the root of all evil?
This is my first blog post for some time and it is motivated by Professor Richard Dawkins'* TV programme 'the root of all evil?', part one of which has just been aired on Channel 4.
In the programme Professor Dawkins made a convincing scientific case for why God cannot exist but then went on to deduce from that, that therefore, 'all religious believers [were] essentially deluded' (I paraphrase) and basically that because much strife has historically been caused by clashes of religion or as a direct result of religious doctrine, religion is an inherently bad thing and we would all be much better of if we relied upon scientifically evident principles to guide humanity on its journey to wherever it is that it is going.
Whilst I would tend to agree with the content of Professor Dawkins' case, as students of social science, does anyone else see the fundamental flaw in his arguement?
I would be interested to hear anyone else's views before I commit my own. I do feel quite strongly about this subject but wish to avoid upsetting anyone's sensitivities too early on.
Owen - you have a head-start as you already know my views on this subject (remember our conversation last year in the pub opposite the Imperial War Museum?).
David - I know that we have already spoken about indulging my love of provocation, but I cannot resist in this case.
*Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS (born March 26, 1941), known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist and popular science writer. He is best known for popularising the gene-centric view of evolution in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, and as an outspoken atheist, humanist and bright. Dawkins is the holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair in the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford.
posted by Nick Dymond @ 21:04
8 comments
8 Comments:
It's nice to have you back, Nick. These blogs have been so quiet lately. I have to say from the outset that what respect I had for Dawkins as a scientist has diminished ever since he obtained the chair in 'Public Understanding of Science'. I thuoght a lot, as a non-scientist (or not a proper scientist, in any event), of The Selfish Gene. I enjoyed Climbing Mount Improbable too. And I even have Unweaving the Rainbow on my shelf. Over the years I've given a fair chunk of money and devoted a good bit of time to Dawkins and his ideas which is why I wish he would shut up, stop talking rubbish and go back to being a hard-working evolutionary biologist because what he's been saying about, inter alia, God, religion in general, war, and the Iraq War in particular have been, IMHO, just plain stupid.
This is the case for the argument that all religious believers are deluded because they believe in something which cannot exist. First, it's based on a faulty premise: lots of clever people reject the idea of a supernatural entity intimately involved with and interested in human affairs; my own credulity is simply not elastic enough to accept the notion that God really cares whether I eat shellfish or pork, or how many times a day I pray and which way I point while doing it, or any other of the seemingly important aspects of much religious dogma. But that doesn't stop me going to church. Deluded? Hypocritical? Not at all. I go because I like the idea that my kids will grow up believing there's something more to life than crass materialism. I fear that Dawkins' hypothetical 'science-led' society is bascally already here and it has its temples and services and superstitions too. I'd flatter Dawkins if I said I thought these 'temples' were universities. If that was true I might have more time for the guy. But it's not. The temple is a shopping mall, the services are led by Jerry Springer and the biggest superstition is that money allows you to buy stuff which will make you happy.
So, for my part, given the choice, I prefer to behave AS THOUGH 'The Supreme Being'--as they said in Time Bandits, a vastly underrated film--did exist because I like being part of a community in which people are respectful of each other and to go along with the rules of the game that entails because most of them are inoffensive and societally beneficial whatever the particularities and other peculiarities of the belief system and because a community has to have some social identifiers if it is going to have any cohesion. At the back of my mind, too, is the idea that I can follow by scientific principles everything from this moment back billions of years to a few picoseconds after the Big Bang--but no further. Before that, who knows? Where it came from? Who knows? It's the ultimate limit of induction. Recently, there has been talk of the multiverse--the notion that our universe is one of a practically infinite multitude of universes. It's as foolish (and arrogant), to my mind, when you think of how vast and ancient our universe is--leaving aside the idea that big as that is it's one of an infinity of such--to say that it has no beginning as it is to say that there is a vengeful supernatural entity who sits on a mountaintop outside Athens who hurls thunderbolts at those who displease him and occasionally transforms himself into a swan in which form he has been known to rape unwary maidens bathing in rivers.
Put differently as far back as we can look in the universe there is no objective evidence for God. No miracles. No changes in the laws of nature as we understand them. We can sort of explain how everything and everyone got to the current situation but not why it's here in the first place. That's not a question for scientists which is something that most scientists recognise. This is more or less what Stephen Hawking says of the matter in A Brief History of Time. So, what is Dawkins barking about? He's as annoying as a Jehovah's Witness missionary on my dorstep. He's become a moonbat himself using the same logic and rhetorical technique as the televangelists he rails against. Click. Change channel.
As for war and religion I fear that he's committing any number of errors the hoariest of which is not reading, at the very least, Chapter 1 of Book 1 of Clausewitz's On War. Because if he did understand that war is a political act then he'd understand that banishing religion wouldn't end war. Human interaction much beyond the extended family group is politics (actually inside it too). We could argue whether or not war is biological, that is to say genetically inherent. I happen to think that a propensity for aggression and violence is and that when you scale that up at a macro level it is a precondition for war. But we're thinking creatures too and so perhaps while we can't 'unlearn war', as John Keegan has put it, we can restrain ourselve in the same way as althuogh we get hungry and have a propensity for meat-eating we tend not to eat each other. What we can say empirically is that war is endemic. Religion can be useful perhaps for socializing people in behaviours which are militarily useful. If you can define your enemy as essentially evil and alien to yourself then it is no doubt easer to get your soldiers to kill them. But you don't need religion for that: the Soviet Union, Maoist China, North Korea, Pol Pots' Cambodia, all spectacularly, egregiously murderous, all avowedly atheist.
In any case, the religion causes wars trope is one of a number of such superficial pronouncements that bother me a great deal. (It's right up there with 'war doesn't solve anything!') It has certainly caused some wars, and been a factor in many but it has not caused all, or indeed most wars in history. For that matter to the extent that we have any restaint on war's conduct currently it is because religious scholars like Augustine in the early days of the Christian Church after it had become the dominant Roman faith tried to reconcile the needs of the state for war (defensive or otherwise) with the dictates of Christian piety. I wonder where Dawkins, who has talked a lot about the unjustness and illegality of the Iraq War, thinks the Just War tradition comes from? Did it emerge fully formed from the mind of one of Kofi Annan's staffers?
Typically, I see that I have written rather a lot. I should get back to work now. I probably could have paraphased the above thusly:
Richard Dawkins, Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford, author of the 1976 book The Selfish Gene, and complete bonehead.
I like too provoke too.
Hum - sure you should be in the Army Nick?
Interesting ideas and certainly not new. That said, I have not seen the TV programme, nor indeed, even heard of Dawkins. I have, however, worked and lived closely with (in no specific order) Muslims, Christians (of all kinds), Hindus, Jews, etc. I've even had a spattering of animalist and "traditionalist" believers here in Sierra Leone and I live with a self-professed Pagan (or at least Athiest)! I can tell you that "juju" and tribal beliefs are alive and kicking in Africa. Indeed, in many instances it is the "old" beliefs that transcend the "newer" (at least to parts of Africa) religions. It is what binds (or is the common ground) the Muslims (the majority) with the Christians here. Interestingly, the civil war here was one of those not about religion and one of the most important things that I have drawn from my time here is that there is absolute religious harmony. A good lesson for the rest of the world.
Science versus religion! Science is fact. Religion is about belief, which is a private and intensely personal matter for most. I do remember vividly having a conversation with a Mennenite (in Canada actually) who absolutely believed that going to heaven depended on his good conduct in this life. One bad strike and he was out - so to speak! My impression was that he lived his life in fear but that was his choice and he would get his reward - if he was good. I have know many Muslim with a similar view but also some who were just keen to get to Paradise and their hands on all the virgins! Whatever the truth, one can only admire those with complete "faith" in whatever and I do admire them. Probably because I do not have it myself but rather subscribe to the notion that mankind in inherently good and that should be enough. Isn't that a marker of being civilized?
Let people choose for themselves what they believe and not criticise any which way. But let us hope that those who have influence in these matters use it positively and for the good of humankind rather than as we have so often seen in history.
I know - more poorly constructed and poorly thought through ramblings from Leighton but ...!
Anyway, here ends the lesson because I really need to "crack on" with my reflective summary...! I do, however, always welcome your posts. At least it confirm that you are still alive.
your
Pip
???
Slightly confused by your response which seems to be directed at my original post. Especially as I am yet to state my own case. All I have said so far is that Dawkins was wrong and as students of military history in particular we should consider why it is important to recognise why that is so. More to follow.
'Should[n't] be in the Army' indeed. Tsk tsk. I was taking schrapnel in 'nam when you were still in short trousers.
Nick
I was not really replying to your post in particular but rather reacting to the subject and then just rambling in general. I do, howwever, look forward to reading your views.
P.S. I'm in Africa and therefore live in short trousers everyday! By the way, how is the European winter?
It has actually been quite mild so far this winter. A bit chilly yesterday morning but today it was about 8degC driving in to the office. Climate change? - bring it on!
I too look forward to hearing my views. After making the promise of doing so, I am now struggling to find the time when I might make an attempt. Alas, David has also stolen much of my thunder (that's the problem with inviting comment before you state your own case). However, there are relevant areas of this issue that remain unexplored and I hope to do so in due course.
2 comments back on this thread, in a response to Pip, I attemted to quote from a film but failed to do so with any accuracy or 'scholarly architecture' at all. So I'll try again. It should have gone something like:
'Listen you snot-nose little shit, I was takin' shrapnel in Khe Sanh when you were crappin' in your hands and rubbin' it on your face'.
- FBI Agent Angelo Pappas (Gary Busey) in Rick King (1991), POINT BREAK (Los Angeles: 20th Century Fox)
So there you have it. I like to get things right where I can.
Hey Nick, if that guy in your photo is you it looks like your STILL crapping in your hands and rubbin' it on your face! Actually what came to mind when you mentioned 'The Nam' was my favourite Vietnam joke:
Vietnam Vet: How many Vietnam vets does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Regular Guy: I don't know...
Vietnam Vet: (veins bulging, gesticulating wildly) THAT'S CUZ YOU WEREN'T F***ING THERE MAN!
Incidentally, top marks for scholarly architecture. That's a very precise footnote.
The thing that particularly struck me as being amiss about what Dawkins had to say, despite his academic credentials and his position of authority, was how narrow minded his views are. He claims to be a scientist but then claims to know all the answers. A slightly bizarre American evangelist on the programme accused him of intellectual arrogance. I think he was right. The tabloids in this country make so much of it when a footballer or other celeb goes astray and the go on about how they should set an example for the impressionable youngsters for whom they are heroes. Well, Dawkins is a best-selling author and principle academic at one of the countries top universities and, as such, should be more responsible in pushing his personal views.
I said that I would tell you what, specifically, I thought was wrong with what Dawkins had said and how we, as social scientists (the study of war is a social science) should be quite interested in religion and its purposes.
Religious texts and their interpretations are often referred to as 'religious doctrine'. The definition of doctrine, despite what the publication 'British Military Doctrine' (BMD) says, is 'that which is believed'. BMD says that doctrine is 'that which is taught' but I say that is has to be believed to truly be doctrine, and herein lies the crux of my point about Dawkins and why he is wrong.
Religious doctrine, like all other doctrine, is defined by belief. The intent behind religious doctrine is inherently good in its nature and encourages co-operation and control of individual instinct. Importantly, doctrine is about motivation. To motivate people to overcome their instincts and co-operate with one another for a greater good is one purpose of doctrine. Importantly, doctrine does not have to be true for it to have value or for it to be believed. There are lots of things that we choose to believe that have no scientific basis or truth but we choose or are encouraged to believe them in any case.
Many armies expend a lot of time and other resources training and installing the belief into its recruits that they are the best at one or other or many aspects of war-fighting and seek to capitalise upon this/these aspect(s) in motivating its troops. The US Army, for example, cannot afford (principally the time) to train all of its infantry in precision marksmanship and so issues its troops with assault weapons rather than rifles and makes up for the deficit in accuracy with a widely held doctrine of overwhelming firepower. Of course, whilst weight of fire does have value, accuracy is of paramount importance. It's a compromise but, without the belief, I suggest that the US Army would have a huge recruitment problem (even more so) as its soldiers may not wish to fight with such a handicap in terms of precision fire. Anyway, I digress.
The point that I am trying to make is that, where motivation is key, as is the case in positive human co-operation, having a doctrine that encourages this positivity has to be a good thing. Whether God actually exists or not is largely irrelevant as long as people believe, that is good enough.
Why people believe in God is another important issue. There may not be a deal of scientific evidence, as asserted by Dawkins, but deluded? I don't think so. If Dawkins thinks that the human race will be motivated by clinical scientific purpose I would suggest that we would all soon lose the will to go on or at least the will to thrive and pursue anything beyond our own suvival. After all, what is the meaning of life? Why are we here? What is the purpose of conscious human intelligence? Why do we get up in the morning? What makes us fight, love, angry, jealous, etc? You won't find a comprehensive or conclusive answer to these questions through a telescope or in a laboratory.
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