DECONSTRUCTED

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• DECONSTRUCTED
• by Peter S. Williams

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Richard Dawkins

• Charles Simonyi
• Professor of the
• Public Understanding
• of Science
• Oxford University

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The God Delusion

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Dawkins Ambition

• If this books works as I intend, religious
  readers who open it will be atheists when they
  put it down. (p. 5.)

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Dawkins Cynicism

• dyed-in-the-wool faith-heads are immune to
  argument, their resistance built up over years of
  childhood indoctrination using methods such as
  issuing a dire warning to avoid even opening a
  book like this, which is surely a work of Satan.
• On the other hand, anyone
• open-minded whose childhood indoctrination was
  not too insidious or whose native intelligence
  is strong enough to overcome it will need only
  a little encouragement to break free of the vice
  of religion altogether. (p. 5-6.)

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In other words

• People who disagree with me are either the victim
  of brainwashing, or they are thick

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Jim Walker nobeliefs.com

• Dawkins has written, perhaps, the most powerful
  set of arguments against the alleged supernatural
  god ever written... (my italics)

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P.Z. Myers Seed Magazine

• The God Delusion delivers a thorough overview of
  the logic of belief and disbelief. Dawkins
  reviews, dismantles, and dismisses the major
  arguments for the existence of the supernatural
  and deities.

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Agnostic H. Allen Orr New York Review of Books

• Despite my admiration for much of Dawkins work
  The God Delusion seems to me badly flawed. Though
  I once labelled Dawkins a professional atheist,
  Im forced, after reading his new book, to
  conclude hes actually more an amateur for all I
  know, Dawkins general conclusion is right. But
  his book makes a far from convincing case.

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The Journey Ahead

• Dawkins on arguments for God
• Dawkins argument against God
• Dawkins and the evidence for Jesus

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• Dawkins on arguments for God
• Dawkins argument against God
• Dawkins and the evidence for Jesus

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Dawkins on arguments for God

• Dawkins calls Aquinas arguments for God
  vacuous (p. 77.)
• there is no evidence to favour the God
  Hypothesis. (p. 59.)

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A warning from atheist Thomas Nagel

• Castigates Dawkins for amateur philosophy
• Dawkins dismisses, with contemptuous flippancy
  the traditional arguments for the existence of
  God... I found these attempts at philosophy,
  along with those in a later chapter on religion
  and ethics, particularly weak. (The New Republic)

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Dawkins Methodology

• There are argument Dawkins does not consider
• Those he does consider are straw-man versions of
  the arguments
• Dawkins bungles his attack on the straw-men

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Religious Experience
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Religious Experience

• He never spells out the argument from religious
  experience
• He asserts that experiences can be delusional
• the brains simulation software is well
  capable of constructing visions and
  visitations of the utmost veridical power. -
  The God Delusion, p. 90.

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Religious Experience

• Thats all folks!
• This is really all that needs to be said about
  personal experiences of gods or other religious
  phenomena. If youve had such an experience, you
  may well find yourself believing firmly that it
  was real. But dont expect the rest of us to take
  your word for it, especially if we have the
  slightest familiarity with the brain and its
  powerful workings. (p. 92)
• Dawkins rebuttal doesnt even rise to the level
  of an argument. He fails to advance more than one
  premise

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Religious Experience

• Observing that the brain can create illusions
  provides no reason for the conclusion that all
  religious experiences are illusions

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Cosmological Argument
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Cosmological Argument

• The famous five ways of Thomas Aquinas (which
  he does not quote)
• are easily though I hesitate to say so,
  given his eminence - exposed as vacuous.
• Dawkins should have hesitated more

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Cosmological Argument

• Dawkins complains that Aquinas makes
• the entirely unwarranted assumption that God
  himself is immune to the regress.
• A cosmological argument just is an argument for
  the necessity of a being that is immune to the
  regress!

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Cosmological Argument

• Consider the following arguments
• 1) Something is caused
• 2) It is impossible for everything to be caused
• 3) Therefore there must exist an uncaused thing
• Something is contingent
• It is impossible for everything to be contingent
• Therefore something is necessary

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The Anthropic Argument
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The Anthropic Argument

• The anthropic principle is an alternative to
  the design hypothesis. It provides a rational,
  design-free explanation for the fact that we find
  ourselves in a situation propitious to our
  existence What the religious mind fails to
  grasp is that two candidate solutions are offered
  to the problem. God is one. The anthropic
  principle is the other. They are alternatives. -
  The God Delusion, p. 136.

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• Dawkins is demonstrably wrong about this

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The Anthropic Argument

• The anthropic principle is a synonym for
  fine-tuning. One cannot appeal to the
  anthropic principle to explain fine tuning
• That would be like trying to use the concept of
  bachelors to explain the existence of unmarried
  men!
• This is what Dawkins attempts, deploying the
  anthropic principle as an explanation for this
  observation It follows from the fact of our
  existence that the laws of physics must be
  friendly enough to allow life to arise. (p.
  141.)
• Yes, but it does not follow that the laws of
  physics are necessarily compatible with the
  existence of life. Dawkins equivocates over the
  meaning of the term must (!) - treating the
  data to be explained as an explanation of the
  data to be explained

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The Anthropic Argument

• The problem that needs to be solved is not the
  fact that we live in a life friendly place (p.
  136) as Dawkins says (we couldnt exist in a life
  unfriendly place) but the unlikely fact that a
  life friendly place exists

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The Anthropic Argument

• Given our existence it is of course likely
  (necessary) that we live in a life friendly
  place but this doesnt mean it is likely that a
  life friendly place exists in fact, it is
  unlikely!

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The Anthropic Argument

• Dawkins contradicts his claim that the anthropic
  principle is an explanation of fine tuning
• John Leslies analogy of the man sentenced to
  death by firing squad who survives
• Well, obviously they all missed, or I wouldnt
  be here thinking about it. (p. 144-145)

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• he could still, forgivably, wonder why theyd
  all missed, and toy with the hypothesis that they
  were bribed (p. 145)

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The Anthropic Argument

• Noting that the sentenced man wouldnt exist now
  if the firing squad hadnt missed doesnt explain
  why they missed
• Noting that life wouldnt exist now if the
  universe hadnt exhibited certain laws doesnt
  explain why it has those laws

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The Anthropic Argument

• Dawkins admits that the existence of a finely
  tuned universe is surprising
• This objection can be answered by the
  suggestion that there are many universes (p.
  145.)

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Chimps or Shakespeare?

• If X number of chimps existed then they could
  type Shakespeares works by chance
• Anyone faced with the many chimps hypothesis as
  an actual explanation for a copy of Shakespeares
  works is going to ask whether there is any
  independent reason to think that X number of
  chimps actually exist
• If not, they will quite reasonably ignore the
  monkey (chimp) hypothesis and favour the design
  hypothesis

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• Dawkins on arguments for God
• Dawkins argument against God
• Dawkins and the evidence for Jesus

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• Dawkins on arguments for God
• Dawkins argument against God
• Dawkins and the evidence for Jesus

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the central argument of my book

• Dawkins Unrebuttable Objection to God

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the central argument of my book

• the designer hypothesis immediately raises the
  larger problem of who designed the designer. The
  whole problem we started out with was the problem
  of explaining statistical improbability. It is
  obviously no solution to postulate something even
  more improbable. (p. 157-158.)

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the central argument of my book

• Two overlapping objections
• 1) The who designed the designer? objection
• 2) The explaining something with something more
  complex objection

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1) who designed the designer?

• William Lane Craig
• in order for an explanation to be the best
  explanation, one neednt have an explanation of
  the explanation such a requirement would
  generate an infinite regress, so that everything
  becomes inexplicable...
• believing that the design hypothesis is the best
  explanation... doesnt depend upon our ability to
  explain the designer. - Why I Believe in God,
  in Norman L. Geisler Paul K. Hoffman (ed.s),
  Why I Am A Christian, (Baker, 2001), p. 73.

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1) who designed the designer?

• The who designed the designer? objection
  applies to all design inferences (archaeology,
  SETI)

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1) Alvin Plantinga

• suppose we land on an alien planet and
  discover machine-like objects that look and work
  just like tractors our leader says there must
  be intelligent beings on this planet who built
  those tractors. A first year philosophy student
  on our expedition objects Hey, hold on a
  minute! You have explained nothing at all! Any
  intelligent life that designed those tractors
  would have to be at least as complex as they
  are. No doubt wed tell him that a little
  learning is a dangerous thing and advise him to
  take the next rocket ship home and enrol in
  another philosophy course or two.
• - Review of Richard Dawkins The God Delusion

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2) explaining with something more complex

• God would have to be highly improbable in the
  very same statistical sense as the entities he is
  supposed to explain. (p. 147.)
• This is incorrect

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2) explaining with something more complex

• God is a necessary being cf. the cosmological
  argument Far from its being improbable that he
  exists, his existence is maximally probable. So
  if Dawkins proposes that Gods existence is
  improbable, he owes us an argument for the
  conclusion that there is no necessary being with
  the attributes of God... Neither he nor anyone
  else has provided even a decent argument along
  these lines Dawkins doesnt even seem to be
  aware that he needs an argument of that sort. -
  Plantinga, Review of Richard Dawkins The God
  Delusion

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Atheist Thomas Nagel

• God, whatever he may be, is not a complex
  physical inhabitant of the natural world.

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• Dawkins on arguments for God
• Dawkins argument against God
• Dawkins and the evidence for Jesus

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• Dawkins on arguments for God
• Dawkins argument against God
• Dawkins and the evidence for Jesus

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Richard Dawkins

• 'Ever since the nineteenth century, scholarly
  theologians have made an overwhelming case that
  the gospels are not reliable accounts of what
  happened... All were written long after the death
  of Jesus... then copied and recopied, through
  many different Chinese Whispers generations
  Nobody knows who the four evangelists were, but
  they almost certainly never met Jesus... Much of
  what they wrote was in no sense an honest attempt
  at history Although Jesus probably existed,
  reputable bible scholars do not in general regard
  the New Testament (and obviously not the Old
  Testament) as a reliable record of what actually
  happened in history - (p. 37-97.)

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Francis Collins

• 'the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
  were put down just a few decades after Christ's
  death. Their style and content suggests strongly
  that they are intended to be the record of
  eyewitnesses (Matthew and John were among the
  twelve apostles). Concerns about errors creeping
  in by successive copying or bad translations have
  been mostly laid to rest by discovery of very
  ancient manuscripts. Thus, the evidence for
  authenticity of the four gospels turns out to be
  quite strong. Furthermore, non-Christian
  historians of the first century such as Josephus
  bear witness to a Jewish prophet who was
  crucified by Pontius Pilate around 33 A.D.
• - Francis Collins, The Language of God, p. 223.

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• Dawkins critique is full of false and misleading
  claims
• Dawkins depends upon scholars like Bart Ehrman,
  who follows David Humes argument that miracle
  claims cannot in principle be supported by
  evidence

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William Lane Craig

• those who are familiar with contemporary
  philosophy know that Humes arguments are today
  widely rejected as fallacious. If we are at least
  open to God, then miraculous events cannot be
  ruled out in advance. We have to be open to
  looking honestly at the evidence (Christ and
  Miracles, To Everyone an Answer)

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• Dawkins critique is grounded in a prior
  philosophical commitment to metaphysical
  naturalism, not upon an objective assessment of
  the evidence

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R.T. France

• At the level of their literary and historical
  character we have good reason to treat the
  gospels seriously... ancient historians would
  count themselves fortunate to have four such
  responsible accounts written within a generation
  or two of the events and preserved in such a
  wealth of manuscript evidence... Beyond that
  point, the decision as to how far a scholar is
  willing to accept the record they offer is likely
  to be influenced more by his openness to a
  supernaturalist worldview than by strictly
  historical considerations.

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In Conclusion

• The God Delusion is not a work of Satan!
• It is the work of a zoologist with a justified
  disliking for religious authoritarianism and an
  unjustified confidence in his ability as a
  philosopher

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• If you want to close down the debate about God
  and Jesus, youll have to do better than
• The God Delusion

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Three Questions to Ponder

• Does God Exist?
• Is Jesus Gods self-communication with us in
  history?
• Can I relate to God through Jesus?