The God Delusion concludes with a discussion of whether we “need”
God for anything. “Does religion fill a
much needed gap? It is often said that
there is a God-shaped gap in the brain which needs to be filled…”
If Dawkins is trying
to quote Blaise Pascal, he hasn’t quite got it right. “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of
every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the
Creator, made known through Jesus.” Vacuum…not gap, heart…not mind, and not just
any God.
Dawkins does allow for four possible roles for religion: explanation, exhortation, consolation and
inspiration. He believes he has already
eliminated looking to religion for any explanation….that is the purpose of
science. Exhortation is out, because he
doesn’t see religion as a proper source of morality. That leaves consolation and inspiration to be
explained away in this final chapter
So, God may be comforting, but he isn’t really anything more
than an imaginary friend. Two of my
children had vivid imaginations and well-developed imaginary friends. Neither of them seemed to use these friends
as a form of comfort. My daughter had
one friend on whom she projected all of the naughty things she might have liked
to do herself, but refrained from as her “Jinny Johnny Monee” did these for
her. Her second friend “Jennifer-in-the
Mirror” was more a rival. Looking in the
mirror on the car visor, she was disgusted that Jennifer had a knit hat exactly
like the one her aunt had knit for her.
Neither of these friends would qualify as “a good model for
understanding theistic belief in adults,” which is Dawkins claim regarding
imaginary friends. My son had several
friends who were off having adventures in a strange land he made up. He also talked to his stuffed animals, but
they were not for comfort to him. He
referred to them as his “sons” and took care to read to them, and try to protect
them from such things as airport security machines. Again, this did not parallel a relationship
with a deity.
Dawkins doesn’t think that those who say they believe in the
after-life really do. He quotes a nurse
as saying that, having seen many deaths,”the individuals who are most afraid of
death are the religious ones.” It is
convenient for his argument that he can quote this particular nurse, but I am
also a nurse, and I do not agree with that statement. He asks why believers don’t look forward to
death. The answer is that some do. Many people are not in a state in which they
are able to talk about their impending death.
People of faith, who I have known and who have been coherent and verbal
prior to death, have talked about it.
A few days before her death, my mother-in-law cried out
asking for me to help her. I asked her
if she was in pain, and she answered, “I don’t know.” I asked what I could do for her, and she
responded, “I don’t know.” I then said, “Mom,
do you just want to go see Jesus.” She
cried and said, “Yes, oh yes.” A bit
later, while my husband and I sat holding her hands, she said, “This is a sad
time for everyone.” I said, “I hope it
isn’t too sad for you, Mom.” She laughed
out loud, “Oh, No! I’m going to be
better off than the rest of you!” She
also told my father-in-law very firmly that she was leaving “to go be with the
Lord.” She exhibited no fear and no
difficulty in talking about her impending death.
Dawkins lastly turns to inspiration and whether God is needed
for it. He, of course, doesn’t believe
so. He talks about all the trillions of
people who could have existed, but don’t, so we are “staggeringly lucky to find
ourselves in the spotlight. However,
brief our time in the sun, if we waste a second of it, or complain that it is
dull…couldn’t this be seen as a callous insult to those unborn trillions who
will never be offered life in the first place?”
Now wait just a minute here, a few pages back he is talking about life
pretty cheaply. It is perfectly alright
to abort a fetus, who will never know the difference. Death is no problem because we weren’t conscious
before birth, so why should that be a problem after death. I’m sorry, but I don’t
see the logic in now talking with grandiose sentimentality about callously
insulting unborn trillions…who, of course, never existed, aren’t conscious, can’t
feel pain, and don’t know they are being insulted. It is apparently okay to get all sentimental
about the “unborn” when it is convenient to the point he wants to make.
He likens man’s ability to understand what is around him to
looking through the small slit of a burka.
We can only “see” a small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum with
our eyes. We are aware of additional
portions of it by using instruments. “Our
imaginations are not yet tooled-up to penetrate the neighbourhood of the
quantum. Nothing at that scale behaves
in the way matter—as we are evolved to think—ought to behave…..Common sense
lets us down, because common sense evolved in a world where nothing moves very
fast, and nothing is very small or very large.” And later, “the assumptions that quantum
theory needs to make…are so mysterious that even the great Feynman himself was
moved to remark…’If you think you understand quantum theory…you don’t understand
quantum theory.”
So…we are supposed to accept science, which defies common
sense and can’t be understood because our range of sight as humans is limited,
but we can also be certain (as he has declared in chapter 4) that there is NO
GOD?????
In a world where nothing moves, very fast, and nothing is
very small or very large, there is a God who encompasses all of it. He does not need to be fast, because he is
omnipresent. He permeates the very small
and even the very large moves within Him.
Does it defy common sense….maybe.
Is it explainable through science….probably not, but then currently neither
is quantum theory.
Dawkins ends with “….we may eventually discover that there
are no limits.” I wish he would discover
the One who has no limits.
Then the
Lord answered Job out of the storm. He
said, “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question
you and you shall answer me. Where were
you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across
it? On what were its footings set, or
who laid its cornerstone, while the morning stars sang together and the angels
shouted for joy!”
After four chapters (Job 38-41) of such questions, Job wisely
responds, “Surely, I spoke of things I
did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. I repent in dust and
ashes.”
I am not opposed to science and looking for answers. (I
actually have an undergraduate degree in chemistry.) But, there are limits to the human mind….Dawkins
himself has admitted that.
I would hope that no one would lose his/her faith or wallow
in despair after reading this book. It
contains way too much misinformation and faulty reasoning to be taken
seriously.
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