The question of religion and the question of purpose are closely coupled in the human mind. This is an unfortunate side-effect of the capabilities of the human mind, which is dismal at best. Still we need something to talk about.
I've been having a private debate with Andy, and I have his permission to share it with you all. Andy has accused me of being a Richard Dawkins worshipper. Andy is aware of my admiration for the work of Richard Dawkins laid out in his many books, all of which I have read with great enjoyment and discovery, except for his two latest books, which I have not yet read. Andy has a bad feeling about Dawkins, and has not read any of his books. I think this might be akin to people who have a bad feeling about spiders or snakes, but don't really know much about them. The feeling is real enough, and both snakes and spiders can be venomous and thus harmful, but a little knowledge can go a long way, for both types of creatures do significant good on this planet. Nevertheless, Andy is a clever git and should not be dismissed, so it may be wise to explore his accusation and see if it has some merit.
As part of his onslaught, Andy presented me with four video clips today (
1 2 3 4). I watched them all, and I am posting my comments on each one here, before discussing the videos with Andy.
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Video #1: The criticism is that Dawkins chooses who he debates. And why not. Dawkins has been there and done that. He has plenty of experience debating religious believers, and he knows there is really little point in arguing with them. Who appointed Dawkins the champion of atheists, anyway, and requires him to do battle with every religious challenger?
Video #2: "If God exists, the universe has a purpose, and if God does not exist, the universe does not have a purpose." So says Craig, but this is oversimplified, binary thinking. I can see why Dawkins wants to stay away from these people.
The other two possibilities of this binary mode of thinking have been ignored. If God exists, the universe has no purpose. Is that outside the realm of possibility? Perhaps God is insane. And if God does not exist, the universe has a purpose. And why not? Perhaps the purpose of the universe is to exist and maintain its existence. It should be obvious by now that the purpose of the universe is independent of the idea that God exists. There is no necessary connection between the two ideas.
Video #3: "All pray to Richard Dawkins because he is a God-like figure." You can guess from the opening line that this is a hit-piece against Dawkins, and sure enough, it is.
The claim is that Dawkins believes that anyone who thinks differently from him is irrational. This too is gross oversimplification. Dawkins does have a bias against religion as being irrational, because that's what the preponderance of evidence has led him to conclude. He does not want to waste time re-examining that evidence over and over again just because a new religious debater wants to take him on. I can understand that.
Video #4: Hedges accuses atheists of "religious" fervor, and creating their own religion out of "anti-religion". They are as bad as the Christian right, Hedges claims! It's a matter of what they believe, and they are illiterate in too many areas, Hedges suggests. They act just like religious fundamentalists, believing that if others won't be converted, they must be annihilated. In other words, atheists are no different than the religious faithful.
This is the fancy version of "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
Atheists do argue that religion is an impediment to human progress. And indeed, there is good evidence for this. The problem is really one of human nature, argues Hedges. I agree, but this statement from Hedges is an oversimplification. We know that sociopaths exist, and their human nature is different from the norm. The worst of human nature leads us (i.e. sociopaths lacking empathy), and the best of human nature does not.
Hedges correctly argues that religion is like art, dealing with non-measurable, philosophical issues. It is true that there is a component of religion that meets this definition, but most of religion as it is practiced does not. Hedges also correctly recognizes that morality is independent of religious belief, and independent of non-religious belief. "When you divide people into moral planes, that becomes very dangerous." That is true, but it must also be recognized that people are distributed on a moral sliding scale, with sociopaths at one end and saints at the other. Ignoring that distribution is also dangerous, for that is what we are doing now by allowing sociopaths to lead us.
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Defending the ideas of Dawkins can be misconstrued as Dawkins worship. I defend those ideas based on their merit, not on their messenger. Hedges also has some good ideas that I would defend, like science being ill-equipped to investigate the unmeasurables like love and beauty. Even Rupert Sheldrake has
some good ideas that I would defend, like the errors science commits in its basic assumptions. I think Hedges would agree with me if I point out that science doesn't really make those assumptions -- humans claiming to be practicing science make those assumptions. There's an important distinction there, that being that humans often fail to practice science as it is designed to be practiced. Could we not say the same for religion? It's almost as if humans ruin everything.