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The God Delusion. Engaging the worldview of :. By: Dr. Richard Dawkins. Considerations. As we read through the quotes from the book: Set you personal feelings to the side for a moment and consider how reasonable it sounds to our children and those who don't have a relationship with Jesus.
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The God Delusion Engaging the worldview of : By: Dr. Richard Dawkins
Considerations As we read through the quotes from the book: • Set you personal feelings to the side for a moment and consider how reasonable it sounds to our children and those who don't have a relationship with Jesus. • Recognize that theses statements come from a worldview that resonates with the "generation x" and millennials in western society, because they were taught to think this way. • Consider how you would respond to the quote if someone asked you to address it right now.
— Proverbs 13:20 (HCSB) The one who walks with the wise will become wise, but a companion of fools will suffer harm.
Chapter - sections CHAPTER 1: DEEPLY RELIGIOUS NON-BELIEVER • A Deserved respect (pg. 11) • Undeserved respect (pg. 20)
A deeply religious non-believer What is religion? Definition: Religion (n) • The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. • A particular system of faith and worship. • A pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance. By the definition, is there any reason to expect that an Atheist would be unable to have a "religious" experience. • We may want to think of a supernatural experience as a subset of religious experiences.
— Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 11 "A quasi-mystical response to nature and the universe is common among scientists and rationalists. It has no connection with supernatural belief."
A deeply religious non-believer Questions If God created mankind to have a specific "quasi-mystical" feeling or response when contemplating the creation and its beauty, would Richard Dawkins be able to recognize it? From an evolutionary perspective it would make sense that organisms develop fear and a fight-or-flight response. Does this "quasi-mystical" feeling provide any survival or reproductive purpose?
A deeply religious non-believer Questions If some aspect of humanity (in this case feelings) had a supernatural origin, how would the Atheist ultimately reason their way to the truth? Why are just-so stories and god-of-the-gaps arguments so damaging to genuine inquiry?
— Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 13 "Much unfortunate confusion is caused by failure to distinguish what can be called Einsteinian religion from supernatural religion. Einstein sometimes invoked the name of God (and he is not the only atheistic scientist to do so), inviting misunderstanding by supernaturalists eager to misunderstand and claim so illustrious a thinker as their own."
A deeply religious non-believer A deserved respect Dawkins shows us two different worldviews: • Einsteinian Religion and Supernatural Religion • The implication is that Einsteinian Religion in naturalistic and therefore acceptable. • By page 18 it becomes clear that Dawkins acknowledges that Einsteinian Religion and Pantheism are the same thing. • We see his naturalistic bias. From this point we know that he does not objectively analyze any supernatural phenomena.
A deeply religious non-believer A deserved respect Dawkins accuses supernaturalist of trying to claim different thinkers as their own. While many of them would agree with Dawkins, not all would. Later he is just as quick to make excuses for those great minds that were also supernaturalist. Typically insinuating they only spoke that way due to the culture in which they lived. • Dawkins is just doing the very thing he accused the supernaturalist of.
— Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 13 "As I continue to clarify the distinction between supernatural religion on the one hand and Einsteinian religion on the other, bear in mind that I am calling only supernatural gods delusional."
— Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 18 “Pantheists don’t believe in a supernatural God at all, but use the word God as a non-supernatural synonym for Nature, or for the Universe, or for the lawfulness that governs its workings.”
A deeply religious non-believer A deserved respect Dawkins clearly states that belief in a supernatural God is delusional. His treatment of the subject up to this point would leave you with the impression that a purely material god would be rational. When you reach the point where you deify the material world and embrace scientism as your religion and philosophy...how different are you from the ancient Pagans who worshipped idols of wood and stone?
— Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 18 “Pantheism is sexed-up atheism. Deism is watered-down theism.”
— Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 20 “A widespread assumption, which nearly everybody in our society accepts— the non-religious included— is that religious faith is especially vulnerable to offence and should be protected by an abnormally thick wall of respect, in a different class from the respect that any human being should pay to any other.”
A deeply religious non-believer undeserved respect STRAWMAN FALLACY: Has anyone (outside of those making this argument) claimed that people of faith are more prone to taking offense to something, more than any other definable people group? Millenials, Feminists, the LGBTQ movement, Atheists, and many others make it a point to let everyone know how offended they are. Accommodations are often made for them. • How are these groups any different that “religious” groups? • Why doesn’t Dawkins have an issue with these other groups?
— Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 23 “As a typical example, in 2004 James Nixon, a twelve-year-old boy in Ohio, won the right in court to wear a T-shirt to school bearing the words ‘Homosexuality is a sin, Islam is a lie, abortion is murder. Some issues are just black and white!’..."
— Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 23 “The parents might have had a conscionable case if they had based it on the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech. But they didn’t. Instead, the Nixons’ lawyers appealed to the constitutional right to freedom of religion.”
A deeply religious non-believer Question Would you wear that T-shirt to a public place? What part of living out your faith includes making untargeted, politically charged, statements you know will be offensive? Would Jesus have worn that T-shirt? Should freedom of speech allow for the wearing of that T-shirt in a school?
A deeply religious non-believer undeserved respect Dawkins states that this is a “typical” example. I would argue that this is atypical in the sense that the young man went out of his way to wear something he knew would be offensive. • Typically if people are offended it is over a situation where neither party is intentionally offensive, but there is a clash of beliefs. This is an excellent example of why Christians need to be sensitive to how their messages are being perceived. The negative impact can far outweigh the positive and thus assist the opposing view. • Christians should be strategic and wise about demanding rights, legal challenges, and confronting the culture.
— Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 27 "I am not in favour of offending or hurting anyone just for the sake of it. But I am intrigued and mystified by the disproportionate privileging of religion in our otherwise secular societies.”
A deeply religious non-believer undeserved respect Dawkins would have us believe he doesn’t wish to offend anyone, but the truth of the matter is that his willingness to be offensive has been a core element of his success. His audience eats it up. This claim is one of this final statements in chapter 1, yet he will open chapter 2 up with one of the most well known (and offensive) rants in all of Atheism. The disproportionate amount of respect in our society may be out of balance. We are rapidly converting from a Christian society to a secular society. His point actually makes quite a bit of sense.
A Deeply Religious NOn-believer conclusion When considering the title Religious Non-believer it is obvious that Dawkins accepts religion as long as it is a personal feeling or emotion, but not a way of life with moral obligations. By accepting Pantheism Dawkins shows that he is willing to accept a worldview that is free of any supernatural elements. By rejecting the possibility of the supernatural he rejects any possibility rationally considering anything supernatural. If naturalistic materialism is wrong he doesn’t have a framework correcting his error.
A Deeply Religious NOn-believer conclusion In the book Dawkins makes several excellent arguments against cases where people of faith get exemptions, exceptions, or tolerance. • As people of faith we should be able to articulately discuss those situations and when necessary clarify, justify, and defend why those protections benefit a secular society. Christians need to recognize that the secular world is sensitive to many of the same things Dawkins is. We would be wise to respect those sensitivities. • When we handle these situations wisely we can create bridges between us and the secular world. God will use those bridges.
