On the inadequacy of Richard Dawkins

(originally published on my other blog list (video games!) and moved here, where it belongs)

There comes a time to be deeply personal in a blog. I walked into Borders in Weegieland last week and saw the latest of Dawkins' offerings. Every now and then someone decides they have found the answer to life, the universe and everything and steps out to convert everyone else to their viewpoint. And, as one of Dawkins allies put it on BBC Radio 4, everyone who believes something else or doesn't believe what Dawkins believes is, quite simply, mad.

What is this human need to be oh so right? Why do we seek ultimate truth and total understanding? Why do we not look into the history of ideas and see instead little Dawkins-ites popping up so regularly, causing more damage than good, more hurt than balm, more suffering than healing? What is it about humans that makes us so inadequate to the possibility - indeed, probability - that we are wrong.

One of the great human errors is to think that I am somehow at the turning point of thought and have come to that great realisation of truth. And so we must beat everyone else about the head to get them to start thinking right. To remove the inadequacy of thought in others.

Sometimes, when humans find the ultimate truth (or, rather, their own version of it) it is relatively harmless, at other times it is very nasty indeed. Without making any parallels beyond this, Jesus Christ's preaching on love (try the beatitudes) and God's seeking after man, the Buddha's offering of a way to personal enlightenment, the non-violence of the Mahatma do not create monsters in their true followers. (OK, I know that the Crusaders were Christians and the Japanese in WW2 were Buddhists; pace.) At other times this finding of ultimate truth can be immensely destructive, such as Marxism and Naziism (Marx's scornful words on 'the lumpen masses' were rarely recited by his followers.)

Other I-found-the-truth believers mainly cause themselves great harm. Such as David Ike deciding he is the son of God (OK, it caused almost irrepperable damage to the political green cause in the UK) or a son or daughter being lost to the Moonies.

What we believe and how we live out our beliefs affect ourselves, our nearest'n'dearest, and wider society. And this effect can be for better or worse. After all, Jesus Christ died at the age of 30 in a most horrific way, as well detailed by Mel Gibson. Belief in his resurrection from the dead led his closest followers to die terrible deaths too. Ouch!

I wonder on what measure Richard Dawkins measures the adequacy of his belief system. For belief system it is. Indeed, I am sure that, if he wanted to, he could easily refute every one of his positions and truths. This must be true because those at least as intelligent and far more eminent than him, such as Lord Robert Winston again recently on BBC Radio 4, have done so already. So Richard Dawkins could surely deal openly with the inadequacy of his own beliefs.

The problem is one of whether or not an explanation is adequate. In the eyes of many, the scientism and evolutionism of Dawkins et al simply isn't adequate. I was originally trained as a Biologist at the University of Glasgow and always had, even as an atheist, problems with evolutionary theory. Read that again carefully - even as an atheist I found it inadequate to explain scientifically and probabilistically what I see in the animal world (sorry vegetables, my Botany was pretty poor so, like brussels sprouts at Christmas, I'll put you to the side of my plate for now.)

My 15-year old daughter caught the dilemma well: 'daddy, I simply don't believe in evolution.' She was down to read it to Higher at school and saw how central this tenet of belief had become to the subject. So, she has dropped Biology in favour of History. Is it possible that Dawkins et al are beginning to create an isolationist bubble around their subject?

There is no proof - again read that again carefully - that evolution, the changing of species to species, takes place. There is ample proof of variation within species (e.g. in humans!) and of breeding boundaries between species (e.g. seagulls down the European Atlantic seaboard.) But, that one species changes into another one? None.

Also, blind change produces degeneracy not complexity and greater adaptability. To believe otherwise is to believe otherwise to logic. There are a host of other problems with evolution. The problem is that if you stated any doubts or contrary proofs in a Biology exam I bet you'd fail.

Again, it comes back to evolutionary scientism being a belief system. I should know because I had more than a foot in the camp for many years. It's just that the rock I was standing on kept wobbling - or I kept wobbling it - until I fell off. As a former atheist turned Christian, am I now mad or bad? Is Lord Robert Winston, who has created so many human lives in his in vitro fertilisation labs, who also left his youthful atheism for real Judaism also mad and bad?

The names of the potentially mad and bad who do not believe what Dawkins et al want us all to believe probably outnumber him and his friends. But, the real issue is that Dawkins et al really, really, really (to quote Shrek) believe that what they think and believe is true. This has taken them across a dangerous boundary where they have lost that natural human attribute: humility. Or, as Cromwell put it: to think it possible that you might be wrong.

Basiclly, Dawkins et al's creed is, IMHO, inadequate to explain what we know and see. It can't explain humanity in all its current, past and future complexity and un-understandability. Indeed, if you think you understand enough to believe you know (but, of course, Dawkins 'knows') what is going on, then your knowledge is of a poor and insubstantial kind (to quote Lord Kelvin.)

There are things we know and which we cannot grasp. That we know exist but we cannot prove exist. These things are often the most fundamental: love, life, death, etc. I know that I love my kids and I love my wife. But nobody can prove this. I know that I am alive. But nobody can prove this. I know I will one day be dead. But nobody can prove this.

I know there are good forms of love (a mum correcting her kids at a road crossing) and poor forms of love (e.g. nationalism.) I know that there is good life (e.g. teaching or nursing) and bad life (e.g. drug dealing or pimping.) I know that there is good death (e.g. running onto a road to push a kid away from a bus) and bad death (e.g. drowning in alcohol-induced vomit.)

I know that things exist in our perceptions. Ask yourself: what is Tesco? Russia? a train timetable?

And in all of these things I understand that Dawkins has an answer which involves scientism, propositonal logic and evolutionary theory. And, in all of them his answer is inadequate to explain to the clear and deep satisfaction of his readers that what he thinks is true and right and the only possible explanation for what we see around us.

In this, Dawkins' scientism is competing in a global world of isms. Roman Catholocism is the world's biggest ism. Islam is next. Hunduism next. Protestantism next. The somewhere down the line 5,000 years of Buddhism appears, with 3,500 years of Judaism. Each of these has a central tenet that, in modern terms, your mileage may vary. OK, in practice their followers have (had) difficulty grasping this difficult concept: that it is a faith they believe to be true, but cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

As I watch Dawkins et al producing their increasing pile of tomes on why-we-are-right-and-you-are-wrong, I worry what they will do once they can't convince everyone that they are the way, the truth and the life. Have a glance at history and you will see a four-way split that ideologues go for: acceptance of difference, loss of personal faith, decline of religion or violent enforcing of their view. Marxism was a way of thinking about the creation and ownership of wealth, that became unbelievably violent (nobody knows how many it killed), it's followers then went through lip service, before it utterly disappeared into the dustbin of history.

Judaism has seen its phases of acceptance of other belief systems, violent overthrow of them, loss of faith, but is still around 3,500 years on from Abraham meeting with Yahweh. Much similar can be said for the other belief systems, or religions if you prefer.

Dawkinsesque Atheism is another belief system. And, anthropologically, historically and sociologically it will go through the same processes of, dare I say it, evolution as the other systems. Dawkins is its St Paul, writing his letters of encouragement to his followers. But where, o where, in all of what he writes is something to compare with Judaism's 23rd Psalm (on God the personal shepherd) or Christianity's 1Cor 13 (on love)?

I know Muslims who claim that Islam is a religion of love (but I am not yet convinced either historically or theologically). Judaism states that 'Gods love endures forever'. Buddhists claim to be able to find a peace. I have a good friend who is a devout Hindu, who finds the Gospel of St John utterly sublime ('For God so loved the world ...') But, where is the love in Atheism?

Also, previous isms claim to have a way to create a better world. How do Dawkins' beliefs create a better place? One of the deepest inadequacies of evolutionary biology is it's belief in nature red in tooth and claw. It is a truism that this formed a central core to applied Naziism: that one people are better than others so the weaker ones must die. And this included those of inadequate belief systems (like Jehovah's Witnesses) as well of those of inadequate lifestyles (like homosexuals) and poorer genetic material (like gypsies, Poles and Jews.)

Again, this points to the inadequacy of Dawkinsesque atheism and scientism as something worth betting your life on. Would anyone who is a follower of Dawkins die for his beliefs, as St Stephen did at the feet of the mob with their stones? When put to torture and asked to spit on the works of their master, would any of them rather die as many Chinese Christians have done in the past twenty years?

Unfortunately, if given enough rope and enough followers the answer would be: yes. The vast majority of Germans woke up from Naziism as if from a very, very bad dream, or a hell of a hangover in a prison cell. But, some really truly believed in it and would rather die. Some killed their children rather than see them live in a non-Nazi state. Others shot themselves. But, most simply walked away.

Belief systems attract the genuine, the curious, the intelligent, the questioners, and the deep believers. I have mine and you, whether you recognise it or not, do also. For example, there is a majority of Scots probably who now believe Scotland would be better off as an independant-from-England country. There is absolutely no proof that this would be true. They just believe it is, and that's why I am not in their camp any more. It is an inadequate belief.

I am a Christian, and I have a good friend who is a Baptist minister's wife. She reckons the real problem with Islam is that it is plausible. Another friend, a Christian leader, reckons that if she weren't a Christian she'd be a Jew because the Old Testament is just so good. me, I'm happy being a confused Roman Catholic who attends an evangelical Protestant church.

You see, it all returns to this question of adequacy. From where I stand, and from where many, many others stand, Dawkinsism is simply an inadequate explanation for life, the universe and everything. It simple does not go far enough, nor is it complete enough or logical enough to withstand deep inspection.

It is simply inadequate.