A Critique of Richard Dawkins' Arguments Against the Existence of God in The God Delusion

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Uskon ja ajattelun puolesta - För tro och tänkande has linked to a list of resources that critique the inane ramblings of Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion. Several of the links give excellent arguments against Dawkins on several fronts, but I really enjoyed both Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? and Calling Dawkins' Bluff by Peter Williams. Mr. Williams briefly goes through the arguments that Dawkins presents against various arguments for the existence of God and shows exactly how vacuous they really are.

For example, consider the following from Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

However, Dawkins' attack upon the historical reliability of the Bible, which draws upon scholars like agnostic Bart Ehrman (who follows Hume's discredited proposal that miracle claims cannot in principle be supported by evidence[9]), is full of demonstrably false and misleading claims. Indeed, Dawkins' critique constitutes a 'greatest hits' of the sort of thing I expect to hear from students who have uncritically lapped up philosophically outdated sceptical treatments of Scripture that confirm their prejudices.[10] Plenty of contemporary scholars reject Dawkins' opinions concerning the reliability of the Bible on evidential grounds.

I would say that it's amazing that the sort of drivel being spilled out by Dawkins' receives the uncritical praise it has received in most secular circles, but I have come to expect it. You want to be a best selling author? Write something critical of religion. It doesn't matter how childish, unthinking or passè it is -- there are people who will lap it up and heap praise on you. Very sad.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Dawkins indeed did use some of the most in-your-face points against religion, but I think he did that mainly because he thought obvious inconsistensies would talk most clearly about religion.

There are other points too, but the "greatest hits" is about the most contradicting and most well known parts, so anyone knows the story and contradictions in them.
1/23/2008 02:57:00 PM
Mike said…
The above argument states "...demonstrably false and misleading claims" and that "Plenty of contemporary scholars reject Dawkins' opinions concerning the reliability of the Bible on evidential grounds", but there are no examples here. Dawkins writes from a scientific perspective as I do from an historical one, and in both cases we would be expected to back up statements such as these with cold, hard evidence. As Dawkins' points out in the God Delusion religion through neccesity requires (indeed, embraces) ignorance. Is the above quote simply taken out of context or does the whole tired religious line simply lack the evidence the rest of the world values?
9/02/2010 05:29:00 AM
Anonymous said…
Atheists need to decide what it is they are against: God or organised religion. They are NOT the same thing. One can be WHOLLY against organised religion as it shows itself today and yet be ardently convinced in the existence of God - and vice-versa.

The truth is that atheists DO NOT KNOW what it is the existence of which they are denying. They have no clear idea what THEY MEAN when the use the Word "God" as any close questioning of even the most erudite of them quickly reveals. As such they are utterly incapable of presenting ANY arguments ON THE BASIS OF LOGIC to back up their worldview and avoid all situations in which they might be forced to do so like the plague. Like delinquent children all that matters in their view is self-gratification - at ANY cost to themselves and others. As such they are forced to reject all notions of absolute morality to which all are unconditionally subject - and yet think they are qualified to comment on moral issues. This is truly pathetic!
9/09/2011 09:16:00 AM
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