I have been having a look around the net to see what is available by Richard Dawkins. Quite a lot by the look of it.
We had an interesting session here last week by a Professor of Entomology from the University. He is a Christian and, no surprise here, disagrees with Dawkins about matters of 'faith' even though he agrees with him totally about evolution.
What is interesting to me, as somebody who enjoys observing the interface between faith and the world, is to see the state of the debate between the atheism of Dawkins and the beliefs of those within the Christian faith. This latter category is a broad one, and so when Dawkins has a go at Creationism I don't disagree with him even though I might not like the sneer I detect in his tone. I was interested to read comments made on his site concerning an article by Alister McGrath. The criticisms of McGrath in the comment at the bottom of the article mirror almost exactly those I hear said about Dawkins; simplistic ideas are set up as the thrust of the argument, which can then be demolished easily. Certainly I have not yet read anything by Dawkins in which I recognise an accurate description of the Christian faith with which I identify, but its always easier to pick on the extremist oddballs.
Certainly Dawkins claims the moral and intellectual high ground. He states that he refuses to debate with Creationists because it provides them with the oxygen of publicity, which may or may not be the case. When he does get involved with those who disagree loudly with him, such as the Quicktime video on his site, he writes up a good account of his roundly seeing them off.
But the problem with the debate goes much deeper. When both sides rubbish the other for the simplistic caricature they sketch of their opponent then it is difficult to see how any meaningful progression can be made. This is sad.
I was challenged by another Dawkins article, though. In his short essay entitled The Emptiness of Theology he ridicules the idea of theology being of any practical use at all. Get rid of all theologians, he argues, and it makes no difference to the world at all; but rid the world of scientists and their work would still remain. He does acknowledge that some scientific advances are bad, 'at least they work'.
But of course the scientist in her white coat in a laboratory developing a vaccine or producing some new material is in splendid isolation. The value of her work is when somebody takes the vaccine and administers it correctly, or when I cook my sausages and they don't stick to the pan. The lasting value is provided by the development and distribution. Dawkins may not like to know, but for most people the correctness of Darwin's theories have made no measurable difference to my day today. The theoretical science of Einstein may be brilliant and true, but I can't recall that cropping up either.
Dawkins is disingenuous here. A theologian is probably also a developer of abstract ideas, the value comes when truth and practice come together, when the paper changes opinions and behaviours. Dawkins cannot, surely, dispute that many of faith have made sacrifices in order bring benefit to others (I'm not talking about proselytizing) and that religious thought has on occasions made a moral change in the view of the majority, such as Wilberforce's stand against slavery. Compared to this the amoral semi-justification of any science just because it works, feels decidedly cold and inhuman.
Of course there are many who commit horrors in the name of religion, but they often use science to achieve their ghastly aims, and the last century saw those who did sickening acts against fellow humans using cutting edge technology but without recourse to religion, certainly the scientific precision of the Nazis and the brutal atheistic materialism of Stalin cannot be ignored in this debate.
Perhaps the truth is a lot deeper and more complicated than Dawkins has yet acknowledged. The evidence would certainly seem to point towards humanity as a species capable of incredible acts of heroism and achievement, sometimes at immense cost to self, and yet also able to commit horror and sickening violence in order to advance selfish aims, and that is a truth which I find described and wrestled with in Christian theology and not in the realms of science.
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