Richard Dawkins is astounded that religious faith is gaining ground in the face of rational, scientific truth based on hard evidence. I am not, I am astounded, however, at the credence given to this programme which goes beyond all scientific method. OK, cards, on table, I have to see the programme tonight to see whether this programme is more fluff than it makes out.
In this two-part Channel 4 series, Professor Richard Dawkins seeks to challenges what he describes as 'a process of non-thinking called faith'. Dawkins is well known for bringing to a wide audience the complex scientific concepts that underpin evolution. His first book, The Selfish Gene was an international bestseller. Nonthinking, and faith, of course, are lumped together in one statement, falsely suggesting that there is a functional connection between the two. Unthinking can be a descriptor for certainl religosity, but cannot be used to describe people of 'Faith', i.e. humility and obedience to the ethics and love of a deity that exists beyond the reach (and scientific scope) of natural science. Faith, is different from religion. Perhaps Dawkins is right when it comes to religion, as this is a human-based system of thought and action based on an original faith in love.
Truth lies and faith
He describes his astonishment that, at the start of the 21st century, religious faith is gaining ground in the face of rational, scientific truth. Science, based on scepticism, investigation and evidence, must continuously test its own concepts and claims. Faith, by definition, defies evidence: it is untested and unshakeable, and is therefore in direct contradiction with science.
Science is not based on scepticism, it is profoundly conservative, only allowing 'truth' to be determined on the basis of initial assumptions, such that assumption get built on assumption until 'truths' such as evolution and quantum physics are developed. This is not to say that I disagree with evolution or quantum physics as theories, they are just that- good robust theories of reality, but they are not fact, they are always open to being falsified- they always should be otherwise they cannot be science. Yet the evolutionists resist any alternative theory. Faith is tested, daily. It is tested by those millions who visit Lourdes without being healed, and yet the test is passed, they still return. Faith is not in contradiction with science, and I am astonished that Dawkins is so threatened in his faith in scientific positivism that he has to lash out. Faith is not even the domain of science. It is about alternate realities that are not testable by scientific method, they are the realities of experience and meaning. To reject faith on the grounds of scientific positivism is to reject the reality of hunger or the reality of having a girlfriend- the biology and chemistry of hunger and love do not lend meaning to human existence. Faith in a God is not necessary to this lending of meaning, but to reject faith in this manner is to reject the very humanism the Humanist Society seek to protect. They have a poor ally in Dawkins.
In addition, though religions preach morality, peace and hope, in fact, says Dawkins, they bring intolerance, violence and destruction. The growth of extreme fundamentalism in so many religions across the world not only endangers humanity but, he argues, is in conflict with the trend over thousands of years of history for humanity to progress – to become more enlightened and more tolerant.
Humans bring intolerance, violence and destrction, not faith. Religosity feeds on hatred, but the mechanisms of hate are human, not that of God. The growth of fundamentalism is a function of the failure of humans to provide for the conditions of health and absence of greed. Whilst we wage war on tolerance in Iraq and welleing in Ethiopia through our thoughtlessness, we pepetrate evil, not Faith.
At the extremes
He explores the state of the three Abrahamic religions in the world today, from the political influence of rich and powerful Christian fundamentalist institutions in America to the deadly clash of Judaism, Christianity and Islam in the Middle East. He describes the Holy Land as the least enlightened place in the world, a microcosm of the threat to rational values and civilisation posed by religion, whose irrational roots, he says, are nourishing intolerance and murder.
Rational values and civilisation have resulted in the British Isles and the US? When 4 billion people subsist on less money per day than we spend on a cup of take-away coffee, how an we claim to be rational and civilised?
There are plenty of characters to illustrate his thesis. There are fanatics, like the former West Bank settler who has taken the small step of converting from Jewish fundamentalist to Muslim fundamentalist, transferring his hatred from one side of the looking glass to the other. And the frighteningly charismatic leader of America's National Association of Evangelicals, who believes he has been chosen by God to convert Americans through religious gatherings that resemble rock concerts – though to Dawkins they feel more reminiscent of Nuremberg rallies.
Yes, of course we can find isolated examples of fundamentalism and hatred, but Dawkins is not using the scientific method to prove his point here, how much oppression can be meted out by assuming that the majority are the same as the minority?
Then there are the desperate, like those carrying burdens of disability or disease, who are among the 80,000 people a year who make the pilgrimage to Lourdes. Dawkins does the maths: out of the millions who, over a century, have placed their faith in a miracle restoring them to good health, there have been only 66 authenticated cures. This is hardly a strong record, he says, arguing that it is better for us to embrace truth than false hope.
This is a poor record for science, perhaps, but not a poor record for Faith, in which millions still return, not for an objective healing of a disease (which is perhaps nothing compared to the disease of consumerism) but who return for a healing of personhood, to return to the wholeness of love and kindliness, to remove chauvinism and prejudice, to stop dehumanising the other through ignorance and fear.
On the face of it, Dawkins is promoting an unfortunate polemic. I hope and pray that his TV programme tonight is more thoughtful than the reviews suggest.
In the meantime, I'm with Christina Odone when she says "The separation of Church and State was supposed to deal with the scientific illiteracy of religious teachings about geocentricity and the Garden of Eden. But this separation has done little to deal with the religious illiteracy of secular scientists; it should be noted that while Richard Dawkins is invited to parade his ignorance about religious belief on our screens, as he will do in
The Root of All Evil, no similarly incisive theologian gets airtime to denounce the secularist moral vacuum."
Timothy+
