The God Delusion

I finished reading this book a while ago, and up to now haven't got around to posting my thoughts. That's not a surprise, because the book just starts wide of the mark, and just gets wider. It simply doesn't apply to any of the questions I am interested in. That makes it a plain boring. Yes, there's vitriol. Yes, there's way over the top statements. But there's only so many empty statements you can read before you start to wish you were doing something more interesting - like watching paint dry. At least paint doesn't insult everyone else.

So what makes Dawkins views so uninteresting?

His central argument requires God to be a complicated material object. Dawkins paints God as an enormously complex material object. He says,

However statistically improbable the entity you seek to explain by invoking a designer, the designer himself has got to be at least as improbable. God is the
Ultimate Boeing 747.

It doesn't matter that the statement is incorrect about probabilities. What's more worrying is that Dawkins assumes that God is not spiritual, but a material object - his very definition of complex implies something, like the 747, which is made of many parts.

This is totally irrelevant to a rational person. Christians don't believe in a God who is a material object made of material parts. A material object could not be the Christian God. A famous Christian argument states that material object isn't the first cause. A material object couldn't have any of the properties of God, and couldn't be responsible for actions ascribed to God. It's not the same God who acts in my life, and not the God who has acted in history. So if Dawkins is trying to argue against God, why does he define his god in a way which doesn't apply to a Christians or Jews?

In fact, this exactly the opposite of what Christians believe. We don't believe in gods which are material objects. We don't believe in sacred raisin cakes. We don't think that idols created the universe.

Dawkins also equates the word "faith" with irrational belief.

Faith means blind trust, in the absence of evidence even in the teeth of evidence.

That's not how Christians use the word where faith is trust in God. It doesn't reflect the way it is used in the Bible (see Hebrews 11 for examples). We certainly do trust God, but we're not blind. How could you describe Abraham as having blind trust when God appeared to him? Abraham would have been blind if he couldn't see God. Abraham knew that God existed, and did as God commanded.

Dawkins continues with weak arguments and aggressive rhetoric will make his case true. He is constantly putting words (his own) into others mouths - which comes across as distinctly fishy when you've read the original authors.

When he addresses C. S. Lewis he does so for about half a page, before dismissing him. How does he do it so easily? Easy. He says that Lewis didn't consider the possibility that Jesus was just a morally good preacher - but that's exactly what C. S. Lewis does consider. It makes you wonder whether Dawkins even read what he was writing about...

Dawkins points out there are terrible things (shock, horror) that happen in the Bible. For example, he dwells on Lot's incest at length and so says that we can't have got our moral lead from the Bible. He tries to claim that because it is Lot (Abraham's nephew) who is doing it that we should follow. The Christian view is that people aren't perfect, and that goes (especially!) for people whose lives are reported in the Bible as well as for us today. In fact, if he'd bothered to read a little further he would have seen how badly Lot's actions were condemned and what consequences they had. But like so many things, he conveniently left that out...

There are so many bad arguments here, that don't even seem to even engage straightforward Christian responses, (2, 3, 4) to his writing while insulting their intelligence. It makes me wonder if his real aim is to promote his chosen view of science and religion: That they are in conflict. He's obviously gone to great lengths to present himself as a scientist fighting against religion. In a sense then, it doesn't matter to him what people reply. For him, I suspect it's more important to have a heated and hate filled argument - to prove that "science" and religion are at odds - than to search out the truth.

I could go on and on boring anyone who stumbles on my blog to tears, but I won't. The God Delusion isn't worth it. Do something more worthwhile with your life.


Thanks to TwentyHertz for the world's most boring CCTV camera view, and Bart Koop-Henzen for a material, but complicated, 747 and J0nny_t for the war photo.

The God Delusion: Chapter 1

When I was younger, the Iron curtain divided the world and I used to listen to propaganda broadcasts from around the world. I used to particularly enjoy shortwave radio from Poland, Uzbekistan and the BBC. Science in Action was my favourite program. The most far out station I ever heard though was Radio Pyongyang from North Korea.

"The God Delusion" seems to come from the North Korea style of propoganda. Radio Moscow was subtle, and so it was slightly believable. Not so for DPRK. They were full of anecodotes about how corrupt and horrible the West was and void of real information. Living in the West it seemed laughable. That training is very useful for reading "The God Delusion".

The main point of the first chapter is:

Great scientists... who appear to be religious usually turn out not to be.

Off the top of my head I can name many scientists with religious beliefs. Let's see:

Coperinicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Boyle, Bacon, Kelvin, Maxwell, and in quantum mechanics specifically: Max Planck, Born (a Jewish convert to Christianity) and Heisenberg (who was a Lutheran).

I have always thought that people who resort to "Proof by Einstein" is a completely bogus way to argue anything. He treated his wife abysmally - having a mistress, and not even mentioning her in his scientific work - so he's not the sort of person I'd take a moral or religious lead from. I certainly wouldn't expect a Proof by Einstein from a scientist. But that's exactly what Dawkins does.

I think Dawkins portrayl of Einstein as an atheist is best refuted by the Einstein himself:

My position concerning God is that of an agnostic.

A thoughtful agnostic of the type that Dawkins reserves some of his most vicious vitriol for.

We don't have to put up with the type of wishy-washy anecdotal claims from Dawkins about the blanket beliefs of scientists being atheist. There are valid scientific studies into the religious beliefs of top scientists. For example this one:

Our study data do not strongly support the idea that scientists simply drop their religious identities upon professional training, due to an inherent conflict between science and faith.

There are more atheists who become scientists (as a proportion) than in the general population, but the study concludes that this is self-selecting:

It appears that those from non-religious backgrounds disproportionately self-select into scientific professions.

In fact the biggest increase (as a proportion) of people who become leading scientists is not among atheists, but among Jews (2% of the general population compared with 15% of scientists).

The rest of chapter 1 is an anecdotal rant against muslims. It could be taken from any far right wing magazine, and I don't have much time for that type of hatred directed at anybody.

So far this book is only notable because it's rude. Hopefully it will improve...

White Man's Burden

A tribute the Kipling's White man's burden. Some people think that white man's burden has something to do with the US invasion of (previously Spanish) Philippines. I just think Kipling was a frustrated office worker:

Take up the White Man's burden—
Send forth the best ye breed—
Go, bind your sons to offices
To serve their bosses' need;
To wait, in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild—
You're new-caught sullen peoples,
Half caffeine and half child.

Take up the White Man's burden--
In queues to abide,
To veil the threat of error
By cheque and show and pride;
By open speech rejected,
An hundred times made plain:
We seek another's profit,
And work for no one's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--
Pointless flame wars of hate--
Fulfil the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness wait;
And when your goal is nearest
The end of waiting sought,
Watch sloth and office Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But foil of serf and sweeper--
In even common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go demand of them your living,
And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
To blame those who do better,
To hate those who guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought it us this bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not aim for art--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To free your human heart;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh on God and you.

Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold edged, but dear-bought paychecks,
Will trade your life for beers.

Poverty

We can get a £0.01 flight across Europe. It is a similar distance to people in Sudan and Sub-Saharan Africa. How can we possibly have let things like this happen?

Francis Colins

Francis Colins is the leader of the Human Genome Project. This was a really interesting talk that made some good points both about science and Christianity. He read Mere Christianity and it had a deep impact on him, as it is having on me. It is inspiring to see someone so brave to cross the gap between Christianity and science when atheists are on the war-path trying to silence people like him, to claim science as their own.


Among the more interesting things he says in this video:

I find not a shred of conflict between what I know as a scientist and what I believe as a believer. I know that surprises a lot of people. I think that is unfortunate, because the public often only hears about the conflict - about the idea that there are irreconcilable differences between believers and scientists.

I could quote of lot of what he has to say, because it is relevant to me:

The idea that He would be threatened by our puny minds trying to understand how creation works just doesn't make a lot of sense... If in the process we discover things which don't fit with our preconceived notions, then we have to struggle with that - and we should do so with all great intensity. But I don't think we have to worry that in the end somehow truth is going to end up being in conflict with truth.

But maybe it's best if you watch the video yourself.

C. S. Lewis - Mere Christianity

I am currently reading C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. I have to say. It's gold. I don't agree with all of his arguments for believing Christianity, but the way that he describes Christianity fits together rationally and logically. I love it.

Here are some of his thoughts on science:

You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense. Science works by experiments. It watches how things behave. Every scientific statement in the long run, however complicated it looks, really means something like "I pointed the telescope to such and such a part of the sky at 2.20am on January 15th and saw so-and-so," or, "I put some of this stuff in a pot and heated it to such and such a temperature and it did so-and-so." Do not think I am saying anything against science: I am only saying what I believe it's job is. And the more scientific a man is, the more (I believe) he would agree with me that this is the job of science - and a very useful and necessary job it is too. But why anything comes to be there at all, and whether there is anything behind the things science observes - something of a different kind - this is not a scientific question. If there is something behind, either it will have to remain altogether unknown to men, or make itself known in some different way. The statement that there is any such thing, and the statement that there is no such thing, are neither of them statements which science can make... Suppose science became so complete that it knew every single thing in the whole universe. Is it not clear that the questions, "Why is there a universe?", "Why does it go on as it does?", and "Has it any meaning?" would remain just as they were?

Or his view of God, which is something quite terrifying and awesome. He is unapologetic about this, saying:

If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort, you will not get either comfort or truth - only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with, and, in the end, despair. Most of us have got over this pre-war wishful thinking about politics. It is time we did the same with religion.

And I particularly liked how he talks about the problems in the world. I have seen New-Agers actually say this. I found that view quite inhumane and disturbing.

Confronted with a cancer or a slum, a Pantheist can say, "If you could only see it from a divine point of view, you would realize that this was also God." The Christian replies, "Don't talk damned nonsense."

He then goes on to argue, convincingly for me, that

Evil is a parasite, not an original thing.

So why did God let there be evil in the world? Why allow us free will if he knew it would end in bad things? Lewis says,

Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also that thing which makes possible any love, or goodness, or joy worth having. A world of automata - of creatures which worked like machines - would hardly be worth creating.

Provoking stuff. Even more so when he gets on the topic of Jesus! Then things really get good. I think a lot of people have read this already - that Jesus was either mad or the son of God. He cannot simply have been a virtuous teacher.

But getting back to the topic that I've been wondering about in this blog. He writes about revelation:

In other words, I believe it on His authority. Do not be scared of the word authority. Believing things on authority only means believing them because you have been told them by someone you think trustworthy. Ninety-nine percent of the things you believe are believed on authority. I believe there is such a place as New York. I have not seen it myself. I could not prove by abstract reasoning that there must be such a place. I believe it because reliable people have told me so. The ordinary man believes in the solar system, atoms, evolution, and the circulation of blood on authority. None of us have seen the Norman conquest, or the defeat of the Armada. None of us could prove them by pure logic as you would prove a thing in mathematics. We believe them simply because people who did see them have left writings about them: in fact, on authority. A man who jibbed at authority in other things as some people do in religion would have to be content to know nothing all his life.

I'm only halfway through. I've been reading classics, both from China and from the West recently and none have excited me as much as reading this book!

Seven wonders of the World

I'm likely to see the Taj Mahal soon, which is in my list of the seven wonders of the world. Here's mine. What's yours?

(1) Angkor Wat

Photo shapeshift with some rights reserved.

(2) Pyramids

Photo by Bruno Girin with Some rights reserved.

(3) Machu Picchu

Photo by Michael McDonough with Some rights reserved.

(4) Terracotta warriors

Photo by pete&brook with some rights reserved.

(5) Great Wall of China

This photo by chasingtheflow with Some rights reserved.

(6) Petra

This photo by nonmipare with Some rights reserved.

(7) Taj Mahal

This photo by Marco Pessoa with Some rights reserved.

Not the first

The more that I read, the more I find that I'm not the first to think about the relationship between science and religion. Right from the beginning Christian writers were wondering if and how far they should accept the philosophy of the Greeks.

Justin Matyr (100-165) who wrote around 100 years after Jesus' death writes:

Whatever either lawyers or philosophers have said well, was articulated by finding and reflecting on some aspect of the Logos. However, since they did not know the Logos - which is Christ - in its entirety, they often contradicted themselves.

He seems to think that the scientific and philosophical search for the truth is only completed with Christ.


Clement of Alexandria (150-211) has a similar position - that science can be thought of as preparing the way for the gospel.

For philosophy acted as a "custodian" to bring the Greeks to Christ just as the law brought the Hebrews. Thus philosophy was by of a preparation which prepared the way for its perfection in Christ.

Tertulian (200AD) disagrees completely - saying that philosophy is a pagan outlook and has nothing to do with Christianity and had led to heresies introduced into the church.

For philosophy provides the material of worldly wisdom, in boldly asserting itself to be the interpreter of the divine nature and dispensation.... What is there in common between Athens and Jerusalem? Between the Academy and the church?

I think that he's right. If we use pagan philosophy as the basis of Christianity, rather than God, we will ultimately glorifying ideas and placing them too high.

Augustine (354-480) argues that pagan philosophies are not entirely false, but have some truth which comes from God - and should be used by Christians.

If those who are called philosophers, particularly the Platonists, have said anything which is true and consistent with our faith, we must not reject it, but claim it for our own use.

Augustine was probably a Berber and came from Hippo which is in present day Algeria. From what I've read so far, I like the guy. He also says some interesting things about the interpretation of Genesis.

Four views of science and religion

There are at least four different views of religion and science relate to each other. There is definitely more to it than religion just being against science and vice-versa.

1. Continuity

This is the liberal view. It says that science casts light on how God carries out his plans for the universe. This means continually re-interpreting scripture in the light of science and even predominant cultural values.

This beautiful photo by by Are You My Rik? falls under the Creative Commons license.



2. They talk about different things

We have to be careful when comparing things to make sure we're not comparing apples and oranges. Religion often concerns itself with morals, with actual history and with God. Science with mechanisms. For Barth, for example, science has its place, but that place is not explaining or justifying the Christian faith. In fact, if we do try to know about God through reason alone we are setting a pale imitation of the real God,

Setting up a false god [that] will not lead him in any way lead him in any way to a knowledge of the real God. On the contrary, it will keep him from it.

This photo by automania falls under a Creative Commons license

3. Dialogue and Convergence

Science and religion are in a dialogue which will lead to some convergence in common areas. Both are committed to realism, and to finding the truth. They can interact, which is to the benefit of both.

Photo by phil_h under a Creative Commons license.

4. They're at war

In this view there's outright conflict between the two. Not only do science and religion talk about the same thing, but it's not going to be possible to fix the differences!

This photo is by jimfrazier under a Creative Commons license

Who am I?

Here's a picture of me that my girlfriend drew using Inkscape, which she was using for the very first time. She has real talent:



I'm a working physicist. My interests are primarily quantum information and quantum control. As you might be able to tell from my first post, I'm also a Christian. Recently I've been thinking a lot about if those two ideas fit together, and if so, how do they fit?

What is faith?

This image in the poster is by Calca and falls under the CC-Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. Feel free to use the poster where-ever you like.