The Dawkins Delusion: Alister McGrath

[Undesired Walrus]

I was given this book from a Catholic friend of mine the other day.

Suprisingly, it appears to be only 60 pages long. But McGrath may be a man who feels the truth needs no defending.

Some extracts:

Dawkins misunderstands an a posteriori demonstration of the coherence of faith and observation to be a priori proof of faith.. a serious error

I confess I have no idea what he means here.

It needs to be pointed out here that the holy grail of the natural sciences is the quest for the grand unified theory- the theory of everything. Why is such a theory regarded as being so important? Because it can explain everything, without itself requiring or demanding an explanation. There is no infinite regress in the quest for explanation there. If Dawkin's brash and simplistic arguments carried weight, this great scientific quest could be dismissed with a seemingly profound, yet in fact trivial question: What explains the explainer. There is no reason to suppose that this quest is a failure from the outset, simply because it terminates the explanatory process.

I think the problem here, is that McGrath is invoking a tortoise shell where he cannot claim one in the first place. Gravity, motion, etc, are a tortoise shell that we can claim because of the evidence we back them up with.

As Sagan may say, 'Why not save a step?'.

A quest for an irreducible explanation lies at the heart of the scientific quest.

=============

Belief in God [Dawkins argues] represents belief in a being whose existence must be even more complex- and therefore more improbable.

Why is something complex improbable?... We may be improbable, yet we are here. The issue, then, is not whether God is improbable, but whether God is actual.

To the issue on the Tooth Fairy and God:

How many people do you know who began to believe in Santa as adults?



What are your thoughts on this from McGrath?

[Civilized Worm]

He misses the point on the Tooth Fairy analogy, the very point is that no sane adult believes in the Tooth Fairy and yet they do believe in god despite there being no evidence for either.

From flicking through The Dawkins Delusion it seemed to me like nothing more than a rehash of the arguments he made in his book Dawkins god which I read a while ago. I'm pretty sure that was a rehash of his other book the Twilight of Atheism.

[shadron]

AFAIK, the "Theory of Everything" is a facetious title for the theory of unifcation of forces; that is, the theoretical explanation of how the strong, weak, EM and gravity are all aspects of a single entity, which can be understood with a single (set of) equation(s). It might even be able to create a common understanding of the quantum and relativity. But to imply that that will encompass biology, geology, chemistry, health, math and whatever question your babysitter asked you last night is not the idea. To imply it is is just being ignorant.

Theories don't require explanation; they only require the ability to predict and explain. They require evidence. No need to say why a theory is what it is, just how well does it do?

It is not necessary from a scientific standpoint that a theory reduce down to some "irreducible explanation". It may well not; there may be no simplicity at the center (whatever that is), but rather more complexity. Unification is not the same as simplicity, though it sometimes takes that form.


How many people do you know who began to believe in Santa as adults?

And so? When is the best time to tell a child that his beliefs are fables, and why is that only done partially? In fact, why do you do that to yourself?

[Ryan O'Dine]

The issue, then, is not whether God is improbable, but whether God is actual.

Seems to me there are two issues. One is whether God is necessary. The other is whether there is evidence for God. It's not very compelling to argue that God is merely possible, or that He’s no worse than a TOE, if that's what McGrath is doing.

How many people do you know who began to believe in Santa as adults?

I know many people who believe in things that are nearly as ridiculous. And yes, they started as adults.

[Undesired Walrus]

McGrath brings up Medawar, and postulates that there are some questions science cannot answer:

How did everything begin?
What are we all here for?
What is the point of living?

But questions such as these simply do not demand an answer to anyone other than we, and I feel that is the problem. Questions science cannot explain vary from "What is the melting point of a question mark?" to "What does hope smell like?"

Strangely enough, there seems to be only 4 pages devoted to proving God's existence, with the rest devoted to standing up for Christianity and the evils in its name.

[Civilized Worm]

There were pages devoted to proving god's existence? :jaw-dropp I must have missed those, I don't recall him actually trying to prove god's existence in Dawkins'God.

[automatthias]

Dawkins misunderstands an a posteriori demonstration of the coherence of faith and observation to be a priori proof of faith.. a serious error

If I parse this correctly, he's saying:

“It's OK to rationalize faith using terms from within itself. (Dawkins doesn't understand that it's OK.)” or in other words “Because!”

I've read this in Polish. The main problem with McGrath is that instead of presenting arguments and letting readers draw their conclusions, he imposes his own interpretation. It felt claustrophobic. You don't have to think for me, Mr McGrath. Let go! Let go!

The issue, then, is not whether God is improbable, but whether God is actual.

He repeats that on few occasions. Dawkins is arguing that we basically estimate probabilities. That's certainly a valid point as far as science is concerned. McGrath first seemingly agrees, but then jumps out with this, which is basically denying it: he's not interested in probabilities. He demands certainty.

[Beerina]

What is the point of living?

Well, I'll tell ya what. Living in a religious world, with want and suffering and terror and death, and the requirement to help alleviate that is far, far more pointless than sitting on your can watching TV or surfing every night.

You go help people, while I, a god, could wave a pinkie and make it all go away?

Add several more "fars" to the above.



Compounding the pointlessness issue: Is a god who allows babies to be raped to death something deserving of worship to begin with?

[Civilized Worm]

I like the way McGrath insinuates that Dawkins left him out of his documentary because he was intimidated by the strength of his arguments.

Heres is Dawkins' interview with McGrath:

://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6474278760369344626


Compelling isn't he.

[Silentknight]

How many people do you know who began to believe in Santa as adults?
No, it's fairer to say that when people grow up, they recognize Santa's true nature and eventually assume the role of Santa themselves, with their own children or anyone else they show the spirit of generosity towards. God works in much the same way, except many religious believers have not yet grown up and may never recognize his true nature.