Last night, on CSpan’s Book TV, Richard Dawkins stood in front of a church-college audience and read aloud from his new book*, in which he drops a tidy little label onto the God Jehovah: “psychotic.” “Dawkins … portrays the ‘psychotic’ God of the Old Testament as ‘arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully….’ (p. 31)MORE>>>
Whoooo-eee, the sparks did fly! Who needs reality TV when you have a charged-up atheist plunked down in the middle of an American Christian-Church campus? If you haven’t already, you need to catch this show.
I love the way Dawkins points a finger at the war gods (Yahweh, Allah, Jehovah, Zeus, etc.) and calls them evil. But from there, he declares all religion evil.* Which in my opinion is a bit disingenuous, since I suspect Dawkins has a dirty little secret. I suspect his secret is this: he himself practices a religion. It’s called ‘Scientistity.’*
Scientistity does what all religions do: explain where we all came from, why in the world we’re here in the first place, where we go after we die, and so forth and so on.
THE PILINGS SHORING UP DAWKINS' RELIGION:
Where we came from: Each of us is 32c worth of chemicals (actually, considering inflation, this might have to be racheted up to $1.32 or more).
Why we’re here: To gather knowledge about the Universe. And to gather it Objectively with a capital “O”.
Where we go after we die: Back to 32c worth of chemicals.
How to behave while here: As long as you sit on all your emotions, you are free to do whatever. (Emotions crush the objective gathering of knowledge about the Universe.)
How-to-Behave Corollary A: Never step in the way of anyone gathering knowledge. Will that knowledge likely lead to the end of life on earth as we know it? No matter. Collecting-knowledge is God, and God is collecting-knowledge.
How-to-Behave Corollary B: If you’re a cameraman, say in Darfur, and what should wander in front of your videocam but a man bonging his brother over the head with a baobab tree, it’s more important to film than to interfere with the unfolding fratricide. Your filming might lead to knowledge -- which is God.
How-to-Behave Corollary C: Since thou shalt have no emotions, thou shalt not worry about people or the earth. People sick and dying? Who gives a fig. The Earth sick and dying? Who cares. Of course, if you have time after knowledge-collecting, and if you want, you may do some goodie-2-shoes work. And if you want, you may do your knowledge collecting around people- and earth-death. But, hey -- no need to.
Now, I consider myself a scientist, so I’m not blasting science, here. But I believe humans seek out religion as naturally as they breathe,**** and if they don’t have anything else, they’ll pick up whatever’s handy and make do.
___________
*The God Delusion
**Can’t blame him. What’s he ever known, except war gods?
***Pro-nounc-ed “Sigh' – un – tiss' - tuh – tee.”
****Religion has been found in every society studied.
8 comments:
Isaac Bonewitz coined the term Scientolatry, which is science used as a substitute for religion. It has two basic tenets: 1) That it is not a religion and 2) that all other religions are superstitions.
What bugs me about guys like Dawkins is that they lump all religions together. He hasn't studied my religion, so he needs to STFU about it until he does. To pass judgement without studying the evidence is not science - it's bias.
*laughs* We've got a mutual enemy at last in Naturalism ^_^
But here's the goofy thing about people who try to explain origins with science -- it's impossible. Because by default science tells us, according to Laws O' Nature, what happened before. By observing a current event (say, a ball falling) we can assume that some upward force was previously exerted on it.
There are at least two things science cannot tell us -- they are simply beyond its scope.
1) Where the Very First Thing came from .
2) Whether there anything exists beyond the detection of science.
And this is pretty reasonable. Science deals with "if, then" questions. IF this happens, THEN that happens. Knowing that THIS happened, we can predict that (as long as only the expected laws apply) THAT will happen.
Science deals with how systems operate, but science cannot explain the origins of the natural laws it follows (that would be silly and circular).
As for proving, by science, that there is no supernatural world, this is also nonsense. Science is the observation of natural phenomena. It has nothing to say for or against the existence of the supernatural. One might as well say that by doing algebra you could disprove the existence of British Literature. Or that watching television all day would prove that your neighbor is not reading the newspaper.
Real scientists, when they are honest with themselves, understand this. They know the limitations of their craft. Pompous scientists and people with little scientific education are more apt to believe that if something cannot be proven scientifically, it does not exist. Scientists of any value will admit that absence of proof is not proof of absence, but furthermore, they will humbly recognize those situations for which their craft is useless.
Following your outline of Scientistity (which is very good by the way =) we hit upon the most incongruous tenet of their faith (or any other faith that I'm aware of).
Scientist: "You are a lump of chemicals!"
32c: "Go on."
Scientist: "You will only ever be a lump of chemicals!"
32c: "I'm listening."
Scientist: "You should gather knowledge!"
32c: "I *should* gather knowledge? How can you tell a lump of chemicals that it *should* do anything? Indeed, why *should* one lump of chemicals obey the exhortations of another? Where do you get this directive to learn?"
Scientist: "Because collecting knowledge furthers science, which should be our goal."
32c: "*Should* be, yes. So the *best* thing for a lump of chemicals to do is gather knowledge."
Scientist: "Precisely."
32c: "*Best* in what way? Lumps of chemicals don't make value judgments, or if they do, those judgments have no authority behind them. Why should I be anything but whimsical, either for what you would call good or evil? You have made me meaningless, made yourself meaningless, and thus lost all the force behind your imperative."
Scientist: "But science causes progress, and helps our species, and improves the species, and enables us to explore the universe."
32c: "When did carbon get so curious? Why should chemicals care if they're arranged in a species or just sloshing around? Who said that we should preserve the species anyway?"
it continues like that. =P Scientists of that breed, who insist on validating only the observable (and of course all they observe in humans with their instruments is a collection of chemicals)...they have nothing left to say to us if they really believe we're just material beings, and nothing beyond the material exists.
If it were true that only the material exists, then by what code do they uphold the preservation of the species or the gaining of knowledge? There can be none.
Only the most faithful disciples of scientististry will hold on to the bitter end -- where they finally admit that no one *should* do anything for any reason, because *reasons* do not exist. And yet...if we are just chemicals, and random minglings of electricity are the basis for our thoughts...why should we trust the thought that our thought is irrational? That thought *itself* is no different than the other thoughts.
If Dawkins follows the faith you say he does, then his ultimate goal (whether he realizes it or not) is to destroy motivation and reasoning.
"The Abolition of Man" by C.S. Lewis (again) will tell you much if you're interested in these naturalist scientists, these "men without chests".
What you said at the end was really interesting (not because I view it as a springboard for an argument or anything, I just like the observation) -- you said that humans seek out religion naturally. Why, do you think, do they do that?
also your link is broken ;)
“Isaac Bonewitz coined the term Scientolatry, which is science used as a substitute for religion. It has two basic tenets: 1) That it is not a religion and 2) that all other religions are superstitions.”
Thnx for the info, morgaine. I will see what I can find about Bonewitz’s views, here. I love the two tenets! Ha!
“What bugs me about guys like Dawkins is that they lump all religions together. He hasn't studied my religion, so he needs to STFU about it until he does. To pass judgment without studying the evidence is not science - it's bias.”
Excellent point. Although speaking of “studying the evidence,” I haven’t actually read Dawkins and don’t really know if he’s studied any form of paganism. (Wanna take bets?)
Paxton - Common ground at last! Bravo for us!
“Scientists of that breed, who insist on validating only the observable (and of course all they observe in humans with their instruments is a collection of chemicals)...they have nothing left to say to us if they really believe we're just material beings, and nothing beyond the material exists.”
I think scientists *do* admit that when the 32c worth of chemicals come together in a living human, they do produce some fairly remarkable phenomena – cognition, awareness, emotions, intuition, abstract thought, etc. – that they (scientists) cannot yet fully explain. Before life and after death, however, the chemicals revert to random, unaware, non-human, relatively inert substance.
“If it were true that only the material exists, then by what code do they uphold the preservation of the species or the gaining of knowledge? There can be none.”
Dawkins first became famous, as I understand it, for his book “The Selfish Gene.” I haven’t read it, but I think the idea is that mostly what humans ARE is a collection of genes whose sole raison d’etre is to ‘look out for number one,’ to advance their own interests above all else. Pretty depressing, huh?
I think he’s partly right. Of course life forms that vigorously look after their own interests are going to ‘win out’ over those that don’t (i.e., pass on more of their genes to the next generation). However, humans are also primates. And primates depend, for their survival, on group cohesion. They send out scouts to warn the group of danger coming. They fight together when danger hits. They help take care of each others’ babies. Etc. Individuals most capable of boosting group cohesiveness, therefore, are selected for. In other words, groups with lots who ‘play nicely with others’ come out ahead.
I'm actually in debt to Dawkins and the other uber-atheists. It was one of them saying how silly it sounded to say, "In Zeus We Trust" that gave me the idea for my blog.
Science can explain everything observable by the five senses. But as Robert Anton Wilson pointed out, it's entirely egotistical to assume that the human brain holds the entire capacity to perceive all that can and might happen in the universe.
Anne, I love that term “uber-atheist.” It just rolls and jiggles around on the tongue, doesn’t it? And it certainly describes Dawkins! He was pounding away at Americans in front of that church-college podium: “No Congressman or Senator admits being an atheist. It just doesn’t add up. Either they’re stupid, or lying….”
I like your RAW point, too. Of course it makes so much sense. Can, did, is and might. It’s a tall order for a primate brain to handle, I say!
I've read some of Dawkin's work, but not this newest one. Atheists give me a headache - they're so ANGRY! They also aren't very scientific. Very few of them rely on emperical evidence. If something occurs that doesn't fit into their definition of "natural," they either ignore it, ridicule it, insist that it didn't happen. The fact that they don't expand their perceptions to allow for anomalies means that they're really just biased and limited.
Anne- I have a t-shirt that that says "One nation, under Goddess" and another that says "Goddess bless America." I find that they're very effective when dealing with fundies.
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