My mind just expanded 100 fold. How you say? I just finished reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Dawkins takes God and the belief in God and destroys it completely. Before I read this book, I knew there was no such thing as God. I also knew that I lacked an adequate understanding of why I didn't believe in God. Was my nonbelief in God based purely on strong emotions and my parent's own convictions? Was I in fact committing the same error in reasoning as believers do? Heaven forbid!
Dawkins' book provides me with the power to stand strong against believers. By exploring the arguments of believers, he neatly makes a solid case for another theory of how humans got here: natural selection. The theory of Natural Selection is a "crane," to use his term. It is built from the ever-mounting evidence that how we arrived to today was a gradual (as in billions of years) build-up of complexity. "Skyhooks" on the other hand are arguments that are based on the idea of spontaneous complexity. Thomas Aquinas' arguments are "skyhooks" (a term Dawkins borrows from Daniel Dennet). An equally outlandish argument that there can be no beauty with out a God is also a "skyhook." Skyhooks always need more explaining and are therefore not even arguments in themselves.
One of the most important points I learned from this book is that the current debate should not be labeled as religion vs. science. It is an argument of delusion and unthinking emotion vs. reason and logic. A great quote by George Bernard Shaw that Dawkins includes illustrates the fallacy of emotion as argument: "The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality."
Equally, the role that the feelings that words like "mysterious" and "mystical" elicit, cloud our ability to reason. Yet science can elicit the same feelings, I think, even more than religion ever can. The feeling of awe I get while thinking about how small an atom is or how big the universe is trumps any made up image.
I understand better the social and evolutionary pressures to believe. Dawkins presents many interesting theories, including the fascinating theory that we believe in God/s because it is a by-product of a child's willingness to believe their elders. It may be the case that it was evolutionarily advantageous to listen to parents and elders. "Don't wander off or the tiger will eat you," may have saved the child from the real threat of a dangerous predator. Yet, how can a child discern real warnings from erroneous ones like "If you don't dance the rain dance and sacrifice the pig, the rain will not come down and we will starve"?
Another type of pressure that is related to the by-product theory (because it take advantage of a child's gullibility) has to do with indoctrination from a young age. Dawkins decries the label of "Christian child" or "Muslim child" because no child really can make the mature, conscious choice to become a Christian or Muslim or Atheist. It is still acceptable in current society for parents to choose the child's beliefs, mostly because religion is still treated as truth to the majority of society. Those who can see the fallacy of religion realize that "religious" children are forced to accept only one view of the world oftentimes without the benefit of being exposed to other worldviews.
I also realized that I don't have to feel guilty or censor my own values just because of "culture" or "tradition." Think about this: If atheists do not share their views just because they are trying to be polite or not cause any arguments, religion will win out by default. We are social beings and ideas are contagious only if we share them. I can have all the knowledge in the world, but what use is it if I never pass it on just because I fear hurting certain individuals' feelings?
When I used to believe in a God, I also had this feeling of being protected. An atheistic view may have no adequate substitute for this feeling that I have now lost. But I think I have gained so much more. I have gained time! I have gained reason! I have gained the ability to logially defend my values! most importantly, I have gained a world of wonder, more wondrous than any religion can try to proffer. It is a world that is amazing exactly because we can figure out why dragonflies are so colorful, why cheetahs can run so fast, why black holes exist, why humans can reason (or not). Dawkins makes it clear that viewing the world in an open-minded and reasoned way can make for a very rich life indeed.
In the end, Dawkins' book is not simply about blasting religion. He wants us to realize there is this veil, or a burka, to use his words, and beyond this burka is a world where rocks are really not solid and smells and sounds can be perceived as colors. It is a world that can be explained, and also marveled at in its complexity and beauty. If we can tear off the restricting view of the burka (or even make the view just a little wider), we can expand our perception of the world beyond the current limited anthropocentric view.
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