I love the idea, widely being talked about as a result of Stephen Hawking's latest publication and conversation, that the universe bears witness to its own self-creation. The complex physics and maths necessary to grasp this so-called M-theory (no-one is quite sure what the M stands for) are only understood by a very few theoretical physicists in the world. As far as I (O level physics 1971 - fail) grasp it, the existence of a vast number of other universes is implied by the maths.
I do find it fascinating that the never-ending, never-starting universe is both more complex and more simple than we could ever imagine. And I am appalled at the inadequate understanding of the creator and sustainer of the universe that this theory should be alleged to disprove such.
Back in the 1960s, theologians got to grips with the increasing reduction of the size of God caused by childish Christian philosophy and scientific progress. If God is only what remains when you have explained everything you can, then it is not surprising that that God gets smaller and smaller as progress is made. Such a God is like something which slipped down the back of the sofa never to be seen again. In fact the 'God of the gaps' is no understanding of God at all.
Every children's Christian action-song seems to have some way to suggest that God is pretty big. The observation that you don't need an understanding of God to explain how the universe works doesn't mean there is no God. It is a logic-failure of massive proportions. Christians are often criticised, rightly, for saying 'because God could have done something he did do something, therefore the Bible is history, Adam and Eve were real and we can carry on looking for Noah's Ark.' Or some such. M-theory says, 'God needn't have been involved in this process, so wasn't.' God is big, right?
I agree that the creationist bubble gets well and truly pricked by this latest round of thinking. And by creationist I mean all young and young(ish) earth theories. All Christians are creationist to some extent because we believe there is a God who is involved in and somehow loves creation and creativity.
Psalm 14 says 'the fool has said in his heart 'there is no God.'' However clever he might be, whatever unbelievable progress he has made almost single-handedly to fathoming the mysteries of the universe(s), the judgement of Scripture is that Stephen Hawking is a fool.
Once upon a time Hawking said, '...if we do discover a complete theory ... Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we would know the mind of God.'
This was the final paragraph of A Brief History of Time. Looks like he has changed his mind. Well if he can do that once...
Us Christians do talk disappointing clap-trap about our faith. Maybe we ought to go back to the foot of the mountain and leave God in awe and mystery for a few hundred years. Until the fuss has died down.
Showing posts with label Atheism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Atheism. Show all posts
Friday, September 10, 2010
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
The God Delusion 5
This is number five in a series of posts working through Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion chapter by chapter.
In chapter five he asks the question, 'If natural selection leads to 'useless' things dying out over time why are there still religions?'
He answers his own question by suggesting that religion serves as a 'meme' rather than a gene. It is a pattern of behaviour, easily copied and therefore much reproduced over time, surviving through merit (by which he means ability to survive in the meme pool and nothing more) or compatibility (there's a lot of it about). So he says that Christianity doesn't survive in Islamic countries because of incompatibility, although he doesn't address the question of why Islam survives in Great Britain.
Dawkins is scathing about faith. He doesn't even think it is a virtue. I wonder if, say, his daughter were to be kidnapped, he would exercise scientific detachment at the possibility of her return, or faith and hope.
I began to be irritated by this chapter. Not because Dawkins isn't a good writer. It is cracking and readable prose. Not because he isn't a good scientist. I learned a lot. It is his insistence, again and again, on attacking the worst excesses of religion as if this somehow wins him the battle. If he had some bitter complaint against a fellow biologist he would be sure to have read all that person had written on the subject under dispute before taking on a debate. Here he argues against poor theology and, surprise surprise, proclaims himself the winner. I wouldn't want to rubbish biology simply on the basis of the inability of my biology teacher to communicate important truths to me in 1968.
Dawkins sees the outbreak of cults all over the world as a sign of religion's easy propagatability. He sees four common things about cults:
1. They spring up quickly.
2. The origination process covers its tracks (so it is hard to get at the fact behind the faith).
3. Similar cults can spring up independently.
4. Cults have similarities with other, older cults.
But is this evidence of a meme replicating or an inbuilt longing for something spiritual? St Augustine said our hearts would be restless until they found their rest in God.
Terry Eagleton, in the London Review of Books, and quoted in this article on the excellent Damaris Culture Watch web-site, says:
'Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology. Card-carrying rationalists like Dawkins, who is the nearest thing to a professional atheist we have had since Bertrand Russell, are in one sense the least well-equipped to understand what they castigate, since they don't believe there is anything there to be understood, or at least anything worth understanding. This is why they invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first-year theology student wince. The more they detest religion, the more ill-informed their criticisms of it tend to be. If they were asked to pass judgment on phenomenology or the geopolitics of South Asia, they would no doubt bone up on the question as assiduously as they could. When it comes to theology, however, any shoddy old travesty will pass muster . . . critics of the richest, most enduring form of popular culture in human history have a moral obligation to confront that case at its most persuasive, rather than grabbing themselves a victory on the cheap by savaging it as so much garbage and gobbledygook.'
Which sums it up for me so much better than I could. Dawkins needs to quit wrestling the paper tiger - he's totalled it pretty much - and take on some heavy weights. In the TV programme from which the book has er, evolved, his conversation with former Bishop of Oxford, Richard Harries, was by far the best bit.
In chapter five he asks the question, 'If natural selection leads to 'useless' things dying out over time why are there still religions?'
He answers his own question by suggesting that religion serves as a 'meme' rather than a gene. It is a pattern of behaviour, easily copied and therefore much reproduced over time, surviving through merit (by which he means ability to survive in the meme pool and nothing more) or compatibility (there's a lot of it about). So he says that Christianity doesn't survive in Islamic countries because of incompatibility, although he doesn't address the question of why Islam survives in Great Britain.
Dawkins is scathing about faith. He doesn't even think it is a virtue. I wonder if, say, his daughter were to be kidnapped, he would exercise scientific detachment at the possibility of her return, or faith and hope.
I began to be irritated by this chapter. Not because Dawkins isn't a good writer. It is cracking and readable prose. Not because he isn't a good scientist. I learned a lot. It is his insistence, again and again, on attacking the worst excesses of religion as if this somehow wins him the battle. If he had some bitter complaint against a fellow biologist he would be sure to have read all that person had written on the subject under dispute before taking on a debate. Here he argues against poor theology and, surprise surprise, proclaims himself the winner. I wouldn't want to rubbish biology simply on the basis of the inability of my biology teacher to communicate important truths to me in 1968.
Dawkins sees the outbreak of cults all over the world as a sign of religion's easy propagatability. He sees four common things about cults:
1. They spring up quickly.
2. The origination process covers its tracks (so it is hard to get at the fact behind the faith).
3. Similar cults can spring up independently.
4. Cults have similarities with other, older cults.
But is this evidence of a meme replicating or an inbuilt longing for something spiritual? St Augustine said our hearts would be restless until they found their rest in God.
Terry Eagleton, in the London Review of Books, and quoted in this article on the excellent Damaris Culture Watch web-site, says:
'Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology. Card-carrying rationalists like Dawkins, who is the nearest thing to a professional atheist we have had since Bertrand Russell, are in one sense the least well-equipped to understand what they castigate, since they don't believe there is anything there to be understood, or at least anything worth understanding. This is why they invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first-year theology student wince. The more they detest religion, the more ill-informed their criticisms of it tend to be. If they were asked to pass judgment on phenomenology or the geopolitics of South Asia, they would no doubt bone up on the question as assiduously as they could. When it comes to theology, however, any shoddy old travesty will pass muster . . . critics of the richest, most enduring form of popular culture in human history have a moral obligation to confront that case at its most persuasive, rather than grabbing themselves a victory on the cheap by savaging it as so much garbage and gobbledygook.'
Which sums it up for me so much better than I could. Dawkins needs to quit wrestling the paper tiger - he's totalled it pretty much - and take on some heavy weights. In the TV programme from which the book has er, evolved, his conversation with former Bishop of Oxford, Richard Harries, was by far the best bit.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
The God Delusion 2
In chapter two Richard Dawkins sets out restating the case, which I thought has always been obvious, that 'the burden of proof (for the existence of God) rests with believers.'
He becomes angry when Christians, on the one hand, say that science and theology answer different questions and are (as Stephen J. Gould puts it) non-overlapping magisterium (NOMA), yet on the other hand jump at any piece of scientific support for our faith. I agree with him.
I think the problem is that there are so many shades of Christian opinion and it is really the fundamentalists he has most objection to. He feels that the liberals simply rework their faith every time a new objection or question is raised until the only difference between them and atheists is that they say they believe in God but that doesn't mean anything except a description of living their lives round a story that helps them make sense of the world (my words not his). Does he really want to disturb the simple faith of many gentle, harmless, hymn-singing church goers? Surely their glowing embers will go out without a fire extinguisher?
He doesn't think theology is a subject at all, although he would allow a degree in biblical studies or criticism.
There's nothing new yet apart from a leading atheist getting a bit over-excited. He acts as a man wanting to ban walking because pavements are dangerous. Not very scientific really. On top of this the next chapter is going to knock down the traditional 'proofs' for the existence of God - something that Tom Smail did in my first term doctrine lectures in 1981.
I'll read on though.
He becomes angry when Christians, on the one hand, say that science and theology answer different questions and are (as Stephen J. Gould puts it) non-overlapping magisterium (NOMA), yet on the other hand jump at any piece of scientific support for our faith. I agree with him.
I think the problem is that there are so many shades of Christian opinion and it is really the fundamentalists he has most objection to. He feels that the liberals simply rework their faith every time a new objection or question is raised until the only difference between them and atheists is that they say they believe in God but that doesn't mean anything except a description of living their lives round a story that helps them make sense of the world (my words not his). Does he really want to disturb the simple faith of many gentle, harmless, hymn-singing church goers? Surely their glowing embers will go out without a fire extinguisher?
He doesn't think theology is a subject at all, although he would allow a degree in biblical studies or criticism.
There's nothing new yet apart from a leading atheist getting a bit over-excited. He acts as a man wanting to ban walking because pavements are dangerous. Not very scientific really. On top of this the next chapter is going to knock down the traditional 'proofs' for the existence of God - something that Tom Smail did in my first term doctrine lectures in 1981.
I'll read on though.
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