Well of course, the official medical definition in the dictionary isn’t written out to be ‘someone who believes in God’ but when considering a book title for your view point on God and ‘proving’ that they do not existed, depending on the one you believe in – due to culture and upbringing. When given the choice of scientific integrity and book sales, delusion always seems to be the perfect word to use.
So it is in that case that most serious reviews found that ‘The God Delusion’ as a deeply disappointing book.
Famously people have compared this book to reading a book on biology written by someone whose only knowledge on the subject is having once read the Book of British Birds.
At no point in the entirety of this book does Dawkins seriously acknowledge and engage with the arguments for the damning evidence of religion or the existence of God(s), and even the points he does make are ridiculous: one humorous example that sticks out in my mind is that he claimed:
‘Becoming a monk was the easiest way for young Medel to pursue his science’
Following the book release, Alister McGrath produced a ‘rapid rebuttal’ – meaning Alister created a book quickly refuting Dawkins evidence; the book stating many of Dawkins points and telling him “No, you’re wrong as this is why”.
John Cornwell similarly published a book in response to ‘Darwin’s Rottweilers initial book ‘The God Delusion’ with ‘Darwin’s Angel’ cleverly subtitled ‘An Angelic Riposte to The God Delusion’
He does mention ‘good scientists who are sincerely religious’ obviously referring to the likes of John Polkinghorne but he says that he ‘unquestionably remains baffled by their belief in the details of Christian religion: resurrection, forgiveness of sins and all’. Resurrection is undoubtedly astonishing but the idea of forgiveness of sins is not so farfetched from Dawkin’s standpoint due to the field he is an the experiences which he had and it would be generally interesting to know why finds this particular part of Christianity so problematic; enough to the point where he de-bunks are criticises the belief in this parts of Christianity.
Dawkins also knows about Evolutionary Game Theory and it should be obvious that, under wide circumstances, strategies involving forgiveness moderately out performs selfish strategies. Furthermore even if you have the option to cause punishment to the ‘victim’, it is more than often better not to do it.
Bemused by Quantum Theory, String Theory doesn’t even make the index of this book – laughable. It is not by accident that one thinking so deeply about the fundamentals of reality can yield a paradoxical picture that is unacceptable to common sense, regardless if you’re a scientist or merely a common man. As in Quantum Physics and Theology; John’s latest thought provoking book offers a deep and insightful exploration between the similarities of the two concepts; and how they form an unexpected partnership.
As John Cottingham puts so well in one of his books;
‘Given that we allow physicists to invoke entities whose nature they can approach only via such indirect means…it seems hard to deny in advance to the religious adherent any similar right to speak of a divine reality that transcends the resources of directly descriptive language.’
Obvious God is not some object in which we can simply prod and prick at to conduct experiments – God, whether you like it or not, transcends science. It is blatantly absurd to say an idea is false or fabricated when you do not understand it; especially as humans who seek understanding in everything we do. But since we have no idea what constitutes the Dark Matter and Dark energy of our universe, which makes up about 90% of it as a whole it is damn well hypocritical to debunk Religion due to our lack of understand when huge questions like these in Science lay untouched and poked fun at for many years.
As for the statement ‘nothing can be true unless it is well-understood scientifically’ is ridiculous and should be a line that we constantly laugh at throughout our lives till we part with the earth and transcend on our journey to God.
The idea that you should not believe in anything unless scientifically proven is self-refuting, since the statement itself is beyond science’s power to prove.
However if a ‘Creator’ does exist, it is also worth reiterating that, in evolutionary and historic terms, belief in God in general, and perhaps the majority of religion, appears to be beneficial in the forms of physical and mental health. Let us not forget the outliers in Religion that do unthinkable things because of their strong and heated Religious beliefs but are these men and women any different to mad scientists or deranged people who think they were once Napoleon or even the embodiment of Satan himself?
But on any measure, for the great majority of humanity religion beliefs are a positive for health and plays a key role in our society when we think about communism in our villages and towns.