Richard Dawkins - interview by Laurie Taylor - The God Delusion

Gentle Rottweiler by Laurie Taylor, New Humanist

Richard Dawkins' attack on religion has been hailed, revered and derided. He talks to LAURIE TAYLOR about the mixed reception of The God Delusion.

reposted from: http://richarddawkins.net/article,511,n,n
Read comments. Read the full interview (pdf)

Richard Dawkins says:

• "my book "The God Delusion" is an invitation to atheists to come out of the closet and publicly declare their disbelief."
  
• "As a scientist I am only interested in the simple scientific question is there a God?" If someone wants to say that God started off evolution then that seems to be a total denial of everything we have learnt."
• in Terry Eagleton's review of "The God Delusion" (wikipedia) Eagleton wondered what Dawkins view was on the epistimological differences between Aquinas and Duns Scotus. Dawkins says "somebody who thinks the way I do doesn't think theology is a subject at all. So to me it is like someone saying they don't believe in fairies and then being asked how they know if they haven't studied fairy-ology. I think it is as simple as that. I'm all for professors of theology who write about little known religious texts and study biblical history, but when theology turns to the study of the trinity, then I think its a non-subject"
• "I'm happy to be governed by feelings and I suppose, in a sense, by faith. But that doesn't mean that I ultimately believe there is something other than the material world that is causing these feelings. Life would be intolerable if you wrote down detailed reasons for everything. So I don't have a problem with faith in that sense. But that is so different from going on from there to declare that there must be something supernatural about it."

^^^^^ Selected comments from: http://richarddawkins.net/article,511,n,n

4. Comment #17278 by Steven Mading on January 12, 2007 at 4:31 pm

Thalesian said in the first comment:
"After America's experiences in Iraq, perhaps ethnic identity is as dangerous as religion (if they don't already both stem from the same vice)."

Actually, the big problem is the world's tendancy to mix ethnic identity with religion as being one in the same. Consider the Sunni/Shia thing: They are religions, and yet they can also be treated as ethnicities because people mis-label children as being the religion of their parents long before the children have any idea what that's really all about - and so people tend to view their religion as a definitional integral part of who they are. That prevents intelligent discourse on the subject because they don't treat it as just yet another idea that can be freely accepted into or freely rejected. They view it as being a permanent thing just as much as, say, one's race is.

16. Comment #17322 by John Phillips on January 12, 2007 at 10:58 pm

Let's get real here, with regard to theology that is. It takes the a priori assumption that god exist without any objective evidence for it. It then twists itself into philosophical knots rationalising the irrational. But sophisticated irrationality is still irrationality only it may have a seeming gloss. Need one know any more than that. Or to put it in another more simplistic, or Walt Disneyish way, as one poster put it, I can only argue how many angels fit on a pin if I start from the premise that angels exist. If I don't, after all there is again no objective evidence for angels either, then what point the argument.

17. Comment #17324 by briancoughlanworldcitizen on January 12, 2007 at 11:06 pm

The trouble here is twofold. First, it's not ultra-sophisticated religious intellectuals like Eagleton's mates who are in charge of the US military and wield vast social and political power in many parts of the world.

Great post, Russell, articulates my thoughts so clearly. I think this is the bottom line John, esoteric, ephemeral and academic constructs are fine, potentially interesting in their own right, but they have no bearing on the real world. No data, no tests, no results. What could be more pointless?

Besides, the people burning embassies, rioting over comics and killing abortion clinic staff would be the first to call Eagleton and his rarified cohorts heretics and aspostates.

So in my view, Eagletons wordy critique is fatuous because it misses the point so completely.

Finally, Dawkins and Harris are right to dismiss theology, and the comparison to fairology is a nice soundbite, that resonates with the majority of people. Theologians are considered the "brains" of the religious movement, descredit theology as a subject and you remove what little intellectual credibility religion has. I actually don't think it can be said often enough that theology is to cosmology/philosophy, what astrology is to astronomy, or alchemy to chemistry.

Theology is bunkum, but it will be very hard for Eagleton and Co. to admit it.

18. Comment #17330 by JohnC on January 13, 2007 at 12:26 am

Russell and Brian, this New Humanist piece was particularly interesting because it gave Richard the opportunity to respond to a number of Eagleton's main points in the context of a sympathetic interview. And there is no Eagleton & Co., since I cannot imagine such a critique coming from any other public intellectual, combining as it does his own ultimate skepticism about theism - "now it may well be that all this is no more plausible than the tooth fairy. Most reasoning people these days will see excellent grounds to reject it" - attached to a masterfully concise summary of a non-dogmatic Christian theology with a series of well-targeted political criticisms.

The real problem is that Eagleton misunderstands the project that TGD represents. It is not an intellectual new synthesis for religious skepticism in the 21st century; it is a popular rallying cry to do battle against actually existing religious insanity around the world. TGD was not intended as a scholarly engagement with theological discourse, but as a tonic for unbelievers and a lifeline for the waverers. And in these goals it has succeeded admirably.

Now on the specific question of theology. In the interview Dawkins' position is circular; in TGD it is not, as he does actually deal with the "main proofs" theology has provided. I made both points in my earlier post. But the latter operation depends entirely on defining belief in God as a hypothesis equivalent to any other empirical proposition. And this is entirely the point at issue.

So Eagleton's complaint remains, and needs to be understood. Why? Because time and again we have seen people at this site express incomprehension at the fact that intensely intelligent scientists (Ken Miller comes to mind) who are nonetheless religious. Understand what Eagleton is saying, and you start to understand how that is possible. These people are not suffering from a mental disorder, they are not stupid, and they are deserving of our respect.

We are not dealing with Jerry Falwell here, and this is not a debate with two sides. It is entirely possible that both Richard and Terry - two of the best known British intellectuals - are both "right" but are on different trajectories launched from different starting points with their paths nonetheless intersecting. It is these points of intersection that provide the opportunity for us to enrich our own understanding.