The God
Delusion 125
Rogers
Response
to Rogers on Dawkins 126 Potter
The Bob
Delusion 128
Rogers
Inappropriate Title 129
Williams
The
God Delusion
Kevin Rogers
(Investigator 125, 2009
March)
In the Skeptic
volume 26, No 4 Rob Hardy wrote “Against Belief”, which
was a review of “The God Delusion”, by Richard Dawkins. Rob Hardy
“highly recommended this book to anyone of any religious belief”. Well,
I read it.
I
have previously read
“The Blind Watchmaker”. The two books have the
same conclusion but use a different argument. On page 1 of The
Blind
Watchmaker Dawkins states, “Physics is the study of simple things
that
do not tempt us to invoke design”. For the remainder of the book he
argues that neo-Darwinian evolution happens by random mutations and
natural selection without recourse to design. No design in biology
means that there is no God.
In
chapter 3 he describes
his own “EVOLUTION” computer program. He
starts with a dot, generates random lines, manually selects the
survivors (to simulate natural selection) and demonstrates how he can
evolve static shapes such as ants or spiders in about 40 steps.
However, he seems blind to the fact that he unwittingly presented a
good argument for theistic evolution. Was the computer a random piece
of hardware or was it developed by intelligent beings? Was the program
a random collection of bytes? Even so, how long will he need to run his
program before it can generate animated figures, let alone living ones?
The answer is “never”, because the program does not contain the
necessary design or intelligence. The laws of physics are far smarter
than his program.
In
The God Delusion,
Dawkins changed his approach. He has become aware
of the Anthropic Cosmological Principle (ACP) or the “Goldilocks
Effect”. I.e., the form of the laws of physics, the fine-tuning of
their values and the initial conditions in the Big-Bang are all “just
right” to support life and do indeed tempt us to invoke design.
However,
Dawkins’ answer
to ACP is that Darwinism is so successful at
closing God gaps that its principles can be extrapolated to cosmology.
He believes that one day scientists will discover some principle that
explains the fine-tuning. He provides no evidence. He suggests an
infinite number of universes, but I am not sure how scientific or
speculative this theory is (it is certainly not testable) and I suspect
that Dawkins doesn’t have much idea either. His confidence in the power
of Darwinism is a belief statement. He does not have any evidence that
Darwinism can be applied to cosmology, there is no logical reason for
it, and all the current evidence is against it.
Also,
because of his
principle of infinite regression, it does not
matter how much evidence you provide for design, he will not accept it
because he has faith that it will be explained one day in the future.
In The Blind Watchmaker his argument was that lack of design
indicated
no God. However, he does not accept the reverse argument. “Heads I win,
tails you lose”.
Many
things could be said
about The God Delusion, but, for the sake of
brevity, I will write on one small section. I studied Dawkins’ points
in more detail in the section on “The Argument from Scripture” in pages
92 to 97. I won’t discuss his debatable assertions but only list some
of his factual errors or misleading statements.
He
argues that biblical
scholarship has shown that the gospels are not
reliable, but which “scholars” does he quote? The only real scholar
that he refers to is Bart Erhardt. The rest are populist authors. For
example, he quotes A.N. Wilson and G.A. Wells. Wilson dropped out of
his theology course after 1st year. G.A. Wells is a professor in
German. Wilson and Wells are not biblical or historical scholars. They
do not publish in relevant peer reviewed journals and their views
deviate significantly from mainstream scholarship. I could easily quote
populist writers that claim evolution is bollocks, but what would that
prove?
Furthermore,
Dawkins even
suggests that Jesus may not have existed
based on “Did Jesus Exist?” (1986) by “Professor G.A. Wells of the
University of London” (he omitted the German bit). However, in pages 49
to 50 of “Can We Trust the New Testament?” (2004), Wells writes, “In my
first books on Jesus, I argued that the gospel Jesus is an entirely
mythical expansion of the Jesus of the early epistles. The summary of
the argument of ‘The Jesus Legend’ (1996) and ‘The Jesus Myth’ (1999a)
given in this section of the present work makes it clear that I no
longer maintain this position…”
In
other words, Dawkins
quoted the view of an author who has since
changed his mind.
Dawkins
claims that the 4
gospels were arbitrarily selected for
inclusion in the canon. However, the 4 gospels were written between 50
and 90 AD and were widely recognised as unique by the Christian
community by the mid-second century, over 200 years before the canon
was finalised. For example, in about 170 AD Justin Martyr wrote his Apologies
and quotes extensively from the 4 gospels. At
about the same
time Tatian wrote the Diatessaron, which is a harmonisation of
the 4
gospels. Both of these writings indicate that the 4 gospels were
uniquely recognised as authoritative by that time.
The
stories about weird
miracles of Jesus when he was a child are not
in the “Gospel of Thomas” (as Dawkins claims), but in the “The Infancy
Gospel of Thomas”.
The
Gospel of Thomas
is an alleged collection of sayings of Jesus that
was discovered at Nag Hammadi and was written sometime between 50 and
140 AD. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas is an entirely
different
book and was written near the end of the 2nd century, over 100 years
after the canonical gospels. This is obvious to anyone who is familiar
with the texts. Dawkins has obviously misinterpreted hearsay. To assert
that the Infancy Gospel of Thomas has equivalent claim to
historicity
as the canonical gospels is absurd. Likewise, the other alternate
gospels that he cites were written much later than the canonical
gospels.
Dawkins
suggests that
there was only one source for biographical
information on Jesus. In fact scholars have identified 7 independent
sources of historical information about Jesus underlying the New
Testament books (Mark, (Q)uelle, M, L, Signs, Paul and James).
Dawkins
states that
Paul’s epistles mention almost none of the alleged
facts of Jesus’ life. Paul’s letters were written early and 5 of the 13
Pauline epistles (Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians and 1
Thessalonians) are universally recognised by scholars as genuine
writings of Paul. Many scholars believe he wrote all of them. His
letters were written to encourage churches and thus they do not contain
much direct historical narrative about Jesus. Paul only mentions the
tip of the iceberg regarding historical information because of shared
understanding with his readers. However, he does provide significant
information. As this is mentioned incidentally, this increases its
credibility, as Paul is not recording these statements for 21st century
readers. Paul provides many incidental clues, including the earliest
resurrection account and list of witnesses in 1 Cor 15. Paul’s writings
also contain a well developed theology of Jesus’ humanity and divine
nature, illustrating that this could not have been a later development.
Dawkins
describes the
issues surrounding the dating of the governorship
of Quirinius and of the census related to Jesus’ estimated date of
birth. The birth narratives are indeed in scholars’ eyes the least
historically credible parts of the gospels. Most scholars believe that
Luke got it wrong in this instance, although this is still not certain.
However, Dawkins provides no indication of the number of times that
Luke gets it right. Luke has left behind a large number of descriptions
of people, places and events that can now be checked. In the
overwhelming number of cases Luke has been shown to be correct. Hence
in this case, Dawkins is faithful to scholarly opinion on the census
issue, but he provides a misleading impression by being selective in
his evidence.
Where
there is smoke
there is fire. Something happened in 1st century
Palestine that requires explanation. Real scholars scour all of the
information sources to try and find out what actually happened. Dawkins
approach is radically different. His agenda is to assert that it is a
fairy tale, so he can ignore the evidence. At the end of this chapter,
Dawkins dismisses the most scrutinised texts on the planet as fiction
and decides not to consider the Bible as evidence for deity for the
rest of the book. However, Dawkins’ small contribution on this subject
contains numerous errors and flawed arguments. He is far less reliable
than Luke. Shouldn’t the rest of The God Delusion be dismissed
instead?
It
would take a book to
evaluate all of Dawkins’ arguments. Indeed, at
least one already has been written (“The Dawkins Delusion” by Alistair
McGrath).
My
general observations are that The God Delusion contains a
lot of factual errors and uses evidence in a biased way. It is rhetoric
rather than a balanced scholarly presentation. He is not interested in
finding or communicating the truth. His agenda is to throw mud and hope
that some of it sticks. The God Delusion has little science in
it and
the majority of the material is outside Dawkins’ area of expertise. On
the other hand, The God Delusion is well-written and I found it
an
interesting read. At times he shows good grace. He bemoans biblical
ignorance and acknowledges the contribution of the bible to our culture
and language.
The
God Delusion
will please those who agree with him and I expect it
will affect some people’s beliefs. However, I find it interesting that
the Skeptics are so ready to provide uncritical affirmation. Two of the
Skeptic’s core values are to test and to doubt, but that is a
two-edged
sword. Shouldn’t testing and doubting be applied to all views, whether
you like them or not? Religious people are not the only ones who suffer
from wishful thinking.
RESPONSE
TO ROGERS ON DAWKINS (#125)
Bob Potter
(Investigator 126, 2009
May)
Pleasing
to note that
Kevin Rogers has been reading books by Richard
Dawkins; but perhaps he should study them more carefully before writing
a critique. (Investigator 125)!?
Rogers reports
that in The
Blind Watchmaker Dawkins claims, on
the
first page, “Physics is the study of simple things that do not tempt us
to invoke design and for the remainder of the book argues that
neo-Darwinian evolution happens by random mutations and natural
selection without recourse to design”. There is no excuse for this
‘misrepresentation’ of Dawkins. Rogers makes no mention of the
paragraphs that follow, where the author explains his ‘shorthand’ for
science overall and his expectation that evolutionary theory will
provide provisional explanations “all over the universe wherever life
may be found” (on the second page). The underlining is mine –
highlighting the inappropriateness of Rogers’ gibe at Dawkins – there
being “no evidence … Darwinism can be applied to cosmology”.
Had
Rogers continued
carefully reading as far as the third page of The
Blind Watchmaker, he would have
discovered one of the major tasks
Dawkins had set himself in the writing of the book:
“Since living
complexity embodies the very antithesis of chance, if you think
Darwinism is tantamount to chance you’ll obviously find it easy to
refute Darwinism! One of my tasks will be to destroy this eagerly
believed myth that Darwinism is a theory of ‘chance’.”
That
Rogers has failed to understand this basic point, stated so clearly by
Dawkins, is evidenced by his asking rhetorical questions “Was the
computer a random piece of hardware or was it developed by intelligent
beings? Was the program a random collection of bytes?”
Throwing
the New Testament together!
Most of
Rogers’
contribution relates to The God Delusion. Investigator
readers will remember I offered my own assessment soon after
publication of the book. I thought it the least impressive of Dawkins’
work. However, Rogers’ implication that we should view the four
gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as ‘unique’ (and widely accepted)
requires a little further comment, especially in the light of his
nitpicking of Dawkins’ reference to ‘Gospel of Thomas’ rather than as
the ‘Infancy Gospel of Thomas’. He continues by misleadingly referring
to seven ‘independent’ New Testament sources, failing to mention that
probably the largest of these (Q) we can only guess at, while ignoring
the very limited information we have regarding the initial selection of
the ‘Greek’ Christian scriptures.
There would
have been
scores of ‘gospels’ in existence at the end of
the second century. Only a couple of dozen (at most) have been
preserved in part or whole, and only four of them were accepted by the
Nicene Council of 318 bishops under the Chair of Emperor Constantine in
325 AD. In his Age of Reason, Tom Paine described
how the
‘church’
collected together the scores of manuscripts in their possession and by
vote (show of hands) decided which books were ‘inspired’, and hence to
be ‘included’, which books were doubtful (Apocrypha) and those
condemned as ‘heresy’ — and were, in the main, destroyed. We have
little or no information as to the identity and qualifications of these
bishops. There is a ‘hostile’ account of the Council proceedings, where
the decisions were made (from Pappus, in his Synodicun to that
Council):
“…having
promiscuously put all the books that were referred to the
Council for deliberation under the communion table in a church, they
besought the Lord that that the inspired writings might get on the
table, while the spurious ones remained underneath; and that it
happened accordingly!”]
Whatever
the procedure
for Gospel selection, the three ‘synoptic’
gospels were presumably selected because they are basically ‘the same’
— indeed whoever constructed Matthew and Luke probably had the earlier
text of Mark before them as they wrote...and plagiarized much from it.
Of the 661 verses in Mark, the subject matter of only 65 of them is
absent from Matthew. Two thirds of the verses in Mark can be found in
BOTH Matthew and Luke. (Catholics disagree with most Bible scholars by
claiming Matthew to be the earlier gospel. This decision of their
Biblical Commission in 1912 is an alternative view that doesn’t
seriously damage my point.) In a very real sense, of the numerous texts
available to the early church, only two of the many versions were
selected, the ‘synoptic three’, (which is meaningfully only one of the
versions), and the totally different account provided by the author of
the fourth gospel, known as ‘John’.
I am NOT
trying to imply
anything sinister about the plagiarism — Luke
tells us how he went about compiling his gospel, in his initial verses!
I am simply suggesting this informs us these gospels tell the ‘version
of the Christ story’ fitting the views of the church elders at the time
the books were assembled. Supernatural causation was a routine part of
life, accepted without question and divine or spiritual visitants were
not unexpected — when Matthew describes corpses rising from their tombs
and being seen walking about the city by numerous witnesses, he expects
his readers to believe him. Today if you report seeing long-dead people
walking around, people would simply not believe you!
Therefore, the
obvious
plagiarisms are useful, they tell us through the
common ‘outlook’ of the three synoptic gospels, the central beliefs
among the congregations at that time. The majority of today’s competent
New Testament scholars would agree that, if today we met the historical
Jesus, we would find an individual convinced the arrival of John the
Baptist (and his self-perception as John’s successor), meant the
process of the kingdom of God had been set in motion. He would expect
within his lifetime or the lifetime of some of his contemporaries, the
course of history to an end and the Son of Man to appear in glory with
his holy angels to judge the universe. (Just as it is envisaged in the
surviving, contemporary Jewish apocalyptic writings. That's EXACTLY
what the word Messiah means: 'the inaugurator of the end'!)
This is the
picture of
Jesus that emerges from the three synoptic
gospels; the ‘time is very short’ before the ‘day of judgment’ is upon
humanity, an apocalyptic view that finds reflection in Mark 9: “I tell
you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before
they see the kingdom of God come with power.” Like today’s Jehovah's
Witnesses, the philosophy of THESE gospels is the shortage of time.
That’s the
‘mode of thought’ of the compilers of these texts —
that’s why there was just NO TIME TO SPARE to bury the dead and/or to
say farewell to houseguests (Matt 8:22; Luke 9:59-62). [Note, I am NOT
taking isolated Biblical verses ‘out of context’; rather, the whole
context leads to the central message for which these ‘gospels’ were
devised!]
Kevin Rogers
concludes by
stating The
God Delusion
contains “a lot of
factual errors” and “uses evidence in a biased way…not a balanced
scholarly presentation”. In fact Dawkins makes it quite clear he is not
undertaking a critical textual analysis of any of the sacred books
associated with any of the world’s religions — the book is directed at
all Gods not just the Christian/Jewish Jehovah!. Indeed, it is the
absurdity of belief in supernatural forces, per se, upon which Dawkins
rightly focuses. He has probably read little critical Bible
scholarship; however, I have done so. In earlier paragraphs, I suggest
how ‘modern scholars’ would perceive the personality/character of Jesus
as depicted by the synoptic gospels. If Kevin thinks I’ve ‘got it
wrong’, perhaps he’ll come back in a further Investigator essay,
referring to the ‘authorities’ he has in mind?
Perhaps, the
basic point
that needs to be made to Kevin Rogers relates
to the important question touched upon by Dawkins and himself: “Did
Jesus exist?” Put bluntly, the question is easily answered by any
rational and informed individual. The name ‘Jesus’ (or Joshua) was (and
is) a common name – so, in a general sense, there were no doubt
hundreds of lads called Jesus, many perhaps were carpenters, many
perhaps were in trouble with the authorities, even put to death.
In that sense, of course there is no problem answering the question.
But if you ask
the
question differently, if you ask was there a person
who was born of a virgin, turned water into wine, talked with devils,
cured blind people, walked on water, raised dead people, himself was
seen walking around after his death, etc. – then “No” that is the stuff
of mythology. This mythological person never existed.
The
Bob Delusion
Kevin Rogers
(Investigator 128, 2009
September)
My
review of The
Blind Watchmaker and The God Delusion (both by Richard
Dawkins) was published in Investigator #125 and Bob Potter’s
“Response
to Rogers” in #127. I have since had the pleasure of having lunch and
spending the afternoon with Bob at his home in Brighton, England. He is
a really nice bloke and Ann and I had a pleasant time with Bob and
Marigold.
However, I strongly
disagree with some of his statements.
My main thesis was, “The
God Delusion contains a lot of factual errors
and uses evidence in a selective and biased way. It is rhetoric rather
than a balanced scholarly presentation.” On this Bob and I agree
somewhat. Bob has previously written in Investigator that The
God
Delusion is Dawkins’ least impressive work.
On page 1 Dawkins stated,
“Physics is the study of simple things that
do not tempt us to invoke design”. For the remainder of the book he
argues that neo-Darwinian evolution happens by random mutations and
natural selection without recourse to design. No design in biology
means that there is no God.
Bob rebuked me for
misrepresenting Dawkins, as Dawkins stated that
Darwinism is not a theory of chance. However, Dawkins is stating that
Darwinism is not a theory of chance only with reference to natural
selection. Random mutations are definitely chance events. Likewise,
natural selection is not applicable to the serendipitous nature of the
laws of physics. The only resource that the atheist can call on is good
luck.
Dawkins trivialised the
laws of physics in The Blind Watchmaker. With
all that has since been written on the Goldilocks Effect (the fine
tuning in the laws of physics), Dawkins’ original assertion is now
evident as ridiculous. In The God Delusion Dawkins gives muted
acknowledgement of the Goldilocks Effect and admits he has no answer.
In The Blind Watchmaker Dawkins argued that
the lack of need
for a
designer made God unnecessary. In The God
Delusion he argued
that the
presence of design made God improbable. God can’t win.
The remainder of Bob’s
arguments about Darwinism and design are
somewhat confusing, so I will move on to his arguments about the New
Testament. Anonymous has already addressed some of Bob’s claims (#127)
and so I will only supplement his remarks.
Bob’s main arguments
about the New Testament (NT) were:
1.
I overstated the independence of the NT sources,
2.
The content of (Q)uelle is uncertain,
3.
The four canonical gospels were arbitrarily
selected at the
Council of Nicaea, and
4.
Jesus is a mythological figure.
Bob
claimed that I
“misleading referred to 7 independent New Testament
sources failing to mention that probably the largest of these (Q) we
can only guess at.”
Q is short for Quelle,
which is German for “source”. Matthew and Luke
apparently used both Q and Mark (as well as their own individual
independent sources). Q is defined to be that which is common to
Matthew and Luke but not present in Mark. Q is relatively easy to
derive. I started doing it myself and it is an enlightening exercise.
Some parts of Q are well defined where Matthew and Luke match virtually
word for word. Bob is partly right. We cannot know the full content of
Q, just as we could not derive the full content of Mark from Matthew
and Luke. For instance, we cannot identify parts of Q that were not
used by both Matthew and Luke or those bits that overlapped with Mark.
So we can be reasonably certain about some parts of Q but not others.
Q is not the largest
source of historical information about Jesus. Q
contains some historical narrative about Jesus, but largely consists of
Jesus’ sayings, such as the beatitudes. Mark and John contain far more
narrative and historical information. We don’t know the full content of
Q but we do know some; and so my original statement still stands that Q
is one of a number of independent sources that were used within the New
Testament to derive historical information about Jesus.
Bob mentions that there
were scores of gospels in existence at the end
of the 2nd century. This is true. However, most of these extraneous
gospels were 2nd century inventions developed by splinter groups to
support their causes. They were written much later than the canonical
gospels and have no historical value regarding Jesus (as they were
written too late), even though they tell us a great deal about the
religious movements in existence at that time. They are no secret; you
can read most of them on the Early Christian WritingsGospel
of Thomas; and this mainly consists of
sayings.
Christianity has always
had to contend with opposition both from within
and without. The fact that the early church had to approve some
writings and reject others is hardly a great surprise. Bob listed 23
“suppressed gospels”. Many of these are not gospels and were not
suppressed. For example 1 and 2 Clement are letters, very much
like
Paul’s letters. 1 Clement was written in about 96 AD. It is
quite
orthodox and is a letter of encouragement and provides no information
that contradicts the canonical gospels. The same can be said for many
of the other entries in Bob’s list.
In my original article I
briefly explained why the canonical gospels
were widely recognised as authoritative at least 150 years before the
Council of Nicaea, arguments which Bob ignored. I mentioned the
quotations by Justin Martyr and the harmonisation of the four gospels
in the Diatessaron. Anonymous mentioned other patristic
quotations and
canonical lists. The 4th century Councils simply provided formal
recognition of previous informal lists. Most of the non-canonical
documents are freely available on the Early Christian Writings
In his last section Bob
discussed the issue of whether Jesus existed.
He gives us two choices. Either Jesus was the God incarnate miracle
worker or else he was a mythological figure. Since Bob rejects Jesus as
God incarnate, therefore Jesus must be mythological. However, there is
a third option.
In general, sceptical
scholars believe that there was an actual man
called Jesus from Nazareth who is the basis of the gospel narratives
and of the Christian Church. For example the Jesus Seminar is a group
of sceptical biblical scholars. They have debated what percentage of
gospel sayings can actually be attributed to Jesus. However, there are
no debates on Jesus’ actual existence. That is already established. As
I stated in my original article, the sceptical writer G.A. Wells used
to be the main proponent of the mythological view of Jesus. However,
even he changed his mind and admitted that Jesus was a historical
figure.
web-site.
It is
easy to see why they were rejected. Apart from the NT documents, the
only other “gospel” used by scholars for historical information about
Jesus is the website.
I encourage readers to have a look at these competing documents. It
will become apparent that the selection of the New Testament canon was
not a difficult choice.
INAPPROPRIATE
TITLE
(Investigator 129, 2009
November)
John H. Williams
I disagree with Kevin’s
title “The Bob Delusion” in #128.
Fair enough, he disagreed
with Bob’s Response To Rogers in #126 (given
incorrectly as #127), but I found Bob’s piece an excellent
exposé of untruths presented in the Gospels. I’ve re-read it in
the light of Kevin’s response and it looks to be the work of a sane,
well-read realist, rather than one who is deluded. If Bob is
delusional, “holding a belief in the face of evidence to the contrary,
that is resistant to all reason” (Collins Concise), I’ve not seen it in
twelve years of reading his work.
Given the lack of
unequivocal evidence for “God”, and the role of faith
in sustaining religious beliefs, it seems reasonable for Richard
Dawkins to use The God Delusion as a book title, and to name his
chapter 4 ‘Why there almost certainly is no God’. “God can’t win”
(Rogers, p55, #128) is due to God probably not existing at all. For
Kevin to word-play Dawkins’ use of “Delusion” in the title of his
critique was inappropriate and inaccurate, even if not intended
literally.
Over the years I’ve
debunked irrational beliefs held by some
Investigator writers who believe:
• An
anthropomorphic deity listens to prayer and
apparently answers;
• When
believers die, some go to somewhere called
Heaven and live there with angels and saints for eternity;
•
Someone named Yesu’a was born of a virgin, fathered
by a deity, died then lived again, and is one third of the deity.
Many inhabitants of our
world have delusional beliefs, but there is a
substantial minority, of which Bob Potter is an able representative,
who see no evidence for the supernatural.
Bob may be wrong (though
I doubt it), but deluded, no!
Disclosure: I helped
introduce Kevin to The Investigator
and to Bob,
and have had a fruitful email correspondence with both. I regard them
as friends.