One can read for free the first chapter of Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion from his personal website. Dawkins is an avowed evolutionist, committed atheist and non-believer. He is also a respected scientist and educator and the author of many science books. How is it then that a deeper understanding of spirituality has escaped him?
Dawkins is only human. In his steadfast and stubborn posturing on his position regarding the non-existence of a God he has succeeded in painting himself into a corner from which only an epiphany leading to a spiritual rebirth can can set him free.
In denying God, Richard Dawkins denies the historical relevance of the Gospels of the New Testament. They were written only less than two thousand years ago in the history of modern civilisation. They are a factual account of the life of Jesus Christ written by four independent eyewitnesses, with very little discrepancy between them. Jesus was tortured and crucified and then buried, after spending a number of years preaching among the common people and performing many miraculous healings and cleansings, literally making the blind to see and the crippled to walk and the agnostic to believe. In fact, it is recorded by John that he performed more miracles in appearances in the spirit form after his death than he did before it. Thomas the apostle was present at the gathering where Jesus first appeared in the spirit and in his doubting demanded to be allowed to pass his hand through the form of Jesus, immediately realising in this act that here was indeed "the Son of God", arisen from the dead and in the spiritual form. No doubt Richard Dawkins denies the truth inherent in these accounts because they do not subscribe to or agree with any currently accepted knowledge of science.
The fact is clear that Jesus Christ was conceived without human intervention. This would have occurred in the same manner that modern unexplained but yet documented medical miracles occur, by way of similar technologies of which we are as yet unaware.
One can believe all this and yet rationalise sensibly that the story of creation in the Book of Genesis is but a fable and a hurriedly put together preamble invented by writers with no knowledge of science and no empirical data on which to base their description of creation and which book is intended primarily to set the stage for the telling of the ancient history of the Jewish people and their trials and tribulations under bondage to the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt, and their subsequent release from that bondage. In this book, remarkable for its age, the Jews lay claim to God, describing themselves as "the chosen people". But we all may claim God, and insomuch as "the chosen" have had their say, we may at any time have ours.
I personally think it ludicrous to believe that a single being could have created the Universe from scratch. It is a simply untenable idea without reason. I also think it unwise to discard the idea of the existence of a higher being, for if one is a true scientist and evolutionist then one cannot allow oneself to ascribe to this world the unique characteristic of being the sole harbinger of intelligent life within the entire Universal realm. He must agree that given the right conditions, life is the rule rather than the exception in this anthropocentric Universe and that this is most elegantly expressed in the profusion of life and its determination to evolve here on earth. Then it follows that life can evolve everywhere given that the right conditions exist and that other intelligent life most certainly precedes ours by perhaps even billions of years. Then probably that intelligent life will very possibly have understood and developed the science and technology that makes it possible to evict from intelligent sentient beings those finite physical energies by which they have developed their unique identities, and made possible the retention of those same identities in the spiritually energetic form to exist possibly forever in that realm which Carl Gustav Jung oft referred to as "The Universal Unconscious". It is from the realisation that the Universe really is anthropocentric in nature that the explanation for the existence of a spirit in highly evolved lifeforms becomes rational. This represents a natural progression in the evolution of life. Christians are taught that when Jesus died on the cross, the gates of heaven were opened. That can be interpreted to mean that humankind's spirits had by that time in the evolutionary history attained that stage where the recurring cycle of transmigration can be broken and the spirit qualified for release from the physical plane to evolve in that spiritual realm, another plane of being.
That these facts may be denied because they are not in keeping with accepted science is to be expected. That's where faith and belief come in, spiced with logic. We cannot deny the existence of God because anything that big cannot be a pure invention. We can, however rationalise God. To simply deny him and profess and/or teach atheism is definitely not science. I cannot call a scientist a man who writes a book titled "The God Delusion", because it casts aside all the empirical evidence.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Of nature and God, from denial to epiphany
Reconciling religion and science
Scientific American published online part of a conversation between Lawrence M. Krauss and Richard Dawkins titled Should Science Speak to Faith? which can also be found in the July issue of the magazine. Richard Dawkins recently published the book titled The God Delusion in which he zealously protects science from incursion by religion and judging from the readers' reviews is very ardent in his rejection of God.
It must be pointed out that for someone who clearly professes to be an atheist, he certainly appears to have a very solid perception of just what it is he is rejecting. In other words, he does not appear to give quarter as to how any individual who does profess to believe in God actually interprets God. Therefore his own faith is very strongly entrenched.
Now, I am personally opposed to explaining reality in non-scientific terms, for I firmly believe that natural forces created the Universe and natural forces perpetuate reality, end of story. But, believe it or not Richard Dawkins, I believe in God. Just not your God, because it is very apparent that you must indeed have one so that you can profess to not believe in Him.
I place Richard Dawkins in the same category as the mathematician who believes that mathematics is the holy grail. They are both a respectable and scholarly kind, many even decorated for their contributions to their respective fields, but it is still fact that because mathematics can prove the impossible, it is obviously not the holy grail, and then it follows that neither is pure science the holy grail.
Which of course begs the question, can we reconcile religion and science? It is my considered opinion that scientific subjects should occupy only the realm of science in academia, and that religious subjects be placed under the umbrella of theological academia, and that never the twain should meet. There should be no conflict between the two but that they should exist only in the minds of fundamentalist creationists who find themselves drawn to scientific pursuits and vice versa. I think it immature and unprofessional for a master of one discipline to embroil himself critically in the affairs of another's, no matter how polar the relationship between the two disciplines.
Richard Dawkins has committed a professional faux pas.
