Does Science Make Belief
in God Obsolete ?
Dr. Leszek
Figurski (May 2014)
It is obvious that our modern times are characterized by
unprecedented progress almost beyond imagination in many fields of our
everyday existence. Man live at least in Western developed countries
in comfort not known to our grandparents or even imagined by
them. This tremendous changed in our existence is primarily the effect of
the explosion of science , technology and dissemination of knowledge
through mass media . It is not an exaggeration
that scientific progress created a great divide between the
medieval mentality and modern way of thinking. But the deepest divides of
all is the great division between modern skepticism, scientism, and atheism. There is no doubt that
atheism is on the rise and that position of religion and religious
authorities lost a lot of ground . The crucial question,
of course, is about the existence or no existence of God. Modern
atheists like Richard Dawkins , Daniel Dennett , Lewis Wolpert , Sam Harris,
Victor Stenger and many others especially some who consider themselves
scientists believe that the even the word God should be banished from
the human language because according to
their verdict God is obsolete . Richard Dawkins in his book
" The God Delusion" expresses a passionate
atheistic attack on religion and belief in God . For Richard Dawkins
religion, belief in God are not only evil
in themselves and an ignorant superstition which deserved to
be uprooted but it is the source and the main ground of
evil. And Dawkins considers himself the great liberator of man from
the prison of superstition and ignorance . He does not spare very strong
language when talking about the God of the Old Testament as a vengeful
capricious and despicable tyrant , hungry for blood and
multiplying misery upon misery on mankind. Dawkins does not spare the New
Testament either and shows here a surprising
degree of ignorance but the main mistake of Dawkins thinking is that he wants
at once be a scientist and a metaphysician .
And he attacks even the most obvious arguments in philosophy for
the existence of God and at the same time maintains that he is talking
science only especially his praise of Darwin's theory of evolution
according to his mind solves completely all philosophical
problems and deals the final death strike to belief in God.
Dawkins' objections against belief in God and
any other for of religion can be reduced to basically three objections.
The first is the statement that evolution
and Dawkins have primarily
biological evolution in mind , explains completely the origin of mankind
and therefore any inference to any kind of God and religion is superfluous, to say the least, but for Dawkins religion is not only superfluous but it is
the source or the worst evil for mankind.
This is, of course, a statement which involves a
contradiction which we shall explain later. At this point, one can say only that evolution of life
and humanity does not deny in any way God's planning of creation.
The second
objection is his misinterpretation of religious faith . It seems that for
Dawkins religious faith is believing something " that you know
it isn't true."
The third
objection is that great harm has been done in the name of religion and
therefore it is evil.
Dawkins is a
master in using the logical fallacy called attacking
the straw man or the logical fallacy known as " ad
hominem." It is a way of evading the real issue , the
problem to be solved , by attacking the person of the imaginary evil
person of the one who is your opponent. This way of so-called logic has been used in history known
to us and also in most recent times by all demagogues and self-appointed leaders of different nations.
The best way
to answer the objections against religious belief by Richard
Dawkins is to follow his objections from one to three.
Objection number one is the conviction of Richard Dawkins that
evolution answers all difficulties concerning the origin of
mankind and since evolution is a fact , therefore, any talk
concerning God , religion is already answered. Evolution is, of course, a scientific theory and even if it
is true it does not cancel the fact of God's existence or
God's relationship to humankind. Science by itself and it's
accepted methods of analyzing facts of the natural
world. By discovering different facts,
we only broaden the horizon
of natural facts and nothing else. A scientific hypothesis or theory is
always an interpretation of facts. This should never be forgotten whenever we
talk about the scientific theories. We must also remember that
scientific theories are provisional in nature and subject to considerable modification or even
replacement by a new theory when some newly discovered facts
are revealed to the scientists. A scientific hypothesis must be
repeatable by other scientists within some definite field of
inquiry. The crucial element in science is always the discovery of facts and repetition
of experiments to discover some orderliness in a limited area
of inquiry. The fact that scientific explanation has to be
always ultimately based on sense data in nature alone and
mathematical description already excludes any talk of metaphysical
transcendent reality which can be known beyond and above scientific
theories. This is the reason why science itself does not admit any prove
of God's existence or disapprove of God's existence. Why? Because God is not
part of nature and does not belong to the material sensibly
perceived objects of scientific discovery . All those who say
that science disapproved the existence of God simply either do not
know what they are talking about or have a false concept of
science and a distorted notion of what God is in the main monotheistic
religions.
Therefore, Richard Dawkins cannot claim from
the advantage point of science or the scientific theory of evolution ,
abolition of God's existence. This,
however, is the main topic and thesis of his writings,
discussions and so-called arguments in
his popular book " The God Delusion." From the
above it should be clear that neglect of precision in
defining facts discovered by science and a false
concept of God must lead necessarily only to skepticism and confusion. According
to the contemporary
scientific view of reality, we may
say the following: The universe came into being about
fourteen billion years ago out of nothing despite massive
improbabilities it appears that the universe is precisely tuned for
the appearance of life and later
appearance of man. This is known as a so-called
anthropic principle. The adjustment of all energies , primary
sub-atomic particles and the forces of nature show an amazing degree of
precision in this tune-up. Even the smallest change of those forces of
nature would completely cancel the development of the universe as we know it.
After the appearance of life the evolution
and natural selection began to develop through immense distances of
time. Humans are part of this evolutionary process descending from the
great apes. However, humans are unique
in kind not only in degree and are creators of
religion, moral law science, philosophy, culture, art and so forth.
Knowledge is not only accumulation of facts but ultimately it is a
search for ultimate meaning and God.
Richard
Dawkins second objection is in his idea of faith or religious
belief . He thinks that religion is superstition , ignorance and
irrational fancies and fantasies. There is no denying
that superstition may sometimes
creep into a false idea of
religion and historically it happens in history . However, it is a completely false idea to equate
religious belief with ignorance and superstition. The greatest
thinkers of history beginning with the Ancient Greeks through
Plato, Aristotle, St . Agustin, Thomas Aquinas , and many moderns were very deep thinkers
and conceived religious belief as a necessary conclusion from the analysis of nature , human beings and the
demands of intelligibility for rational foundations of religious
belief . We see also that many atheists through
thinking , philosophy and search for truth are abandoning atheism
for religious belief . To use only one example : Thomas Aquinas who
was a Dominican monk was also one of the greatest minds ever. The same
could be said of many others. Anthony Flew known atheist
propagandizing atheism for over fifty years of his life became in
2004 a believer in God. The same goes for many others but we cannot enumerate all here. It is true that
religious belief leads to some mysteries going beyond complete
understanding by the human mind but this is not because of
superstition but because of knowing that we deal with
Transcendent Divinity not completely knowable to
our finite and limited minds. Our knowledge of God in this life is, therefore,
limited and analogical in nature . In discussing the rational
character of religious belief one must not only analyze philosophical
arguments for God's existence but also take into account the fact
of God communicating some facts about himself to humans and his
plans for the meaning of the existence of the universe and the
meaning of human existence itself.
Richard
Dawkins third objection is his insistence on the fact that great amount
of harm has been done in the name of religion. And this
is historically true. People killed other people , burnt others on a stake, persecuted so-called heretics and quite often believed that they are doing a
service to God. This cannot be denied.
The objection, however, is simply false . It
is not religion itself that was the cause of such
aggressive and destructive behavior of some who called themselves believers but
their
misunderstanding of their own religion and
acting radically different from what religion taught
about the moral demands and the morality taught by the
greatest religious founders. People use the religion often in the
past for their own selfish materialistic immoral purposes and
they did it because it worked as a means of gaining power over
others, acquiring authority and even accumulating material
possessions all in the name of religion. For
example, Christianity is based on the life
teaching and death and resurrection of Jesus of
Nazareth . Anyone who knows the Gospels even very superficially knows
that he taught forgiveness, love of the neighbor and even love of the enemies
but people who called themselves Christians and went to
participate in a religious ritual of Christianity were often in their
lives worse characters than pagans .
Religion , however, was not only used for destructive purposes but
also introduced into the hostile human world the elements of
the Gospels. Anyone who has some basic knowledge of human nature knows very
well that humans will use any means whatsoever to
realize their egoistic drive to control and also destroy others if
they consider that others obstacles to their selfish and brutal
animalistic drives . It is enough to get acquainted with
the history of political powers to realize that corruption is a pervasive
presence practically in every human activity and in all aspect of human
life. It would be boring to give examples here. When it comes to
selfish purposes and their realization man simply forget why to be rational or moral because the
power of pleasure seeking , privilege position, play,
and accumulation of possession destroys
very often the feeling of any decency in man. There exist the primeval
destructive demons in human nature and they are as powerful in our time
as ever before. If God does not exist
and if a man becomes a completely
independent selfish gene in the language of Richard Dawkins then
becomes true the statement by Fyodor Dostoyevsky," If God does
not exist everything is allowed."
The
objections therefore that religious belief is the cause and source and
evil and as such is simply one of the blunders of
Richard Dawkins. It is precisely opposite religion if properly
understood develops the best and the noblest possibilities
in human nature.
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