So, I recently finished reading "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. I read it with a certain amount of hesitation. After all, I am still recovering from my disappointment at realizing that the WTS is not God's organization. I consider myself a Christian and I thought it might be too soon to challenge that notion too. But me in my curiosity and desire for all things "truth" decided to sit down with an open mind and read the book.
I must say that I agreed with a large amount of the book! Some of Dawkins points were very well thought out and gave an interesting perspective. And yet...I felt as if sometimes I was reading propagandist arguments. Many times I caught myself thinking that this didn't seem like an honest examination of the facts, but merely someone wanting to "convert" others. Let me give you some examples.
Throughout the book Dawkins focuses on his reaction to the extreme behaviour that some religious believers of those that call themselves religious. He rightly talks about so-called Christians who are also anti-abortionists and are guilty of killing doctors that perform abortions. He also talks about Muslims that say "Behead those who say Islam is a violent religion." He is correct in saying that we should be disgusted by these people. But if we are thinking critically we have to ask ourselves - what do all these examples really prove? What is Dawkins point? I can't find the answer to that. He uses the examples to condmen all religion saying that it's dangerous, but does it really PROVE that religion is not true? For example, what if there was a doctor that was guilty of killing many of his elderly patients> Could we argue, then, that conventional medicine is dangerous and so should be avoided? The conclusion just doesn't follow from the example...
The next area where I COMPLETELY agreed with Dawkins was the relationship between science and religion. I agree with him when he says that in both cases evidence should be used to decide the truth of questions such as whether God exists or not. Anyone that has read this book is familiar with his "God Hypothesis". His definition is: "there exists a superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us." So he's basically saying that if God exists then that fact should make a significant difference in the nature of the world that we live in. Evidence should play a vital role in our examination.
So here is where my major problem starts to come in to play. When Dawkins begins his examination of faith he defines faith in a way that I think is totally and utterly wrong. He states that "religious faith does not depend on rational justification" and that all religions "demand unquestioned faith". So before he even begins his examination he implies that religious belief is NEVER based on evidence and that it exists DESPITE the evidence. This seems to me the sort of presupposing that the WTS does itself! If it was an HONEST examination he should be aware that religious faith can be based on argument. He may reject those arguments as false, but that doesn't change the fact that his own definition of faith is limited. He sticks to this definition throughout the entire book.
What would Dawkins reaction be if one of his students adopted a non-standard definition of a term like "natural selection", just because it happened to suit them, but with no reference or source, and no justification of their definition? If Dawkins pointed out this error to the student, but the student jsut went ahead using the same definition in his next essay and further drew some strange conclusions based on this incorrect definition, Dawkins would question the student's credibility and honesty in discovery of facts. So why does Dawkins do EXACTLY the same thing with his definition of "faith"? The only answer I can think of is that Dawkins just doesn't want to admit that religious faith CAN be reasonable, and can be based on evidnce and can therefore be adopted because it potentially CAN provide the best overall explanation of the whole of the facts and evidence around us.
Dawkins criticism of religion revolves around his view of "blind faith". Almost all of his arguments are based arounnd this claim of faith. If he accepted the CORRECT definition of faith, he woul dhave to completely change or at least seriously reconsider his views on so much in his book. How scientific is Dawkins actually being in his analysis? I have say, "Not at all!"
I have many other issues with this book, but it would become a MASSIVE post. At least more massive than this one already is... I don't want to turn this into an Atheist vs Theist debate. And I'm not even saying that God exists in this post (although I do believe that He does). I am merely writing how I think Richard Dawkins book contains quite a bit of intellectual dishonesty.