Science vs Religion, part one million

So I was reading a couple of metareviews (i.e. reviews of reviews) on Dawkin’s book The God Delusion, and I now have to bregrudgingly admit that reading them and some of the reviews made me think that the book itself might almost be worth taking a look at someday, after all. [The review at Science covers the books strengths and weaknesses the best, or so I hear.]

Originally I would have told you in a somewhat aggrieved tone of voice that there is first no way to go about proving or disproving the existence of God, and second that writing a book with the title and tone of The God Delusion is no way to sway people on something they are so fundamentally committed to; that is to say, their religion.

Although I still personally think that you can’t prove or disprove God’s existence, the metareviewer brings up an interesting point – shouldn’t it matter more whether the followers of whichever religion believe they can rationalize God, more than what I think about it? Seeing as a religion is usually made up of the beliefs of, well, believers, rather than non-believers. In my experience, I would say American Christians tend to think that, in addition to whatever other bedrock of belief exists, they can also ‘prove’ the existence of their God. I remember an activity my little sister was sent home to do when she was attending a medium-core Christian summer camp: she was told “Go out on a walk. Point out 5 things that only God could have created.” [This was EXTREMELY ANNOYING in more ways than one, but that’s another post entirely.] “Faith” is then the trump card for when this (sometimes specious) reasoning falls through. So perhaps it is not so off-base to attack the rational basis of belief in some work (like in The God Delusion!) I don’t know whether this in itself would actually be enough, however, given that there’s still other basis’s for belief this argument would not touch.

The major flaw of the book, as the reviewer at Science writes, is in its tone, at least if it actually seeks to convince its target audience. Correct? As Shermer writes:

When I received the bound galleys for The God Delusion, I cringed at the title, wishing it were more neutral (why not, say, The God Question?). As I read the book, I found myself wincing at Dawkins’s references to religious people as “faith-heads,” as being less intelligent, poor at reasoning, or even deluded, and to religious moderates as enablers of terrorism. I shudder because I have religious friends and colleagues who do not fit these descriptors, and I empathize at the pain such pejorative appellations cause them. In addition, I am not convinced by Dawkins’s argument that without religion there would be “no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as ‘Christ-killers,’ no Northern Ireland ‘troubles’….” In my opinion, many of these events–and others often attributed solely to religion by atheists–were less religiously motivated than politically driven, or at the very least involved religion in the service of political hegemony.

I agree completely, although I’ll nitpick here about his last statement. It’s true, religion is not the sole cause or the ultimate cause of “politically” (should I read “power”?) driven events. Rather, religion is usually the wedge used to split a group of people into discernibly different sections, so one group can gain power over another. However, there are lots of adequately shaped pieces of scrap about that can be used as a wedge in the same way – race fits extremely well, gender has practically wedged itself in every door (I blame gender for that, mind you. If gender didn’t want to be used, gender wouldn’t exist in this analogy in such a suggestively wedge-like shape), and class, language, and culture are also easy to use. Shermer is right in that these events would still occur without the differences in religion between peoples. But he substitutes the vanilla “politically driven”, which doesn’t act as a stand-in in nearly the same way. “Politically driven’, which I’m assuming means questing after power, is the end, but it isn’t the means – the means could be any of the wedges above. Taking away one wedge wouldn’t rid us of this quest for power, certainly; we’d just resort to using a different wedge to split a group of people into those with power and those without.

In some of Dawkin’s other works I’ve read, his tone has struck me in exactly the same way – harsh, and inappropriate to the people to whom he speaks. Here I must elucidate you on the difference between politicians and scientists, or politicians and critics, as I myself was elucidated a while ago. The difference, were you feeling ungenerous with your words, is just that: tact. You might complain that Dawkins lacks all tact in speaking about religious people, and that perhaps if he compromised his message or at least his language he might win more converts (or unconverts? Who can say).

Certainly you could argue that he’s doing science more harm than good by widening the gulf still more between the religious and scientists, two groups that don’t have to be separate today and certainly should not become more separate in the future. These would be legitimate concerns if Dawkins were a politician: there the impetus is on convincing and persuading, by whatever means necessary, rather than standing uncompromisingly on the facts as you see them. The latter is what Dawkins, as the scientist, does: he presents a body of thought to convince rationally rather than reaching a mutually tenable position. As he sees it, his job is not to persuade or compromise, but instead to present ‘the facts’ and hope that in time more will start to share his position. It’s necessary to have people out there doing this, as well, in my opinion.