Quite a few people are blogging about Richard Dawkins’ new book. Jeremy Pierce at Parableman looks at a few of Dawkins’ logical fallacies. I always like reading Jeremy when he’s talking about logic. Peter Kirk at Speaker of Truth takes on Dawkins’ claim that a scientist can’t be a theist. He gives a counter-example: John Polkinghorne. Albert Mohler has also been blogging about the book. Interestingly enough, none of these commenters has actually read the book. It might be worth investing in the book (checking it out at the library if possible) and reading the book with an open mind. I’m concerned when people grab a sound bite out of context and critique it beyond all reason. How many people have you heard criticize The Blind Watchmaker? But very few Christians have read that book and tried to understand an empiricist perspective on the world. I remember checking out The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan at the library and feeling some trepidation about reading such an obvious atheistic tract. But as I read the book I found that Sagan and I agreed on almost everything and that he like myself was simply disgusted with irrational superstition.
So, I’m glad to see some of my fellow Godbloggers interacting with Dawkins’ ideas but I’d like to encourage them to consider giving Dawkins a more careful reading. They might find more agreement with his ideas than they had originally supposed.
Links to books mentioned in this post are available at The Lingamish Lens
09.28.2006
The Dawkins Delusion
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11 Comments to “The Dawkins Delusion”
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Since 1999, David and Hilary have worked in Mozambique on the Nyungwe Bible Translation. Starting in 2008, David took on a new role as Media Access Coordinator for the work in Mozambique. Visit The Afrikers for more info.
I read The Ancestors Tale by Dawkins…wow. Interesting worldview for sure. He is very methodical. Unfortunately he is very wrong.
That’s why I’m not critiquing the book itself but just one or two points that seemed thoroughly irrational. I’m not interested in the book from what I’ve seen, but I won’t pronounce that I know it’s all bad. Maybe it isn’t. But I have no good reason to expect much better given what I have seen. The arguments in those excerpts didn’t strike me as good, and the ones that weren’t so bad weren’t really all that original. But my main point isn’t the sort of thing that the greater context of the book would have any effect on, so I didn’t mind saying it without having the rest of the book at hand.
By the way, what I was pointing out doesn’t seem to me to be a logical fallacy so much as a linguistic fallacy. He’s taking metonymy literally. I guess there’s the logical point that he doesn’t do this with other things and is thus inconsistent, but my primary point is that he’s just insensitive to the kind of statement that’s being made.
Guilty as charged! But I admitted up front that I hadn’t read the book. In fact I haven’t read anything by him, only a book against him. But I did watch his 2 hours of TV monologue.
The book against him I read was “Dawkins’ God” by Alister McGrath, Blackwell 2005 – a major secular academic publisher publishing a book by an evangelical scholar. McGrath’s main point is that Dawkins (whose works he has of course read) has totally misunderstood what it means to believe in God. McGrath, who has a D.Phil. in biochemistry from Oxford as well as a theology degree, is of course himself an exception to Dawkins’ claim that good scientists cannot be believers. But Polkinghorne is less easy to write off as a turncoat, as Dawkins might want to.
Jeremy and Peter,
Thanks for not taking offense at my comments. I worried that you might. I do feel that someone at some point needs to read a book like that since people like yourselves are helping a lot of other people form opinions on a book. I saw a good example of this yesterday with Tim Challies review of John Eldredge’s “The Way of the Wild Heart.” He read the whole book, quoted from it extensively in his review and helped me form my own opinion about the value of the book.
Keep on blogging!
Thanks for mentioning Tim Challies’ review of The Way of the Wild Heart. I read Wild at Heart not long ago and had mixed feelings about it; I felt that Eldredge was trying to reinforce male stereotypes which were not necessarily helpful, and that the material was not all that biblical. But I think Eldredge would connect well with you, Lingamish, as you both seem to like father and son trips to the wild parts of Oregon.
Yes, I’m quite the mountain man! I have to admit I liked WAH and didn’t get all that worked up about it being “too mystical” etc.
For the record, I read plenty of books I disagree with. Ph.D. programs in philosophy tend to do that to you. But what they also do is limit your time so that you’re reading mostly what you think what will be of benefit to you and what you need to read for classes and for your own research. That means I can’t afford to spend a lot of time on Dawkins, especially when the excerpts I have read strike me as being thoroughly uninformed, caricaturing religious believers with straw men, and simply running rampant over important philosophical distinctions that more careful critics would make. I’ll gladly read William Rowe or J.L. Mackie’s philosophical critiques of theism. I don’t have time for Dawkins or Dennett, who seem to me from what I have read already to have nothing to add of any substance except lots of confusion that will shed much darkness on some already complex debates.
I need to apologize to Jeremy and Peter if my comments seemed accusatory and specifically directed at you. I’m glad for your comments on the book and was more making a comment in general about how people comment on a review of a book as if they have read the book. You certainly weren’t doing that.
Many an atheist, on his deathbed has regretted being an atheist. He has called a pastor or a priest to help him. But I’m sure that no dying Christian has called upon Dr Richard Dawkins to deliver him from his faith.
Believers should launch a prayer offensive, targetting Dr. Richard Dawkins. World-wide, or perhaps web-wide prayer for Dawkins could see him converted. A “Damascus Road” conversion would have a powerful impact upon the scientific community as well as the Church. I pray for him. Who will join me?
Where does this idea come from that Dawkins thinks scientists cannot be theists? So far as I can see, he doesn’t think this.
Dan