Having recently read Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion I followed it up by reading one of Alister McGrath’s responses to the book, The Dawkins Delusion. McGrath opens the book saying he mainly intended it to be read by Christians wanting to be able to respond to the questions of friends who had recently read The God Delusion though also hoped that the odd open minded atheist would read it too.
After reading the critical response though I can’t help questioning whether McGrath actually read The God Delusion. For example he claims that Dawkins suggests that removing religion would end all violence. An idea Dawkins of course dismisses. He also seems to suggest Dawkins believes natural selection by evolution happens by chance. While most of The God Delusion is about God and religion, a hefty sum of it is Dawkins explaining how people misunderstand that evolution works by chance and indeed in reality, is the complete opposite of chance.
Also his critism of Dawkins’ discussion of the meme is interesting because he almost seems to go beyond the idea that the meme cannot be applied like this (which is perhaps a fair critism) to suggest the meme simply doesn’t exst. He seems to think of it as a hypothesis rather than a phenomenon that has simply been named. Perhaps he has never experianced a catchy tune, but if I was to take a while guess I would probably bet against that.
In the end, the book is simply a character attack. The criticisms that Dawkins insists rather than suggests things is far more overpowered by McGrath’s own convictions, insisting Dawkins is unquestionably a fundamentalist without any real argument to back up the claim while acusing Dawkins of doing the same thing. He goes to great lengths to call Dawkins a variety of names and insist his writing is unscientific without let up or discussion of anything else.
The book fails to provide any kind of counter arguments as McGrath set out to do. His constant repetition of the idea that Dawkins is a dogmatist doesn’t leave much room for answering the questions raised in The God Delusion or provide answers provide the generic theist argument of “because I know you’re wrong.” The unscientific methods of Dawkins are not disected, simply asserted as being wrong.
There is a constant repetition of the idea of Atheist fundamentalism, an idea that can’t really exist because there isn’t really such a thing as Atheism as that implies it is a belief and it isn’t, it is simply a lack of a belief. Therefore how you can be fundamental about not believing in God or gods is beyond me. Secondly, McGrath does what most moderates do in demonising fundamentalism. Even if this was an example of fundamentalism (which it isn’t) why is this obviously a bad thing? Fundamentalism means following one’s beliefs strictly, surely if you have a holy book written or inspired by God you should follow it? That is fundamentalism. It is obviously not a corruption of religion, the corruption is religious moderation, the picking and choosing (or as it could be described, secularising) of God’s holy word. This apparent attack on Dawkins actually turns out to be a complement (albeit unintentionally) that Dawkins has the convictions to stick by his beliefs (or lack of them) when analysed for what it really is.
Anyone who has read Dawkins writing I believe will see he is not as anti-religion as theists would have us belief. He isn’t interested in politics, in making people feel better or worse, in what impact things have on society - he is only interested in one thing, the truth. All other concerns are irrelevant, you only have to read one or two of his books to realise this is what he thinks and this surely shows he is the heart of a true scientist. He has no interest in being anti-religious, he is simply a scientist.
Which begs the question, what is going to happen when someone who is actually anti-religious moves against the lumbering giant of religion?
