Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion first appeared in 2006, the paperback with corrections and clarifications in 2007. Dawkins starts from the fact that the world changed in the mid-19th century when Charles Darwin finally published his theory of evolution. It also reminds us that Nicolaus Copernicus in the 16th century caused a similar paradigm shift by postulating that the earth was not the center of the universe or even the solar system. It may also be relevant to remember that some of these facts had been known to the ancient Greek philosophers (Aristarchus) and that the knowledge had been subsequently suppressed by various religions, contrary to the evidence, such as the appearance of ship masts on the horizon. at sea. This denial of the evidence every time it challenges dogma is the central theme of God’s Deception.
Richard Dawkins traces the process by which scientific evidence has continually pushed back previously dominant supernatural explanations of reality as we perceive it, thus questioning the basis for continued allegiance to any form of religion. It goes so far as to describe the indoctrination of a child in a faith by parents as a form of abuse. Arguments will not convince or convert religious people. Clearly, they never intended to.
There is a word that he uses many times and it is “evidence”. As a scientist, Richard Dawkins maintains a rational approach to the physical world. Science doesn’t explain anything, by the way. The “why” question may be unacceptable, as it really represents an amalgam of answers about how, when, how much, or what. And these questions must be answered before anything amounting to an explanation can be adopted. Dawkins’s position is little more than a reaffirmation of Kant’s categorical imperative, which is almost three hundred years old. Dawkins’s opponents, however, apparently consider him a modern radical. It reminds us that science creates intellectual models that fit and relate to the physical world. In reality, whatever it is, an electron, for example, probably looks nothing like what we imagine it to be. But our model of what we understand to be an electron fits the phenomena of its effects, and if our expectations of its presence correspond to what we observe, then we have something that is viable, although ultimately we can never know if it is literally accurate.
And this is Richard Dawkins’ main problem with religion. Believing something simply because it is written in a book that someone else has previously labeled sacred is as unscientific as denying gravity. It is, as Dawkins points out, irrational to the point of being false and falsehood, in most religions, would be condemned.
An important argument used by Richard Dawkins is, of course, that these religious texts are only selectively interpreted or adopted. He cites numerous examples from the Bible of divinely handed down rules that are broken in every self-proclaimed Christian society. If particular aspects of these texts have been selected with others that are ignored, and if that selection is dictated by the cultural, moral, or intellectual customs of a particular place and time, then what is it that still makes these texts to be true? once authoritarian or divine, much less? literally true?
More than a decade after The God Dilemma appeared, it seems that reading it is more essential now than then. The political presence of the populist right, often associated with the same ideological blinders and the rejection of the evidence that characterizes religious fundamentalists, had in 2006 only a fraction of its current influence. Therefore, there is no more important time to remind us of Dawkins’s approach, even if we disagree with his ultimate fate, that the evidence is very important and cannot be dismissed or denied. In an age where the powerful say one thing today and deny it tomorrow or insert a word like “no” after the event to change the whole meaning, then it is the responsibility of all people who respect the evidence or avoid anything that ignore.
Richard Dawkins also reminds us that human beings collectively still know very little about anything. The expanding universe, which is not at all like any universe described in any sacred text, raises perhaps the most important question. Where is the issue that could drive such an expansion? Currently the question cannot be answered. And it would not be an answer, as Dawkins points out, to lump this question, along with all the others that are currently difficult for us, in a box, call it something supernatural and then consider the matter settled, much less explained. Such intellectual laziness would do nothing to improve our dearth of knowledge. What The God Delusion also illustrates, however, is that those who embrace this intellectual laziness are often seemingly more confident than those who refuse to commit for lack of evidence.
The moral of all this, and it is more important now than in 2006, is to be careful with all the advice that comes without proof, without the ability to demonstrate or illustrate. And the only acceptable proof is a weight of evidence that transcends opinion and is demonstrable. Most importantly, be wary of anything that claims that such authentication is not required.
