Posted for Matthew Case:
My mid-term report is going to be an analyzation and interpretation of a debate between Richard Dawkins and Dr. John Lennox, but I’m going to be focusing directly on what Dawkins had to say.
The first thesis, or topic of discussion, is “Faith is blind; science is evidence based.” This is something I have always struggled with. Dawkins claims that science uses evidence to discover the truth about the universe, while religion teaches us to be satisfied without understanding and giving the credit to a higher being. (Dawkins 7) He also goes on to say that when considering the beauty of the world and thinking about the origins of the world, cosmos, etc. humans are “naturally overwhelmed with a feeling of awe, a feeling of admiration. And you almost feel a desire to worship something. I feel this and I recognize that other scientists such as Carl Sagan feel this, Einstein felt it.” I think this is an accurate assessment of human behavior. I have been godless since I was fifteen years old, and until recently I was almost evangelical in my hatred for religion. However, I understand this feeling of awe and admiration. Maybe it is because the idea of creationism has been drilled into my psyche with no regard for the actual truth. This idea is furthered by Dawkins when he said “it is tempting to translate that feeling of awe and worship into a desire to worship some particular thing; a person, an agent.” (Dawkins 7)
Dawkins continued to claim that “it was a supreme achievement of the human intellect to realize that there is a better explanation for these things,” which I personally have to agree with. I grew up in Cookeville, TN which has an infamous, enormous white cross that can be seen from 2 miles away on interstate 40. When I was young and curious I would ask questions that I should have been googling. I say this because the answers I received were always filled with whimsical, nonsensical faith-based answers. Dawkins must have endured some of this as well, considering his disdain for religion and his militant atheism. He acknowledges that while there are still gaps in our understanding of science and the universe, we are much closer to answering those questions through science and research. He again states that “The scientific enterprise is an active seeking, an active seeking out of gaps in our knowledge, seeking out of ignorance so that we can work to plug that ignorance. But religion teaches us to be satisfied with not really understanding.” (Dawkins 7) Where religion answers gaps of knowledge with “God did it.” Science says “Let’s roll up our sleeves and work on it.” (Dawkins 7) He described science as a thrusting force pushing on us to try to understand while religion reduces the impulse to understand because religion provides an easy explanation that seems apparent and obvious to devout believers. (Dawkins 7)
The second topic of discussion was “science supports atheism not Christianity.” Dawkins’ response pointed out the definition of faith. If religious faiths were evidence based and rational, would there be any need for faith? The answer is obviously no. Dr. Lennox responded with “I presume you’ve got faith in your wife. Is there any evidence of that?” And Dawkins educated him on faith by reminding him that men and women give each other a lot of small signs like affection, looks in the eye, etc. that serve as proof that someone loves you. There is no such proof for the existence of God or a creator of any kind. And that concludes my first installment of my final report.
Dawkins writes in the first volume of his memoir "An Appetite for Wonder" that he's descended from several generations of Anglican clergy, and "I suppose it is not unlikely that, had I lived in any of their centuries, I might have been a clergyman too. I have always
ReplyDeletebeen interested in the deep questions of existence, the questions that religion aspires (and fails) to answer, but I have been fortunate to live in a time when such questions are given scientific rather than supernatural answers. Indeed, my interest in biology has been largely driven by questions about origins and the nature of life, rather than–as is the case for most young biologists I have taught – by a love of natural history..." That doesn't sound especially militant, though his tendency to paint all religion with the same broad brush and to dismiss the devout uniformly as "faithheads" etc. is less than charitable. My impression is that his lack of charity is due to frustration with the refusal of so many of the religionists he's dealt with to acknowledge the scientific merits of Darwinian natural selection. Freethinkers in our part of the country have also had more than a little exposure to that kind of religious intolerance. We have to be careful not to overgeneralize, though. Not all religious people are anti-science.