Evidently, many of Dawkins fellow atheists are of the
live-and-let-live persuasion and don’t understand Dawkins’ hostility toward
religion. He claims he is motivated by
concern for us poor uninformed folks who are missing so much. “My passion is
increased when I think about how much the poor fundamentalists, and those whom they
influence, are missing.” I suspect there
is something more behind his apparent rage than altruistic care for others.
He takes on what he sees as the “dark side” of
absolutism. I certainly agree that it
has a dark side. When the beliefs of any
one religious group are forcefully imposed on others, things can get nasty. He particularly cites blasphemy,
homosexuality and abortion as areas where religious fundamentalists go to
extremes trying to impose their perspective.
Personally, blasphemy makes me cringe. (I've done a lot of cringing while reading this book.) Homosexuality causes me conflicted feelings as I believe it is a “sin”
to practice it, but I have sympathy for those whose inclinations are in that
direction. Abortion breaks my heart. It is a horrific means of birth control and
shows a disrespect for life, but I stop short of calling it murder.
As members of a society, we have an obligation to move
things in the direction of what we believe is “right” and in the best interests
of society as a whole. Those of us who
believe in the God of the Bible are obviously going to disagree with those who don’t
on those issues. That is why we have
discussions and get to vote on issues. I
certainly do not support the idea of killing abortion doctors and bombing
abortion clinics.
In his
discussion on abortion, Dawkins does give some misinformation. He states, “I wonder what these people would
say if they knew that the majority of conceived embryos spontaneously abort
anyway. It is probably best seen as a
kind of natural ‘quality control.’” I
have searched and cannot find any reliable source that says the “majority”
abort spontaneously. Sources often say
between 10 and 30 percent. Last I knew,
a majority meant over 50 percent.
Dawkins discusses the idea of “slippery slopes.” I think he is on a “slippery slope” himself
in his belief that all life is a continuity.
Because he is a naturalist and an evolutionist, man is a more highly
developed animal whose life has no greater intrinsic worth than that of any
other animal. This has some scary
implications. Those of us who believe
that man was specifically made in the image of God attach greater value to
human life. “The evolutionary point is
very simple. The humanness of an embryo’s
cells cannot confer upon it any absolutely discontinuous moral status. It cannot, because of our evolutionary
continuity with chimpanzees and, more distantly, with every species on the
planet.” Interesting. Carried to what I see as a ridiculous, but not
totally illogical extension, I wonder if we should stop taking antibiotics,
because bacteria have as much right to live as humans do.
Dawkins believes that “the take-home message is that we
should blame religion itself, not religious extremism…” I suppose this is true of some religions…the
Kool-Aid drinking cult of Jim Jones comes to mind. But, Dawkins is making a sweeping
generalization regarding all religions, and I cannot accept that. He has gone back and forth between
Christianity (of all varieties) and Islam throughout this book, making them all
equal. If he really wanted to deal with “the
God delusion” appropriately and fairly, he would not lump all religions
together. Not all religions have the same concept of God and therefore, do not
manifest themselves in the same way.
Dawkins has created a horrible, sticky, tangled mass of vitriol,
rather than a clear-headed argument.
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