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'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins: A Review

Richard Dawkins‘ attempt at religion is a book of two halves, with the first debunking God, and the second attacking religion generally.

He dismisses the Arian heresy as ‘hair splitting’ and spends as much time explaining how moths see, then on such matters as Aquinas’ proof of God, the Trinity or transubstantiation. He raises inconsistencies in scripture which have long been answered (although some are more problematic) and complains that a God couldn’t be simple as all theologians agree, but must be complex if he is going to ‘hear all those prayers’. For Dawkins, these notions don’t match what god should be, so he dismisses them.

Yet after all his attacks on Christianity, Dawkins concedes that Jesus existed. He makes the obligatory throw away line that there was no proof that Jesus believed he was God, which of course runs counter to the entire Christian narrative that Jesus was executed for saying he was. A further theme that runs through his book is the persistent assumption that all Christians derive their beliefs strictly from the bible, and that any figurative treatment is somehow a copout.

Dawkins’ treatment of various religious subjects; from history, to scripture to morals and philosophy is so fleeting and smug that it makes you wonder whether his assumption that religious people would not read his book was more of a plea.

In short, Dawkins’ attack derives not from any serious consideration of God or religion, but from his own caricatures of them. In an unrelated interview Dawkins was quoted as saying that he became an atheist at 16 after reading Darwin. This is interesting because his treatment of all things religious is adolescent at best.

Dawkins’ treatment of religion contrasts sharply with his alternative explanation for existence. Natural Selection is not blind chance he says, but rather, is guided by the invisible hand of natural selection. Even here his caricature of god intrudes, complaining that theists can’t claim that God would use evolution , as this would make him ‘lazy’.

Moving beyond evolution, into the realm where non-living matter comes alive, Dawkins is also surprisingly faithful. He explains that we live in a universe where we exist, so therefore the world we live in must be capable of creating life from non-living matter. He calls this the ‘anthropic’ principle, and can’t understand why religious people relish in his abandonment to a principle that reeks more of faith than science. He even posits that this random universe we live in knew we were coming.

Dawkins' entire argument needs God not to exist, so you would think that such a vital part of his argument would be treated more seriously. But by the time the book purports to have dismissed God and moves onto attacking religious behaviour generally, any moderately informed reader will know that his treatment has been too shallow to debunk notions of God that have existed for 2000 years (Dawkins’ focus is on Christianity). Then and there Dawkins’ argument fails.

With more than 200 pages remaining, the rest of his book is not much more than a sneer at religion. While Dawkins’ search for the truth seems sincere in some respects, his refusal to look at religion to see if it is at least internally consistent, betrays his inability to analyse it dispassionately.

For instance, he asks why religious people are opposed to euthanasia when if, when we die, we go to heaven. Such a question can be easily answered. Firstly we don’t know if we will go to heaven, secondly God told us not to kill, and thirdly life is a gift that shouldn’t be thrown back in His face. Whether you agree or otherwise, these are at the very least consistent with basic religious beliefs. Dawkins persists with his self congratulatory bemusement on similar questions, as if he had lobbed a rhetorical atom bomb in the believers’ camp.

Some stories, such as the abduction of secretly baptised Jewish children to be raised as Catholics, are disturbing. Yet by that stage Dawkins is so lacking in credibility that the reader can only take them with a grain of salt. In any event, attacking the actions of misguided religious people leaves God unscathed.

Dawkins finishes with an exhortation for us all to stand back in slack jawed wonderment as we admire scientists marvelling at what is nothing more than random dust. In Dawkins’ universe we may one day find a superior civilisation that can broadcast signals over a great distance. Such a civilisation, he says, will be god like and beyond the comprehension of what any theologian could imagine. Again, Dawkins betrays his adolescent view of religion and lack of understanding at what theologians have been considering for the last 2000 years. If dust is so amazing, what of the person who created it from nothing?

Dawkins doesn’t want to ban religion; he wants to start his own with the scientists as high priests. In bemoaning religion as the source of all intolerance, Dawkins is calling for a new world order where the religious upbringing of children (which he says is worse than sex abuse) is banned, but where children are free to become atheists. When coupled with his technological imperative on what makes a civilisation ‘superior’, Dawkins’ vision for the future is disturbingly Orwellian.

Yet the most disappointing thing about Dawkins' book is not that the ideas expressed in it are misinformed or radical, it is that people may actually believe them.