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This is one of four critiques of the book,\u00a0The God Delusion<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(New York \/ Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006), by perhaps the world\u2019s best-known (and most influential?) atheist, the biologist Richard Dawkins (born in 1941). His words will be in\u00a0blue<\/span>.\u00a0Links to the four critiques follow:<\/p>\n Richard Dawkins\u2019\u00a0The God Delusion<\/em>: General Critique<\/a><\/p>\n Richard Dawkins\u2019 \u201cBible Whoppers\u201d Are the \u201cDelusion\u201d\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Richard Dawkins: D- Grade for Science & Christianity<\/a><\/p>\n Richard Dawkins\u2019 Outrageous Hypocrisy on Abortion<\/a><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Before starting in on my critiques of this book with regard to its claims on science and Christianity, I\u2019d like to point out some areas of agreement:<\/p>\n Either he exists or he doesn\u2019t. It is a scientific question . . .<\/span> (p. 48)<\/p>\n [T]he existence of God is a scientific hypothesis like any other . . . God\u2019s existence or non-existence is a scientific fact about the universe, discoverable in principle if not in practice.<\/span> (p. 50)<\/p>\n The presence or absence of a creative super-intelligence is unequivocally a scientific question . . .<\/span> (pp. 58-59)<\/p>\n [T]he God question is not in principle and forever outside the remit of science.<\/span> (p. 71)<\/p>\n I agree that if materialistic \/ atheist scientists have disdain for religion and God and Christians and forbid them to \u201cdo science\u201d with their religious beliefs intact (as they very often in fact do), that they should also refrain from condemning religion and entering into our domain and \u201cfield\u201d from their materialistic perspective. Goose and gander. If we can\u2019t talk about their<\/em> area, they ought not talk about ours<\/em>, either. What\u2019s fair is fair.<\/p>\n I also agree that science \u2014 by definition \u2014 is restricted to empirical observation and matter.<\/p>\n And I say that there are many ways to discover and verify God\u2019s existence besides scientific (e.g., philosophical, experiential, miracles, revelation, faith).<\/p>\n But I am thankful that Dawkins doesn\u2019t remove God altogether from any connection to science whatsoever, as so many scientists do. Although, the further his book is explored, we see that this doesn\u2019t amount to much tolerance on his part, in practice<\/em>, at least he agrees in principle<\/em> that God is potentially discoverable (or made plausible or whatever) through science.<\/p>\n I believe that the traditional cosmological and teleological arguments indeed strongly suggest (though I don\u2019t think they technically \u201cprove\u201d) His existence. The former is easily tied into\u00a0 Big Bang cosmology and the latter to questions of possible irreducible complexity and astronomical odds against \u2014 or extreme implausibility of \u2013 particular organs or systems having evolved step-by-step purely and solely<\/em> through the laws that govern matter.<\/p>\n Along these lines, I think he observes truthfully:<\/p>\n [W]e on the science side must not be too dogmatically confident. Maybe there is something out there in nature that really does preclude, by its genuinely irreducible complexity, the smooth gradient of Mount Improbable. The creationists are right that, if genuinely\u00a0irreducible complexity could be properly demonstrated, it would wreck Darwin\u2019s theory.<\/span> (pp. 124-125<\/p>\n He also tends to disbelieve the ultra-absurd and absolutely unverifiable, \u201cunscientific\u201d (by our present known scientific laws) notion of the \u201cserial multiverse\u201d:<\/p>\n The standard model of our universe says that time itself began in the big bang, along with space, some 13 billion years ago. The serial big crunch model would amend that statement: our time and space did indeed begin in our big bang, but this was just the latest in a long series of big bangs, each one initiated by the big crunch that terminated the previous universe in the series. . . .\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As it turns out, this serial version of the multiverse must now be judged less likely than it once was. because recent evidence is starting to steer us away from the big crunch model. It now looks as though our own universe is destined to expand for ever.<\/span> (pp. 145-146)<\/p>\n Shortly after, he tempers his skepticism a bit, but at least this is something<\/em>\u00a0on which we agree. That said, let me now proceed to pick apart several statements that I think are dubious (to put it mildly).<\/p>\n On p. 13 he calls Albert Einstein an \u201catheistic scientist\u201d<\/span> and blithely assumes that he wold be on his \u201cside\u201d in comments on pages 13-19, stating:<\/p>\n The one thing all his theistic critics got right was that Einstein was not one of them. He was repeatedly indignant at the suggestion that he was a theist.<\/span> (p. 18)<\/p>\n This is quite right. Einstein was a pantheist (\u201cgod is all\u201d) or perhaps a panentheist (\u201cgod is in<\/em> all\u201d). That much is clear and indisputable. The problem is that Einstein also disavowed any connection to atheism<\/em>, as well as to theism. I outlined Einstein\u2019s religious views<\/a> in a paper of mine over 15 years ago (prior to Dawkins\u2019 book). Einstein also<\/em> wrote (see the sources in my linked paper):<\/p>\n Behe and Miller (both Catholics) agree that God is necessary in the evolutionary process<\/em>, and that this process (nor the earlier creation of the universe) could not<\/em> have occurred without His involvement in some sense or way (exactly my own view, that I defend as an apologist, especially against atheists). The only difference is over the degree<\/em> and nature<\/em> of this theistic (and not deistic) divine participation and guidance. Miller makes God a bit more remote from the workings of scientific laws and processes, whereas Behe brings Him a bit closer. Both views are Christian and quite permissible in that worldview, and for that matter, easily harmonized with the related pre-scientific statements of the Bible. Dawkins states:<\/p>\n The design approach postulates a God who wrought a deliberate miracle, struck the prebiotic soup with divine fire and launched DNA, or something equivalent, on its momentous career.<\/span> (p. 137)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Really?<\/em> This doesn\u2019t follow at all, but has become atheist unquestioned Dogma. I mercilessly satirized the atheists\u2019 religion of \u201catomism\u201d<\/a> years ago, in by far my most controversial paper in atheists\u2019 eyes. It raised such a firestorm of protest that I had to write a follow-up<\/a> explaining the satire: the nature of which\u00a0 virtually no atheist could even comprehend<\/em>, being very unfamiliar with being on the receiving end of sarcastic humor that they dish out to us<\/em> all the time. Here is what Dawkins\u2019 unbridled faith in matter truly amounts<\/em> to, satirically (but accurately!) expressed:<\/p>\n Matter essentially \u201cbecomes god\u201d in the atheist \/ materialist view; it has the inherent ability to do everything\u00a0by itself<\/i>: a power that Christians believe God caused, by putting these potentialities and actual characteristics into matter and natural laws, as their ultimate Creator and ongoing Preserver and Sustainer.<\/p>\n The atheist places extraordinary faith in matter \u2013 arguably\u00a0far<\/i>\u00a0more faith than we place in God, because it is much more difficult to explain everything that god-matter does by science alone.<\/p>\n Indeed, this is a faith of the\u00a0utmost non-rational, childlike kind. . . .<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n The polytheistic materialist . . . thinks that trillions of his atom-gods and their distant relatives, the cell-gods, can make absolutely\u00a0everything\u00a0<\/i>in the universe occur, by their own power, possessed eternally either in full or (who knows how?) in inevitably unfolding potentiality.<\/p>\n One might call this (to coin a phrase)\u00a0Atomism\u00a0<\/i>(\u201cbelief that the atom is God\u201d). Trillions of omnipotent, omniscient atoms can do absolutely everything that the Christian God can do, and for little or no reason\u00a0that anyone\u00a0can understand (i.e., why and how the atom-god came to possess such powers in the first place). . . .<\/p>\n Oh, and we mustn\u2019t forget the time-goddess. She is often invoked in worshipful, reverential, awe-inspiring terms as the be-all, end-all explanation for things inexplicable, as if by magic her very incantation rises to an explanatory level . . . The time-goddess is the highest in the ranks of the Atomist\u2019s wonderfully varied hierarchy of gods (sort of the \u201cZeus\u201d of Atomism). One might call this belief\u00a0Temporalism<\/i>.<\/p>\n \n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n
Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations,\u00a0there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable.\u00a0Veneration for this force<\/span> beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in point of fact, religious. (1927)<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nMy\u00a0religiosity\u00a0consists of a\u00a0humble admiration\u00a0of the\u00a0infinitely superior spirit\u00a0that reveals itself in the little that we can comprehend about the knowable world<\/span>. That\u00a0deeply emotional conviction\u00a0of the presence of a\u00a0superior reasoning power<\/span>, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of\u00a0God. (1927)<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nI\u2019m\u00a0not an atheist\u00a0<\/span>and I don\u2019t think I can call myself a\u00a0pantheist<\/a>. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows\u00a0someone must have written those books. It does not know how. The child dimly suspects a\u00a0mysterious order\u00a0<\/span>in the\u00a0arrangement\u00a0of the books but doesn\u2019t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is\u00a0the attitude of even the most intelligent human being\u00a0toward\u00a0God. We see a universe\u00a0marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws<\/span>. Our limited minds cannot grasp the\u00a0mysterious force<\/span>\u00a0that moves the constellations. (1930)<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nSpeaking of\u00a0the spirit\u00a0that informs modern scientific investigations<\/span>, I am of the opinion that all the finer speculations in the realm of science\u00a0spring from a deep religious feeling<\/span>, and that without\u00a0such feeling\u00a0they would not be fruitful. (1930)<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nAll religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree<\/span>. . . . It is no mere chance that our older universities developed from clerical schools. (1937)<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nIn view of such\u00a0harmony in the cosmos\u00a0which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet\u00a0people who say there is no God. But\u00a0what makes me really angry is that they quote me for support of such views<\/span>. (c. 1941)<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nThen there are the\u00a0fanatical atheists<\/span>\u00a0whose intolerance is the same as that of the religious fanatics, and it springs from the same source . . . They are creatures who can\u2019t hear\u00a0the music of the spheres<\/span>.\u00a0(7 August 1941)<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nDoes there truly exist an insuperable contradiction between religion and science?<\/span> Can religion be superseded by science? The answers to these questions have, for centuries, given rise to considerable dispute and, indeed, bitter fighting. Yet, in my own mind there can be no doubt that in both cases a dispassionate consideration can only lead to a negative answer.<\/span><\/div>\n*<\/div>\nWhile it is true that scientific results are entirely independent from religious or moral considerations, those individuals to whom we owe the great creative achievements of science were all of them imbued with the truly religious conviction<\/span> that this universe of ours is something perfect and susceptible to the rational striving for knowledge. (1948)<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nYou may call me\u00a0an agnostic, but\u00a0I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist<\/span>\u00a0whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth.\u00a0I prefer an attitude of humility\u00a0corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being. (28 September 1949)<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nI have found no better expression than\u00a0\u2018religious\u2019\u00a0for\u00a0confidence in\u00a0the rational nature of reality, insofar as it is accessible to human reason. Whenever\u00a0this feeling is absent,\u00a0science degenerates into uninspired empiricism<\/span>.\u00a0(1 January 1951)<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nI am also not a \u201cFreethinker\u201d<\/span> in the usual sense of the word because I find that this is in the main an attitude nourished exclusively by an opposition against naive superstition.\u00a0My feeling is insofar religious as I am imbued with the consciousness of the insufficiency of the human mind to understand deeply\u00a0the harmony of the Universe<\/span> which we try to formulate as \u201claws of nature.\u201d\u00a0It is this consciousness and humility I miss in the Freethinker mentality<\/span>. (23 February 1954)<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nIn a word, like all great and wise (and humble) thinkers, Einstein fully understood that he could not explain everything<\/strong><\/em>, and retained his wonder as regards the marvels of the universe. This is very much in line with Christian thinking, and strictly contrary to doctrinaire \/ crusading atheism, as he himself repeatedly noted. Bottom line: though not a theist, it seems fairly apparent that Einstein was closer in spirit<\/em> to us \u2014 in terms of the relationship of religion to science \u2014 than to atheism. Thus, it is erroneous for Dawkins to claim and assume otherwise. He could have found all these citations, just as I did, but he chose only to selectively<\/em> cite those that fit into his own thesis.<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nSince I have mentioned Einstein, I\u2019ll mention another scientist that he brings up, getting important things wrong about him. He calls microbiologist Michael Behe<\/a> (of \u201cirreducible complexity\u201d and Darwin\u2019s Black Box<\/em><\/a> fame) a \u201ccreationist\u201d<\/span> on page 129. He\u2019s not<\/em><\/strong>, and this is easily able to be discovered (if not already known), by ten minutes maximum spent on Google or the Amazon pages of Behe\u2019s books. In the aforementioned book (written in 1996), Dr. Behe writes:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
Many people think that questioning Darwinian evolution must be equivalent to espousing creationism. . . . For the record, I have no reason to doubt that the universe is the billions of years old that physicists say it is. Further, I find the idea of common descent (that all organisms share a common ancestor) fairly convincing, and have no particular reason to doubt it. . . . I think that evolutionary biologists have contributed enormously to our understanding of the world. Although Darwin\u2019s mechanism \u2014 natural selection working on variation \u2014 might explain many things, however, I do not believe it explains molecular life. (p. 5)<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nThis is not to say that random mutation is a myth, or that Darwinism fails to explain anything (it explains microevolution very nicely) . . . (p. 22)<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nI believe the evidence strongly supports common descent. But the root question remains unanswered: What has caused complex systems to form? No one has ever explained in detailed, scientific fashion how mutation and natural selection could build the complex, intricate structures discussed in this book.
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\nIn fact, none of the papers published in JME<\/em> [Journal of Molecular Evolution<\/em>] over the entire course of its life as a journal has ever proposed a detailed model by which a complex biochemical system might have been produced in a gradual, step-by-step Darwinian fashion. . . .
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\nThe very fact that none of these problems is even addressed, let alone resolved, is a very strong indication that Darwinism is an inadequate framework for understanding the origin of complex biochemical systems.<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n. . . the papers are missing. Nothing remotely like this has bee published. (p. 176)<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nThat is simply not \u201ccreationism.\u201d Common decent is antithetical to any form of creationism (whether young-earth or old-earth). Behe\u2019s view is a form of theistic evolution. Therefore, it\u2019s both dishonest and flat-out stupid for Dawkins to describe him in that way. It\u2019s a combination of the unworthy \u201cpoisoning the well\u201d and \u201cstraw man\u201d fallacious tactics.<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nBut Dawkins, in his wise and gracious magnanimity, precludes any possibility\u00a0<\/em>of that category of thinker (even though Darwin himself<\/em> didn\u2019t do so). For him, it\u2019s either materialistic \/ atheistic Darwinian evolution (and gradualist at that) or nothing. No one can honestly, intelligently be a theistic evolutionist. Hence, he writes:<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nI am continually astonished by those theists who . . . seem to rejoice in natural selection as \u2018God\u2019s way of achieving his creation\u2019.<\/span> (p. 118)<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nWhy<\/em>? How can that be ruled out<\/em>? Well, in effect, it \u201cis\u201d simply by scientists like Dawkins saying<\/em> so; not by rational argument. But simply asserting<\/em> one\u2019s own dogmas is neither science nor philosophy. Charles Darwin wrote on 7 May 1879, less than three years before he died:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent Theist & an evolutionist.\u2014 You are right about Kingsley. Asa Gray<\/a>, the eminent botanist, is another case in point\u2014 What my own views may be is a question of no consequence to any one except myself.\u2014 But as you ask, I may state that my judgment often fluctuates. Moreover whether a man deserves to be called a theist depends on the definition of the term: which is much too large a subject for a note. In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.\u2014 I think that generally (& more and more so as I grow older) but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind. (Letter to John Fordyce<\/a>, [complete] )<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\nDarwin\u2019s best friend and advocate \/ \u201cbulldog\u201d: the agnostic Thomas Henry Huxley<\/a> (1825-1895), certainly didn\u2019t forbid either God or theistic evolutionists from science. He wrote in his article, \u201cScience and Morals\u201d in 1886:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
The student of nature, who starts from the axiom of the universality of the law of causation, cannot refuse to admit an eternal existence; if he admits the conservation of energy, he cannot deny the possibility of an eternal energy; if he admits the existence of immaterial phenomena in the form of consciousness, he must admit the possibility, at any rate, of an eternal series of such phenomena; and, if his studies have not been barren of the best fruit of the investigation of nature, he will have enough sense to see that when Spinoza says, \u2018Per Deum intelligo ens absolute infinitum, hoc est substantiam constantem infinitis attributis,\u2019 the God so conceived is one that only a very great fool would deny, even in his heart. Physical science is as little Atheistic as it is Materialistic.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\nOne could go on and on with this sort of thing (for much more, see my book, Science and Christianity<\/em><\/a>). The point is that, if Dawkins wants to invoke Darwin in hushed and semi-hagiographical tones, and pretend that his outlook requires a strict materialism and\/or atheism, then he also has to take into consideration Darwin\u2019s own<\/em>\u00a0stated views, and that of his closest friends, like Huxley and Gray. We can\u2019t superimpose present atheism back onto them. Darwin and Huxley were both agnostics, and Darwin makes it clear that his revolutionary views developed (in 1859) when he was still a professed theist.<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nWhile Dawkins is \u201castonished\u201d by theistic evolutionists, he is not above citing them at times to suit his own purposes. Thus he mentions Dr. Kenneth Miller<\/a> as \u201cthe most persuasive nemesis of \u2018intelligent design\u2019, not least because he is a devout Christian\u201d<\/span> (p. 131). Yes he is! And that means he is a theistic evolutionist. On the same page he recommends Dr. Miller\u2019s 1999 book, Finding Darwin\u2019s God<\/em><\/a>. I have it in my library, along with Dr. Behe\u2019s two books. Miller opposes Behe\u2019s take on intelligent design, but in no way does he preclude God from evolution:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
By any reasonable analysis, evolution does nothing to distance or to weaken the power of God. . . . A God who presides over an evolutionary process is not an impotent, passive observer. Rather, he is one whose genius fashioned a fruitful world in which the process of continuing creation is woven into the fabric of matter itself. (p. 243)<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\nI have no problem with that at all. However God exercised His power to create (Behe\u2019s way or Miller\u2019s way), He is still intimately involved in the process. And that view is far \u2014 poles apart \u2014 from Dawkins\u2019 position, which holds that absolutely everything is ultimately<\/em>\u00a0or potentially<\/em> explainable (since there is no God) by natural processes. Dawkins seems to think Miller is on his<\/em> side. He\u2019s far more on my<\/em> side.<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\nYeah, possibly<\/em> that occurred, and maybe<\/em> Behe would agree. Miller wouldn\u2019t, and would say that God designed all of those potentialities and actualities from the outset, and let them run their course. Theists can have<\/em> those discussions. Dawkins can\u2019t<\/em>, because his prior atheistic dogma dictates that God is impossible (and absurd). Obviously, then, it\u2019s difficult to discuss His relation to evolutionary processes if He ain\u2019t there in the first place. I find this dogmatic closed-mindedness to be contrary to both the scientific and philosophical enterprises.<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nGive me an agnostic, a la Darwin and Huxley and Einstein, any day. They retain an open mind and a humility and thoughtful seriousness that Dawkins seems to not even be capable of conceiving. Dawkins is naive and foolish enough to think (in a very<\/em> un-Einsteinian way) that science can essentially explain everything<\/em>:<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nHistorically, religion aspired to explain<\/em> our own existence and the nature of the universe in which we find ourselves. In this role it is now completely superseded by science . . .<\/span> (p. 347)<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nAlright. Let\u2019s see, then, how Dawkins attempts to explain the origin of the universe and of life. Here\u2019s a few samples:<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n[T]he spontaneous arising by chance of the first hereditary molecule strikes many as improbable. Maybe it is \u2014 very very improbable, . . .<\/span>\u00a0 (p. 137)<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n[T]he origin of the eucaryotic cell . . . was an even more momentous, difficult and statistically improbable step than the origin of life. The origin of consciousness might be another major gap whose bridging was of the same order of improbability.<\/span> (p. 140)<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nNatural selection works because it is a cumulative one-way street to improvement. It needs some luck to get started, and the \u2018billions of planets\u2019 anthropic principle grants it that luck. Maybe a few later gaps in the evolutionary story also need major infusions of luck, with anthropic justification.<\/span> (p. 141)<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nIt follows from the fact of our existence that the laws of physics must be friendly enough to allow life to arise.<\/span> (p. 141)<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nWe see here that Dawkins (especially in the final sentence above) ventures into radically circular logical territory (meaning, he has already assumed what he is trying to prove and that his \u201cconclusion\u201d was already present in his premise):<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
1) Alas, life (including us) is here.<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n2) Only<\/em> physical laws can account for life (no God can possibly explain it, since there is no God).
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\n3) Therefore, the laws of physics must<\/em> have done so.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\nThis is hardly compelling: logically or any other way. Dawkins has asserted dogma. He needs to prove it, according to the usual scientific demonstration. This is materialistic [blind] faith and belief in unproven axioms, that I have endlessly critiqued and lampooned in my apologetics for over 35 years now. Dawkins had repeatedly decried \u201cchance\u201d in the book and denied that natural selection entailed it. Yet when he has nothing better to offer, he readily \u201cworships\u201d the god of \u201cluck\u201d in order to shore up his bankrupt worldview, as to how things ultimately got here. How is Dawkins\u2019 \u201cluck\u201d any intellectually superior to Behe\u2019s intelligent design and irreducible complexity? We\u2019re not impressed.<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nReferring to the origin of life on earth (\u201cpossibly only one planet in the entire universe\u201d<\/span>), he says that \u201cWe now understand essentially how the trick was done\u201d<\/span> (pp. 366-367). It\u2019s all explained by natural selection, you see. We understand no such thing, which is presumably why Dawkins never blesses us with the scientific explanation. He merely asserts yet again (atheists have become very good at that: so often thinking they need not explain<\/em> anything). He (with a straight face) proclaims the glories of his god Darwin, and Darwin\u2019s prophet and bearer of good tidings, natural selection, and concludes on his last page (order inverted below):<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n[W]e considered the improbability of the origin of life and how even a near-impossible chemical event must come to pass given enough planet years to play with . . .<\/span> (p. 374)<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n[I]n the vastness of astronomical space, or geological time, events that seem impossible . . . turn out to be inevitable.<\/span> (p. 374)<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n\n\n
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Atomism is a strong, fortress-like faith. It is often said that it \u201cmust<\/em>\u00a0be\u201d what it is. . . .<\/div>\n<\/div>\nSome Atomist utterances even have the \u201cring\u201d of Scriptures; for example, urgings of an appropriate humility regarding man\u2019s opinion of his own importance, because the universe is so\u00a0large<\/i>, and we are so\u00a0small<\/i>, as if, somehow, largeness itself is some sort of inherently God-like quality. . . .<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n
All of this desperate \u201cpseudo-explanation\u201d of the universe comes about because Dawkins disallows anything but matter to exist in the universe (the position of monism, as opposed to dualism). Listen to his viciously circular and hyper-silly utterances, made with a blind faith that is admirable at least in its \u201cheroically\u201d hopeless defiance of reason and reality alike:<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n[T]here is nothing beyond the natural, physical world, no super<\/em>natural creative intelligence . . . no soul . . . If there is something that appears to lie beyond the natural world as it is now imperfectly understood, we hope to eventually understand it and embrace it within the natural.<\/span> (p. 14)<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n[A]ny creative intelligence, of sufficient complexity to design anything, comes into existence only as the end product of an extended process of gradual evolution<\/em>. Creative intelligences, being evolved, necessarily arrive late in the universe, and therefore cannot be responsible for designing it. God, in the sense defined, is a delusion . . .<\/span> (p. 31; italics in original)<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n[T]he Darwinian is challenged to explain the source of all the information in living matter . . . Darwinian natural selection is the only known solution to the otherwise unanswerable riddle of where the information comes from.<\/span> (pp. 113-114)<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nI confess that I am an utter loss to reply to such fathomless inanities as this, so I will again cite my \u201cAtomism\u201d paper and conclude:<\/div>\n\n
The Atomist \u2013 ever-inventive and childlike \u2013 manages to believe any number of things, in faith, without the unnecessary addition of mere explanation.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n