very poor idea.
Dawkins goes into some of the current and historical arguments for belief in god, from Thomas Aquinas' 'proofs' to Pascal's Wager, to Bayesian probability arguments. He tears them pieces with wit, logic, and reasoning. He then goes into his argument why there almost certainly is no god. He lays the foundation of his own work and the work of biologists, physicists, and scientists: why our existance can only be adequately explained by naturalism, natural phenomena, and the long, slow ratcheting up of complexity through evolution and non-random natural selection, that 'the God hypothesis' (and it is a scientific hypothesis), is a failed one, and only evolution makes any sense at all given the massive amounts of evidence we've collected. He talks about his arguments with his longtime debater and fellow Darwinian, the late Stephen Jay Gould, who argued for NOMA (non-overlapping magisteria), in which Science and Religion have no overlap, and that both can quietly coexist without stepping on each other's toes. Dawkins clearly to my mind rips up this apologist nonsense, and shows there is a very real conflict, that faith and reason are mutually incompatible worldviews, and that to be intellectually honest you must choose.
Dawkins makes some conjecture as to the possible Darwinian reasons why religion might naturally arise, and his argument that our ability to conceive religion and faith are by-products of other structural and biological developments that have evolved over time, as our species grew out of previous forms, was quite interesting.
He addresses morality in the absence of faith, and that there are perfectly natural moral responses that come about without any supernatural belief, much less fear of punishment in a fictional afterlife. He points to the animal kingdom to show how moral and cooperative behavior comes about as adaptive and useful developments.
He does a short, if excellent critical analysis of the Bible (a more comprehensive treatment can be found here, and why much of the 'morality' discussed in the 'good book' is in fact horrid and repugnant. I agreed with his assessment in the beginning of the book, that
"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic,
racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomanical, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."
He then goes to show that the New Testament is little better. He takes on the argument that several high profile atheists (and incorrectly claimed atheists) in history that have been bullies and butchers themselves. Finally, he
addresses, why it is that he seems so hostile to religious belief. He doesn't thrive on controversy, or try to be mean or seek conflict, but his arguments that religious beliefs are providing cover for violence and misery, subverting knowledge, science, reason, rationality are compelling, and I fully understand his controversial approach.
His conclusions that religious indoctrination of children is tantamount to mental child abuse is, in my opinion, uncomfortably spot-on. There have been a few outstanding arguments against faith and religious nonsense, and I would consider this book to instantly take a place among these arguments. Anyone attached to faith or religion, to a belief system they were raised with, which bears little resemblence to the real world, should challenge themselves to read this book.
Harris' book is a much shorter approach, containing many of the same arguments, but aimed at the fundamentalist Christian in America. I took it to be a kind of extended pamphlet meant to rouse the major points of argument against religious belief, but without the drier scholarship of Dawkin's book. Think of 'Letter to a Christian Nation' as a kind of Cliff's Notes take on the modern arguments against faith, and the dangers of religious dogma in the 21st Century. Both make persuasive arguments and points, but overall I preferred Dawkin's approach.
The sad fact is that I doubt seriously that many 'persons of faith' will read, much less allow these books to challenge their cherished belief systems. My experience is that most of the religiously devout are quite dogmatic and Pavlovian, that the memeplex of religion is a self-reinforcing and culturally-reinforced delusion, a metaphorical massive mental viral infection of false dogmas that are inocculated in the minds of children from the earliest days, taking advantage of their mind's plasticity and nature to accept whetever they are told as true, in thrall to Bronze and Iron Age nonsense, used to justify war, destruction, hatred, control, misogyny, and host of crimes too numerous to list. Add to this the increasing tendency toward seperatist culture by Chrisitan fundamentalists and evangelicals, and I doubt it will make their radar screens, except as an object of scorn.
I am living in a world where every day science and reason and knowledge are under attack from ignorance and irrationality. It has to stop. I have been told that I should accept religion, be tolerant of religion, and respect religion, even while religion is making me less safe, calling me the most hated religious minority (atheist), subverting knowledge, repressing women, sexuality, science, and destroying all the good and useful things in life. Respect is earned. Religious belief has done little to earn respect in the last thousand years, and it should not be beyond questioning, criticism, or verification with reality. If a few small details of the popular faiths were changed (change God to Zeus and Jesus to Poseidon and see how crazy religious texts sound), and put to you what your assessment of their belief was, you'd probably think most of the believers of the monotheistic Middle Eastern death cults were stark raving loons. It is time to stop tolerating attacks on reason and logic and rationality in the name of faith and tradition. It is time to draw a conversational line, because we can't afford this dangerous nonsense anymore. Its time to make reasoned and intelligent arguments against the dangers of faith. This is not hatred of the religious, this is tough love. A friend is someone who tells you the truth, even when it is uncomfortable. Going along with the lies of religious dogma isn't getting us anywhere. Most people have the capacity to think rationally, so we must speak against those false traditions and nonsense that is poisoning the minds of so many, many people.
I recommend both books for those looking for a framework of how to approach this. The world seems on the brink of a Christian vs. Muslim holy war, but the real philosophical conflict is reason and naturalism vs. faith and supernaturalism. Reason must win such a conflict, because millions will die and suffer if it does not, and at best we will reap ourselves a new dark age. Reason and science has expanded our knowledge of the universe in the last 200 years more than faith has done in the previous ten thousand. It has brought us abundant agriculture, computers, transportation, communications, mathematics, medicine, means to extend life, to eliminate harsh work, and to set ourselves free to live lives of quality and excellence. Your life is as rich as it is today because of these principles and methods. The supporters of reason and science are outnumbered ten to one, but this is perhaps the most important struggle the world has to face in the coming century. It is time for atheists and humanists to stop being quite so polite and to stand up for the principles of the enlightenment project, to organize, and not be silent any longer.
