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Title: Dawkins' GOD: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life
ISBN: 1405125381
Author:
Alister McGrath
Publicate Date: 2004-12-07
Publish: 2004-12-07
List Price: $21.95
Average Customer Rating: 3.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $14.74
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Defending the undefensible
McGrath in all his books is desperately trying to defend the Judeo-Christian God that has caused so much misery in the Western World. The three Abrahamic religions have the same ambivakent monster as a God. Anyone that looks at History and the atrocities due to monotheism extremists in Judaism,Christianity and Islam, understands why many thinkers, from Voltaire and Paine to Dawkins rebuke magic thinking and the idea of an Eastern Tyrant as a God. McGrath, is neither a scientist nor can he (or anyone else) make a truly rational defense of the Judeo-Christian despot. If there is anything beyond Nature, whatever that could be, we should hope is is a benevolent, freedom-loving entity.
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2: Nicely argued
This book is not a specific counter to "The God Delusion" - I believe there is another book on that - but it does an excellent job of totally demolishing the philosophical underpinnings of Professor Dawkins's case. The very language and tone of "The God Delusion" makes it clear that Dawkins is bitterly, fanatically anti-religion. This, to me, totally undermines his case. Dawkins uses not the language of the dispassionate scientist but the demagogue.
Professor McGrath (once himself a convinced atheist) methodically takes Professor Dawkins apart. No matter whether or not you believe in God, there is no doubt that McGrath has the better of the argument, and while he doesn't prove that God exists (McGrath does not seek to do this and indeed says that it cannot be done), he effectively counters Dawkins at every turn while laying down a rational, philosophical foundation in which belief in a Supreme Being beyond the reach of scientific experiment is not unreasonable. In addition, the tone of the book persuades - Dawkins yells, sneers, jeers and mocks, McGrath speaks in a constant, reasonable tone. He walks softly, but he carries a bigger stick than Dawkins. As someone trained in science and putting all considerations of religious belief or unbelief aside, I find McGrath's quiet reasonableness a vast improvement on Dawkins's hectoring tone.
If you've read "The God Delusion", you owe it to yourself to read this eloquent counter. I said in my review of "The God Delusion" that Dawkins would make few new converts with his book. I suspect this is also true of this book, so entrenched are the opposing positions, but I think McGrath's chances are deservedly much better. Highly recommended.
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3: An unsubstantiated screed against a caricature
This book is a long screed against Richard Dawkins. It is couched in academic language and convoluted phrasing. However, Mr. McGrath has only a couple of points that he tries to make. I kept track of the pages on which he repeats the same assertions about Mr. Dawkins. The points are: Mr. Dawkins disbelieves in the wrong God (or faith); God can't be logically disproved; various authorities are invoked who disagree with Mr. Dawkins; and, amazingly, Mr. McGrath asserts that Mr. Dawkins does not base his arguments upon evidence. [I was persuaded to read this book -- bought it used -- by the comments of some believers in the Amazon discussions. Same with Lee Strobel's The Case For Christ. This may be the last attempt at reading an apologist.]
First and foremost, Mr. McGrath asserts that the God that Dawkins doesn't believe in is not the Real God, not the God of "thoughtful Christian theologians." Alternately, McGrath tries to make the case that the faith that Dawkins criticizes is not what Christians mean by faith. McGrath makes one of these two claims on, at least, pages: 10, 42, 52, 59, 60, 71(3-times), 73, 75, 76, 80, 83, 85, 86, 89, 92, 93, 96, 99, 101, 108, 117, 118, 140, 143, 146, 151, 156, 157, and 158. (29 pages of the 159 pages of the text.) I think one can safely say that this is one of McGrath's major assertions.
Mr. McGrath repeats that Mr. Dawkins disbelieves the wrong God or faith on at least 18% of the pages of the book. Emphasis through repetition I suppose. Strangely, Mr. McGrath never straightens us out with the Real definition of the God Christians believe in. The closest he comes, anywhere in the book, is in on page 93, where, after he trashes the "Divine Designer" God of William Paley, he states, "A theologian might respond by arguing that God created an environment within which incredibly complex entities could develop from quite simple beginnings by quite simple processes." This is the deistic God: the God who set up the natural laws and set the thing in motion [initiated the Big Bang perhaps?] This God is extremely difficult [seemingly impossible] to distinguish from nature. Mr. McGrath never describes the Christian God in the entire book. Why? Because the essential features of the Christian God are exactly the ones that Dawkins doesn't believe in, contrary to McGrath's repeated assertions.
And, not surprisingly, Dawkins specifically addresses the deistic God on page 147 of "A Devil's Chaplain:*" "If God is a synonym for the deepest principles of physics, what word is left for a hypothetical being who answers prayers, intervenes to save cancer patients or help evolution over difficult jumps; forgives sins or dies for them?" Why doesn't McGrath answer Dawkins' challenge, since he spends much this book attacking "A Devil's Chaplain" and "Unweaving the Rainbow?" Because he can't.
(* Not to mention his more recent, "The God Delusion.")
I was raised a Christian and the God I was taught about had at least these features: He created the earth, flooded it during Noah's time, specially created all of life, sent his "son" to be born from a young virgin Jew in Palestine, the "son" died to atone for everyone's sins, even sins not yet committed, this God was all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good, this God answered prayers and "saves" people from natural disasters, etc. Which of these features does Mr. McGrath disavow? And how would that God fit with Christian theology? He never tells us.
Here is Mr. McGrath in print elsewhere (National Catholic Register online):
"The second point I'd want to make is that certainly I believe in the Nicene Creed, but I don't believe it because someone has rammed it down my throat. I believe it because I've looked at it very closely and I believe it to be right. I am very happy to be challenged about that because I believe in being open and accountable."
Continued, click on comments
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4: Voracious Critique of Richard Dawkins
A previous reviewer wrote that he wished that McGrath would have addressed more the objections raised by atheists such as Daniel Dennett. However, it seems that he was missing the point of this book. While there are many good works written for that particular purpose, McGrath, here, is simply writing a critique specifically directed against the works and assertions of Richard Dawkins -- a publication that is the first of its kind (and long overdue) -- an end to which he arrives successfully. He does so by exposing, most notably, Dawkins' habits for commiting argumentative fallacies such as ad hominem, straw man, and non sequiter, demonstrating clearly Dawkins' own lack of understanding for the religion he constantly maligns. Again, if you are looking for a book that clearly lays out Christian arguments against atheism proper, then, while this would be an interesting read, there are other works more suitable for the task. However, if you want to read a well-reasoned, analytical critique of Richard Dawkins' position on religion and science, then this is your book.
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5: If you read Dawkins, you must also read his worthy Oxford colleague!
Alister McGrath's book Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life, is a brilliant work by an Oxford colleague of Richard Dawkins that takes Dawkins' atheistic worldview to task in a systematic and thoroughly reasoned manner. According to McGrath, Dawkins' conviction is that Darwinism provides total explanatory power that renders God as redundant, with no discernible "utility function" in scientific explanation. Thus, Dawkins has concluded that God does not exist and, via a number of books over the years, has advanced his atheistic agenda through rhetorical, superficial and inaccurate attacks on theology presented in the most na??ve light.
McGrath divides Dawkins' writings effectively into two categories: the first category deals with ethological (viz., animal behavior) questions in an evidence-based mode of argument that presents alternative viewpoints carefully and thoughtfully, whereas his second category of works dealing with religion are characterized by a strongly dichotomist mode of argument where anecdote displaces evidence and alternatives are treated as rubbish. In the latter category, the tone of Dawkins writings, according to McGrath, is aggressive and dismissive, showing little, if any, attempt to take alternatives seriously. So when it comes to dealing with the behavior of the religious, Dawkins appears to step outside his normally rigorously empirical approach.
What is interesting is that McGrath followed a similar route to Dawkins as a young man at Oxford with atheistic leanings that went on to gain a doctorate in molecular biophysics. The difference, however, is that McGrath actually took the time to investigate Christianity and found it to be intellectually enriching over and against religious stereotypes, and assertions of "blind faith" (blind faith, of which, has never been advanced by any serious Christian writer of note). Further, he realized he had not extended the same critical evaluation to atheism that he had to Christianity. According to McGrath, his doubts about the intellectual foundations of atheism began to coalesce into a realization that atheism was actually a belief system, where he had previously assumed it to be a factual statement about reality.
During his years of doctorate work and scientific research, McGrath also pursued an undergraduate degree in theology followed by advanced research in the relation of theology and science. He eventually left scientific research and went on to become a professor of Historical Theology at Oxford. This description of McGrath's path is important because it underscores how two people within similar environments can adopt completely divergent worldviews. Dawkins, who has no formal theological training, becomes a dogmatic atheistic stating that faith is one of the world's greatest evils, with no empirical evidence to support this contention. McGrath, however, who has extensive theological training, becomes a thoughtful Christian who states that at best, Dawkins arguments lead to agnosticism, as the outcome of the debate between atheism and religious belief is a stalemate since no one can prove God's existence, and nobody can disprove it. It is, essentially, an epistemological question that cannot be settled (solely) by scientific means.
It is remarkable to see such a "reversal" of roles in the clash of worldviews between a dogmatic atheist and a reasoning theist. Not only does McGrath match Dawkins credentials in the scientific world, but exceeds him in the theological where Dawkins seriously lacks credibility. Unfortunately, I'm certain avid readers of Dawkins have probably never heard of McGrath and would not give this deserving scholar's views serious consideration. Like Dawkins in the area of religious faith, they too show little attempt, if any, to critically evaluate their own atheism and take well reasoned alternative views seriously. Instead, they follow Dawkins uninformed lead which consists of, as McGrath notes, flagrantly biased anecdotes and hopelessly unsubstantiated generalizations regarding religious behavior, with rhetoric displacing careful observation and analysis.
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