In several interviews I've heard evolutionary biologist and notorious atheist, Richard Dawkins, make a statement to the effect that over the ages mankind has gotten rid of a vast pantheon of gods, and all that remains is for us to rid ourselves of the last remaining one. He seems quite satisfied with this formulation of his, as often as he's repeated it. I think its pat simplicity appeals to him. It suggests that history is on his side, trending towards his point of view. Now, I'm not here to defend religion. I'm not even here to take a definitive stance for or against Dawkin's atheistic position. I'm just here to take issue with this idea of his, which I think gives him the appearance of having a very shallow and superficial attitude towards religion, and which plays into the stereotype of atheists in general. He comes off as the sort of person who dismisses belief in a deity as a bunch of superstitious poppy-cock, good for nothing but providing comfort to gullible idiots. Such flippancy isn't going to do much to help his case.
For starters, his formula isn't even accurate. While it's true that the three major, Western religions are all monotheistic, and that they all have roots in the same Hebrew texts, I'm not sure that anyone can say for certain that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all worship the same God. Is the differences between them just a matter of doctrine, or are they all following completely different deities? Are they on different trains or different tracks? Who can say? At the very least, the other two religions definitely don't agree with Christianity about Jesus being God, or a part of God, or a dimension of God. That alone suggests that they're operating in different spheres. Also, you have the plain fact that polytheism still exists in the world, most notably among the Hindus. However, I'm most certainly not here to take Dawkins to task for toe-stepping or offending people. That was pretty much inevitable from the moment he declared himself an atheist.
No, the far more troubling problem with his formula is the impression it gives that monotheism was arrived at by a process of elimination. You almost picture an all out death match among the gods, and Jehovah ended up being the last deity standing. This completely misses the fact that a monotheistic deity is of a completely different stripe from a polytheistic one. Divine apples and celestial oranges. Monotheism wasn't the result of some stream-lined clearinghouse of the gods. It was a revolutionary concept. A completely different approach to the matter of religion. Abraham's belief in one "true" God took everything in a fundamentally different direction.
Oddly enough, monotheism opened the road for a scientific outlook to eventually emerge. Under polytheism, the workings of nature were often attributed to a kind of drama among the gods, this god controlled the wind, this god controlled the sea, and so forth, and the storms and shifts in the air were a result of conflicts between them. By consolidating the workings of nature in a single deity, monotheism consequently suggested the idea that this deity had designed nature to work by a certain clockwork system, rather than by the struggles and politics between opposing gods. There is a placid austerity in the creation story recounted in Genesis that stands in stark contrast to the violent chaos found in other creation myths, and it's even been suggested that God's "day of rest" was specifically included to highlight this fact. The monotheistic universe is not a product of strife and war, but rather of contemplated design.
Also, I believe that it's no coincidence that Abraham's monotheistic revolution came with the stipulation that no one was allowed to create a image or likeness of their new God. You see, one of the problems with polytheistic gods is that they can't really grow as concepts. They are almost inevitably bound in the form of concrete, perhaps ever physical, creatures by the relationships between them. The fact that the dramas between them make it necessary to even imagine them speaking to one another and interacting in a clearly physical way, keeps them tied to Mt. Olympus instead of ascending into the ether. A polytheistic society can only really progress by outgrowing their gods, to relegating them to the realm of stories and fairy tales. Polytheistic gods are bound by their presence to one another, but a monotheistic God is present only to itself and only briefly glimpsed or sensed by the creatures on the mortal plane below. A monotheistic God can be invisible, ineffable, limitless. It can pass effortlessly in the mind between the abstract and the substantial. Ostensibly, I'm sure the taboo against creating images of God was considered a token of reverence and respect, but in reality, I'm quite convinced the taboo was there to keep them from trying to place any concrete limits on the concept of God. An impressive precaution.
As such, there are no limits to which man's understanding of a monotheistic God can grow. In fact, it is an integral part of the concept of such a deity to perpetually transcend those limits (something I plan to get into in an upcoming post.) A monotheistic God keeps pace with human progress, rather than falling behind as the polytheistic gods inevitably do. The human concept of a monotheistic God changes and grows and evolves, and from the believer's standpoint God is up there, constant and beyond comprehension, and it is man changing, growing, learning, and groping up gradually towards the light.
None of this necessarily invalidates Dawkins' atheist position, but it does put a different spin on his dismissive flippancy. He can't expect a monotheistic God to fall by the wayside like many of the polytheistic ones have. A monotheistic God is a far more tenacious concept, more resilient and adaptive then he's willing to give it credit for. I don't think it's something that is simply going to fall out of fashion. A belief in God may even persist as long as there are human beings. I'm not sure I can even conceive of a point along the time-line of human progress where a believe in God would become completely impossible or insupportable. And as long as that possibility exist, there are always going to be people who believe in it. Richard Dawkins might have to just accept that.
I can see your point about the proscription against creating images of the god. The image in my head of the deity always seems to be Morgan Freeman from Bruce Almighty.
ReplyDeleteOr, if you accept that we're all part Cylon, you could say that the Cylons must have finally won the debate over the one true god. What does Dawkins have to say about that?
ReplyDelete(That was my own attempt at being flippant about the evolution of belief in a deity. Sorry.)
@Doug: Makes one wonder what you did before that movie came out. Maybe you just pictured a block of cheese.
ReplyDelete@Brent: Cylons! Nicely played sir.
No, I don't think Dawkins has much to say about the "toasters". He's probably afraid of them.
Bryan, I think this is your best piece yet. But I'll for now eschew publication of praise or analysis of its virtues. On with the discussion!
ReplyDeleteDawkins is a clown, a laughing hyena (or is it a jackal?) who has his function amongst the herd of monotheistic gods, for he picks on the weaker ones and grinds up their bones in his clownish molars. There are millions of healthy monotheistic gods who are quite beyond his reach.
There may be millions of polytheistic gods too, but we may ignore them and pursue interesting paradox. You say that we can't be sure that Judaism, Christianity & Islam worship the same God. Too right. We can't even be sure that identical twins worship the same God. For as you say, "a monotheistic God can be invisible, ineffable, limitless". Every man woman and child in our monotheistic culture is his her or its own theologian, defining or seeking to throw light on the great Ineffable.
It is not my role, and cannot be, to defend the healthy monotheistic gods which do so much for the millions. It is not my role even to define what is a healthy god and what is one whose influence is baneful.
But it saddens me that Christopher Hitchens, now in his last days, hitches himself with the Dawk. It is hard to accuse Hitch of flippancy.
@Vincent: Ha, good point! While Doug is up there worshiping Morgan Freeman, I might be worshiping George Burns or a sprig of parsley.
ReplyDeleteObviously, I'm not here to defend monotheism either. Whether atheism is right or wrong, my problem with "The Dawk" is that he really has nothing new or interesting to say on the subject. He makes the same snarky, superficial arguments that you hear from any disgruntled teenager on the internet that thinks they're the first person in history to question the existence of God. He brings in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Russel's Teapot...the usual bag of tricks.
One could make the argument that atheists don't need to make their case, and that the burden of proof rests on the believer (which of course, is the whole point of Russel's Teapot and the Spaghetti Monster), but if that's all you have to say on the subject then you don't need to appoint yourself the spokesman for atheism, or write several books and give countless interviews on the subject. That isn't news to anyone. Even believers know that the burden of proof rests on them. That's why they keep reminding us about faith.
As for the statement that's the subject of this post, it's worse than trite and obvious, it's just plain wrong. Yet I've heard Dawkins say it at least three or four times in different interviews, and bear in mind, I don't actively seek out encounters with Dawkins; I only stumble upon him now and them. So, who knows how many times he's actually said it? He's seems quite enamored with this notion that mankind has outgrown the gods over the years like a child outgrowing its toys, but we've saved one and kept in hidden under the bed "just in case" because we don't have the nerve for complete commitment. But that isn't what monotheism is. It's not how it works. It's not where it came from. So what remains of his point? It's just an incredibly stupid thing to say.
I'm not sure why, but I am reminded of Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" when reading this. The main problem I have with atheist is that most of them tend to be incredibly smart, which doesn't help much in making goth kids pick up a book or join the Chess club. It's on par with fanatics of God making me want to denounce my own God on moral ground alone. Hearing scholars tell me why I am stupid for believing in anything not flesh grounded and holding a master's in some degree I can hardly pronounce, let alone spell, forces my finger into my nose to pick up on something more tangible than the shit spilling from this guy's mouth.
ReplyDelete@Scott: Too Smart? Hmm, that seems like an odd complaint to make. I'm not sure that's entirely true anyway. It's possible that atheists are smarter on average over believers, but I'm sure that they wouldn't always come out on top on a case by case basis.
ReplyDeleteAnd even if they are smarter on average, I don't think it would be because it was something inherent in atheism, but rather because atheism is still a controversial, unorthodox, and unconventional position. Therefore, someone generally has to put some thought into being an atheist. Meanwhile, I'm sure you know as many believers as I do that believe only because "Mah mamma read da' Bible to me when Ah was a youngin'." People like that tend to throw off any curve their involved in.
And who would have ever thought you could make a living off being a professional atheist? That's kind of a sad statement about our society in general. Of course people have been making their livelihood from being pro Gawd Hawkers for centuries, so I guess it's about time. The sheep believe in Gawd and listen to the Hawkers who secretly worship the almighty dollar. The same thing the pro atheists are doing by discounting Gawd.
ReplyDeleteRetracted partially in that most atheist I know tend to be very intelligent people, though there are some who fall well short of completing a thought...where was I?
ReplyDeleteRight. Much of the thought, when scrutinized to the fullest, is just a deep interconnecting denial in acknowledging one thing over the other. I would think in order to discredit something, you must have to first believe in something right from the start. I put atheist alongside UFO fanatics. They want to believe there is something more, they're just having too much fun trying to tell everyone else why they should or should not.
@Rev: Except this one isn't a Hawker, he's a Dawker. Wa-wa-Wahhhhh. (Yeah, that's a pretty dumb joke.)
ReplyDelete@Scott: As for the smart thing again, it's like communism. Communism is far from a brilliant idea, but in the mid 20th century in America, and possibly even today, it was popular among a lot of intelligent, intellectual people. So your average Communist in America was probably smarter than your average capitalist. But that was, again, just because it took thought to be a communist, while all it took to be a capitalist was buying an ice cream cone and going "duhhhhh." Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union, you may have had the exact reverse situation.
As for Rev's "Pro Atheist" or your "UFO-Hunting Atheist", I can understand someone being an atheist, but these people who "spread the word" of atheism seems like an odd thing. It seems strange to devote your time to what you DON'T believe in. You think you'd just not believe in it and move on, especially since no one is going to stop you in most countries these days. In the end, it usually ends up coming down to little more than a chronic complaint about the ubiquity of religion.
We were doing so well, united in condemnation of the flippant Dawk, that I’d hate to accuse you of flippancy in response to a serious point about the monotheistic god and the myriad ways he manifests to his myriad worshippers. Your examples of George Burns and the sprig of parsley--never mind, I shall say nothing. To believe in One God means to believe that the One God is there for everyone, and to have a sincere belief.
ReplyDeleteI like the way you have pointed out some positive aspects of the monotheistic God, at any rate in our history till now. You also add, “I’m not here to defend religion.” Fair enough. I don’t have religion myself, but actually at this moment I am here to defend it.
I shall quote from an excellent novel of Jamaican life, The Painted Canoe, by Anthony C Winkler:
The [English] doctor sat down, with a loud sigh. [He knows his patient has terminal cancer, but doesn’t know how to break it to this obstinate, ugly fisherman who has survived a shark attack and weeks of being adrift alone in his canoe.]
“I suppose you believe in God,” he said, staring hard at Zachariah.
Zachariah nodded gravely. “Of course, sah.”
He wanted to add, however, that he was not one of those thankless, useless negars who believed in running to God over every little thing. He was about to explain that when he was being stalked by the shark, and scorched by the sun, and terrified by the emptiness and loneliness of the naked ocean, not once did he grovel and beg God to help him. He wanted to tell the Englishman about his idea that God does not like to be bothered by all the petty worries of the negar, and that God would not help a really desperate man who had, in the past, run to him over every little trouble. But the doctor was not the sort of man to whom one could confide such personal beliefs, so Zachariah merely nodded, to emphasize that he believed in God, and gave no other information about his special beliefs.
That’s what I mean by every man being his own theologian. It was not a flippant point. For his belief saves Zachariah’s life, as the novel shows. You may protest that the novel is fiction and therefore doesn’t count, but I shall respond that the God of one’s belief is fiction too, but counts a very great deal. It’s a matter of dignity and strength in life and death and that is what counts.
The bit about George Burns was a joke, of course. I did get what you were saying. Maybe I should have surrounded the opening paragraph with circus music and clown faces. Where are the tags for that? ;)
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, too, as I get older I find that I'm more interested in ideas that explore the existence of God on a human level, rather than a metaphysical one. It's not that I think that this is a better way of getting at the truth of the matter, necessarily, but rather I think it opens up deeper wells of exploration.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, for Dostoevsky the matter of God's existence didn't come down to the kind of Scholastic proofs provided by Thomas Aquinas. For him it was the question of whether Good could survive or even thrive against Evil. This opens up fresh dimensions of the subject. There's meat on a bone like that, something to sink your teeth into.
I disagree that the burden of proof is upon believers- at least the way you meant it.
ReplyDeleteAtheism is itself a belief. A belief that God or gods do not exist. An atheist has no proof God does not exist, and he takes it on faith that because he is unable to observe God, there is no God (in my argument here monotheism = all religion, it makes it easier to express).
It is of course a great fallacy to say that because I cannot see something, or observe it in any way, it therefore is imaginary.
If an atheist was inclined to justify his belief, he WOULD need to prove it. And good luck proving a negative. His faith, and faith it is, is no more justified scientifically than the most fundamental Christian's.
An atheist is often defined as someone who does not believe in God. This is misleading. A Free Thinker or agnostic could fit under that label. An atheist is someone who BELIEVES, with all his heart and with no evidence, that God does not exist.
If you accept that an atheist IS a believer, then your statement is one I can agree with.
And, yes, before Freeman it was Burns. I loved "Oh, God," when I was a kid :)
"An atheist is someone who BELIEVES, with all his heart and with no evidence, that God does not exist."
ReplyDeleteI was about to argue the point with you, but I think you're on to something with this statement. There IS an insistence on their part that goes beyond a mere absence of belief. They use the Teacup or the Spaghetti Monster as if to say, "I see no reason to believe", which would be fair enough I suppose, but then they go beyond that as if to say, "I KNOW there isn't a God." That's where it becomes a sort of faith itself. So, instead of arguing, I agree.
Plus, I bring up the "burden of proof" thing, not so much as my opinion, but because it's Dawkins' primary M.O. His book The God Delusion is basically just one variation after another of this same idea.
ReplyDeleteTake Russell's Teacup, which is basically the idea that, well, it's possible that there could be a teacup floating in the asteroid belt beyond Mars, but without the slightest shred of evidence, there's no reason to seriously entertain this possibility. Now, this might be a valid principle of epistemology, but it's a bit of a straw man when it comes to the issue of God. Only the most lax and shallow believer would say, "Well, it's possible that there's a God.", and leave it at that. I would think that most serious believers already know that their belief requires more substance that that, even if that substance is composed more of faith than of evidence.
Someone who says, "well it is possible there is a God," would, by Doug definition, NOT be a believer at all. Unless you count believing in possibilties. And, while I'd never heard of the Teacup before, it seems to be a good argument for agnosticism, not atheism. Sure, it seems silly to believe in a teacup in space, but if it can be conceived it is, in some small way, possible. The Teacup shows that there is reason to question or doubt, and maybe not believe, but seems to give us no reason to believe in non-believing.
ReplyDeleteI thought your comment to Rev and Scott about atheists "spreading the word" was interesting. They DO often seem like evangicals determined to "go out and spread the word to every living thing." As an armchair uneducated cultural psychologist, I attribute that to their deep-seated knowledge that their negative beliefs are in fact faith-based, and they need to feel validated by converting others.
That said, there is nothing WRONG with believing something on faith. It provides comfort in an uncertain world, and provides us with communities of like-minded people with whom we can let down our hair, whether we join a church or an atheist group. As long as people don't force their beliefs on others, and hopefully realize their beliefs are Faith and not necessarily Truth, it makes the world a richer and more interesting place.
I would have to read Dawkin before passing judgement on him, but he does seem to be jumping from "no reason to believe" to (read this as an anime villian) "I hereby proclaim to the world that there is no God! Ha ha. All you little people who believe otherwise are fools! Prove me wrong! Ha ha. You can't. And that makes me right. Ha ha."
ReplyDeleteSpaghetti Monsters are real, by the way.
ReplyDeleteThat pretty much sounds like Dawkins.
ReplyDeleteMostly he likes to harp on the fact that he sees no scientific reason to believe. He completely ignores the fact that people don't generally believe in God for scientific reasons. Now, whether there are valid reasons other than science to believe in something is one thing, and as a scientist himself Dawkins might not want to even go there, but if he's going to throw his hat into the theological ring, he should at least be prepared to address the issue of faith. Instead, he pretty much refuses to acknowledge that it exists.
In a way, he's kind of like those Flat Earth people, I mentioned a few months ago. He comes off like he's not really arguing with religion, but instead with his own gross ignorance of it. He may have inadvertently created the "Flat God Society."
The Flat God Society.... Hee hee hee!
ReplyDeletePersonally I don't care what your personal beliefs are as long as you don't get in my face with them. I may disagree with you but as long as you don't come to my door proselytizing I'll leave you in peace. But be advised if you take that step into my personal space you risk several quick slaps to the chops and may find yourself booted to the curb like year old lunch meat.
I think Dawkins is a weird kind of puritan, who thinks that people might be having fun with God, when they ought to restrict themselves to the sober nourishment of Science.
ReplyDeleteI also think he is evidence of a playful God who uses the wondrous variety of the evolutionary imagination and intelligent design to produce all kinds of amusing anomalies and idiot savants.
Yes, he is an idiot savant--in reverse so to speak.
@Rev: "...booted to the curb like year old lunch meat." I try not to mess with year old lunch meat. At that point it's probably been reanimated by bacteria with a hunger for human flesh and a zombie virus to spread.
ReplyDeleteI get the Jehovah's Witnesses here all the time shoving copies of Watchtower in my face. Maybe I could get you to chase them off. (Hmm, on the hand, maybe I'll save the next copy of Watchtower and do a post about it.)
@Vincent: "I think Dawkins is a weird kind of puritan, who thinks that people might be having fun with God, when they ought to restrict themselves to the sober nourishment of Science." Ha, yes, that about sums it up.
I do think he's a fairly smart man, and I do sympathize with his scientific point of a view, and with the scientific point of view in general (as you know.) I just think he doesn't really comprehend where religious people are coming from at all. And I wouldn't even hold that against him, if he wasn't making it a point to stick his nose in the matter of religion. He's in over his head. He's delving into a philosophical issue, and he's insisting on approaching it as a scientific issue. He's bringing a knife to a gun fight as they say.
Also, Vincent, I'm reminded of a story I heard when I was a kid (I'm not sure if it's true, and given the source, I'm highly, highly doubtful.) Anyway, the story goes that when the first Russian Cosmonauts got up into orbit, they radioed back that they didn't see God anyway, and that therefore proved that there was no God. Now (if this is true) then it was an appallingly stupid and ignorant thing to say, probably the dumbest straw man in the history of straw men. I mean, really, what believer would expect them to find God out there in near Earth orbit, maybe floating around near the moon? Even as the wide-eyed, precocious lad full of faith that I was then, I wasn't quite THAT stupid.
ReplyDeleteOkay. Looked up the wikipedia entry on Yuri Gagarin. It mentions the story, but says that the transcripts have no record of it and other people involved in the mission insist that he didn't say it. It goes on to say that the quote is actually from a speech Krushchev gave about the flight, which still means that someone was dumb enough to say it.
ReplyDeleteRight, and I'm reminded of something I'm sure I read quite recently in W James' The Varieties of Religious Experience (his Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh in 1900. In general I am struck that he said things so comprehensively a hundred years ago. I don't think anything has changed since.)
ReplyDeleteHe said something like "There are two kinds of people: those who have some kind of religious experience and those who don't."
Which is like saying, "There are two kinds of women: those who enjoy sex and those who fake it."
Now the point is that in some societies both kinds of people go to church, mosque, sysnagogue etc.
The only point of Dawkins wasting so much time bothering the entire world with fatuity when he could be in a laboratory discovering something new is the liberation he might bring to a number of church-goers who had spent their lives beating themselves up because they don't get it. For them, no God in wine or wafer, nor in the genuflecting, nor in the sign of the cross. They may still sing the hymn "How sweet the name of Jesus sounds / In a believer's ear" but the name of Jesus mocks them as they sing it. Perhaps these are the ones who try extra hard. Even Mother Theresa secretly suffered from this malady, as her letters posthumously reveal.
I am usually amazed at the debates/discussions that take place over here. How come this sort of thing doesn't happen at the Stickman blog?
ReplyDeleteMaybe your stickmen need more existential angst ;)
ReplyDeleteBut seriously, you guys all continue to impress me with your responses. It definitely enhances the material here.
Dawkins isn't merely flippant; he actively sneers at people who are foolish enough to believe in God. On the other hand, I can see where he's coming from. When I was a student in the 1960s, I used to listen to a programme broadcast by a pirate radio station in the UK. It was The World Tomorrow, presented by Garner Ted Armstrong, who used to go on and on and on about the theory of evolution, and whose attempts to disprove (ridicule) the theory were absolutely pathetic. It was only many years later that I discovered that this disbelief in evolution is widespread in the southern USA, on the terminally weak grounds that it is contradicted by the creation story in Genesis. I can therefore understand Dawkins' militancy, given that he is one of the world's leading evolutionary biologists and has come in for a lot of flak (pre The God Delusion) from fundamentalist Christians for supporting evolution.
ReplyDeleteYes, I grew up with people who were against evolution on the same grounds. I understand his frustration with religion, I just don't think he has anything all that fresh to say about atheism. If I were him, I would go on about my business as a scientist, and not waste my time arguing with the kind of people who...well, aren't going to listen to him anyway.
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