Stephen Law

The Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, has accused Richard Dawkins of being anti-semitic. That's a pretty serious charge. In a BBC TV exchange (which you can view here ), Sacks says that a passage in Dawkins’s book The God Delusion - in which Dawkins says that "the God of the Old Testament" is a "vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser" as well as "misogynist", "homophobic", "racist", "pestilential" and "infanticidal" - is “profoundly anti-semitic”. According to Sacks, the passage reflects a centuries-old anti-Jewish attitude. Of course there are centuries-old anti-Jewish attitudes, but this is not an example. According to Sacks, Dawkins has misunderstood those sections of the Hebrew Bible because he is a "Christian atheist" rather than a "Jewish atheist". Dawkins, says Sacks, reads the Old Testament in an "adversarial way," and that is "Christian" because Chris...

Richard Dawkins offers an argument against theism in The God Delusion . The key issue is complexity. How do we account for the complexity of the world we see around us? Not, says Dawkins, by invoking the God hypothesis, because a God would have to be at least as complex as the complexity he is invoked to explain. But is this an argument against the existence of God, or merely a refutation of one argument for the existence of God (the argument from complexity)? If the latter, Dawkins can hardly claim to have established there is no God. Even if the argument from complexity is a poor argument for the existence of God, maybe there are better arguments? Maybe there is a God nevertheless? But actually, Dawkins claims to have shown that God must indeed be highly improbable because, if unexplained complexity entails improbability, then God must himself be highly improbable. Indeed - God must be even more improbable than whatever complexity he is invoked to explain. In response, theists have ...

This chapter contains Dawkins's central argument, summarized in pages 188-9. The first time I read this chapter, I liked it, but I also mentally totted up all the various theistic manoeuvres that might be made in response that Dawkins didn't cover (how could he, in a single book?) On a second reading, I am rather more impressed. Dawkins does actually cover a remarkable number of possible rejoinders, and he does deal with them pretty effectively (though the knock-about style will convince some that Dawkins is not being rigorous, close reading reveals that Dawkins's treatment of objections is pretty well thought through). The central idea is, of course, that while theists appeal to a cosmic person or intelligence to account for features of the world that, they insist, are otherwise inexplicable, such as "irreducible complexity" - the bacterial flagellum, say, or the seemingly fine-tuned character of the universe as a whole - the appeal to God is, inevitably, an ap...

OK, let's get started with the first book. It will be The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. We will go through the book in ten weeks. I will cover one chapter per week, starting with Chpt 1 "A Deeply religious Non-Believer". Two weeks today - Sat 30th August - (or shortly before) I will post a short piece on the first chapter, and all can then contribute via comments. If you don't yet have a copy, it's available from amazon here...

I said I would explain some of my doubts about Dawkins' improbability argument (in The God Delusion , and in the video we are discussing [at 13 mins 45 secs to 14 mins 40secs]). Here goes... Dawkins presents an improbability argument against the existence of God. The idea, I take it, is that the fact that God is supposed to be a conscious, knowing, intelligent designing subject means he is himself very far from being “simple”. He must be terrifically sophisticated and complex, in fact. So, (i) invoking God to explain complex things like eyes, fine-tuning, etc merely replaces one improbable thing by another (overall, improbability is not reduced), so undercutting the justification for invoking him, and (ii) God's being highly improbable, it’s highly unreasonable to believe in him, given the absence of evidence for God. While I, like Dawkins, am not persuaded by intelligent design arguments (and let me stress I am generally in agreement with Dawkins, and in fact am a grea...

In The God Delusion , in the bit I've just read, Dawkins suggests that the problem of evil is not a particularly strong objection to religious belief because (i) it works only against the all-powerful, all-good conception of God, and (ii) the theists have developed lots and lots of answers (free-will, character building, plus all the other theodicies) to defend their belief. Dawkins prefers his own argument based on the improbability of God (which he explains in the video we're discussing at 13mins 45 secs to 14 min 40sec) I think Dawkins may have underestimated the power of the problem of evil. Given that the problem of good (see "The God of Eth" link, left) does indeed more or less conclusively establish that there's no all-powerful, all-evil God, why doesn't the problem of evil more or less conclusively establish there's no all-powerful, all-good God? I'd suggest my " God of Eth " challenge sharpens the problem by exposing the rather lau...

Here's what I think is wrong with McGrath's move (see previous post) in the video at 9mins 15-55secs. He says that whilst God may be highly improbable, the question is: Does God exist? After all, you and I are highly improbable (probability that our parents should meet, that exactly that sperm should fetilize that egg, etc.). Yet we can be rightly confident that we exist, can’t we? The implication is that, whether or not Dawkins is right about God’s probability, we might still be rightly confident of God’s existence. Seems to me McGrath here trades on an ambiguity, that between epistemic and objective improbability. Objective vs epistemic probability Philosophers often distinguish objective and epistemic probability. Objective probability is the probability of X occurring given Y. E.g what’s the probability of a lightening strike hitting just this spot (given the laws of nature plus these initial conditions), or this dice coming up six if we roll it? Epistemic probability i...

At one point in the interview posted below (at 9mins 15secs - 9mins 55secs) McGrath (see, I can spell it correctly) says something like: the issue of God's improbability is not really the issue. The question is, does he exist. After all, our existence is also extremely improbable (what are the odds on my parents meeting, exactly that sperm fertilizing that egg, etc.), yet we know (can be quite sure) we exist. What is going on here? Seems to me there's some sleight of hand going on with the notion of probability. In fact he's muddling objective and epistemic improbability. But what has gone wrong exactly? Comments?

1 hour ten minute video. Very interesting. Go here .

Here's Dawkins talking to Fox News' right-wing Catholic Bill O'Reilly. Interestingly, O'Reilly plays the relativist card, "Well, it's true for me that Jesus is God", as well as aiming a blunderbus-full of crap [typical Fox style] in Dawkins' direction, including atheism is just as much a faith position , and (paraphrasing) "Well, how do you explain why the universe exists, then? Until you come up with an answer, I'm sticking with Jesus!" Not surprisingly, Dawkins struggles a bit to cope with it all. My question is, what would have been the best responses to O'Reilly?