Explained : The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

This is a brief summary of what Richard Dawkins argues in his book “The God Delusion”. These are not my opinions. I simply state his arguments in very short, easy to understand form, omitting quite a few. I expanded on the new and non-obvious stuff, that I found interesting and dumbed down the others. I will express my opinions and disagreements with his ideology in a different post. 

TL;DR

Every false belief should be destroyed, especially those which cause more harm, than good. Religion is the most potent form of false belief.

Or simply, Truth is the what we should value the most.

What is religion?

Religion is the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. This is something, that has persisted over for centuries. Human culture, has had many religions in every part of the world, from ancient times. We believe in it, we are born into it. Religion is a part of our life. 

Evaluating Religion

Science teaches us to evaluate everything, every claim, with evidence. Therefore Religion can be boiled down, and stated as The God Hypothesis - 

“There exists a supernatural intelligence who created the Universe and deliberately designed the things in it including humans.” 

This hypothesis is argued against by the alternate hypothesis which Science gives -

“Any creative intelligence of sufficient complexity to design, comes only as a result of extended process of gradual evolution.”

We hope to prove or disprove the God Hypothesis, but if we can’t, then we make probability judgement about it. The fact that we can neither prove nor disprove the existence of something doesn’t put its existence and non-existence on even footing.(i.e 50-50 chance)

What about Agnosticism?

Agnosticism is considered a balanced stand on the existence of God, answering “We simply don’t know”. There are 2 kinds of agnosticism -

• Temporary 
• Permanent
  

Temporary deals with things we do not yet know but will know eventually. Science deals with this kind. Permanent Agnosticism deals with question whose answers cannot be ever determined realistically. These tend to be highly abstract philosophical and theological questions, which have a tendency to be non-sensical. They often rely on clever word play. 

 The question of existence of God is considered to be in Permanent territory. This is not true. We can frame it into a well formed hypothesis, and talk about its proof. The reason because it is considered unanswerable, may be because of the seemingly unquestionability of Religion, which is deeply rooted in our culture.

Again if we cannot determine 100% of its existence, Science can make probability judgement about it. Consider Bertrand Russel’s parable of a celestial teapot. He says that, one might argue that a teapot revolves around the Sun, with its orbit between Earth and Mars. It is too small to be revealed by telescope, or current human technology. In reality, the teapot may exist but the probability of existence is very very low. This also strongly argues that the Burden-of-proof rests with believers and not non-believers. The same thing can be said about The God Hypothesis.

Collecting Evidence

Scientists propose Evolution and Natural Selection to describe life on earth.Creationists propose that a higher being created life on earth.

Argument from design - 

Creationists argue that life forms and their biology, is irreducibly complex, and feels like it is carefully designed, like an Engineer designing a machine, with every part having a particular function, optimized for functioning. They argue that it is highly improbable that life somehow, itself originated as a matter of chance, similar to a “Boeing 747 being assembled in a junkyard by a  passing hurricane.” Therefore the only other alternative is Deliberate Design.

Argument from improbability - 

Evolutionary Biologists say it’s true that the probability of life suddenly originating is infinitesimally low. Therefore it is false that it happened by chance or luck. Evolution took place by Natural Selection. Natural Selection is a slow process by which, living beings, get optimized for survival in an environment. It takes millions of years for life forms to evolve by Natural Selection, into the highly complex form they are today, and it happens step by step. There is a lot of evidence supporting Evolution theory, and it is considered today a fact.

Science also argues that the Creationist argument doesn’t explain where God, came from, and in order to design such complex beings, “God” would have to be much more complex. We cannot answer a complex question which relies on more complex assumptions.

There was a Great Prayer Experiment conducted, to verify miracles. It tested, if praying for patients actually helped them recover. Prayers in Churches were organised, where many people prayed for patients. The result found no difference between patients that were prayed for, and patients who weren’t.

Other arguments for God’s existence are highly subjective, biased. Till date no solid evidence is found, favoring The God Hypothesis. If it were to be found, Scientist would be the first to accept it.

Conclusion:

It is reasonable to take an Atheistic stand - 

“I cannot know for certain, but I think God is highly improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that there is none.”

What about Einsteinian Religion?

Many Scientists use the words “God”, and “Religion” to describe the Laws that govern Nature and Universe. This is not to be confused with actual Religions. Einstein did not believe in personal God, but when he said “God does not play dice”, he referred to the Laws of Universe. 

The words of many scientists, and Einstein have been misquoted, and warped as proof of their religiousness. Therefore, these words should not be used carelessly, as it gives people opportunity to mislead, and confuse. 

Also religions(like Buddhism) which are basically promote a way of life, should not be considered in The God Hypothesis.

Rationality vs Superstition 

Religion in general promotes the highest kind of ignorance. Everything in Religion, is set up in such a way, that it protects itself, from ever being questioned. It requires you to have faith. It is Superstition and is therefore, by definition, incompatible with science.

Science is a tool by which we find the truth, by collecting evidence and verifying it, then form theories. Evidence is how we know truth. Theories is how we formulate the evidence.

Science is one form of Rationalism while Religion is most common form of Superstition.

Therefore, a person who believes in Science, should eventually reach the conclusion that Religion is false belief, and incompatible with Science.

Religion causes harm

Religion teaches people to be ignorant. And that gives birth to many problems. Terrorism, Violence, Child abuse, abuse against women; condemning Homosexuality, Abortion, Euthanasia, Test-tube baby etc. , to name a few.

It is not a harmless belief. It is a birthplace of a host of other major problems, and shelters them. Therefore it should be actively fought against.

Why tolerate religion?

There are many people who do not believe in Religion, but are tolerant of it. This is called “belief in belief”. It says that, even though I don’t believe in it, people should be allowed to believe in it. This can be because of loyalty towards parents, family, community etc. Or justifying it as it helps

1. provide a way of life, comforting
2. be more moral

These first point can be argued, to be achieved, in absence of religion too. And the second point can be argued against as Religion is often found to develop systematic hate and immoral behavior. 

Roots of religion

Religion developed in different cultures at different times simultaneously. Therefore, there must be a human need for inventing Religion. Does it have any evolutionary advantage for humans? Religion can be argued to be a misfiring - as a by-product of combination of caveats in human mind. 

Belief in early stages of evolution is important, for next generation to survive, as knowledge is passed from previous generation. Children who believe elders are much likely to survive. We are hardwired to believe and trust as children. Therefore Religion takes advantage of that.

Children are Dualist in nature. Dualist means believing, there exists separate mind and body. A Monoist believes, that our consciousness is a result of our body( a physiological phenomenon ). Dualist theory supports belief in soul, reincarnation, Heaven and Hell. 

Children are born Teleologist. It means that we are hardwired to believe that everything has a purpose. That explains the need to anthropomorphise non-living things. This has an evolutionary advantage as it is intuitive to understand, assigning things and phenomenons a motive and reason. 

It can be further elaborated by the 3 basic stances(reasoning models) that we use to explain things:

• Physical - Understand the physics behind it.
  
• Design - Guess what it does based on how it looks.
• Intentional - Guess what it does based on its intent (harmful, beneficial)

Design and Intentional stances are Instinctive and built in us, helping in our survival, fighting animals, and being resourceful. Physical Stance is how we do science, by dealing with facts. Design stance and Intentional stance promote Religious ideas, like Argument by Design, God being a human.

We are also born with ability for self-deception, i.e. we often believe what we desire (Cognitive Biases). Religion takes advantage of these biases.

Cults have an ability to spread fast, like a meme, and evolve. Religions are believed to be evolved from cults. Example: formation of Cargo Cults in various parts of Africa in the mid 19th Century, during colonization. The native tribes formed a cult, around the arrival of Cargo ships bringing in foods and supplies, believing them to gifts from God.

Roots of Morality

This addresses the question why do we have to be good? Morality can also be looked as a by-product of Altruism(helping others). Altruism helps in survival and can have many motivations, but these are the two major ones:

• Kin Altruism - caring for child, sibling, blood relative (carrying gene)
• Reciprocal Altruism - You help me, I help you; Symbiosis.

These 2 forms can be widely found in nature, in animals and plants. In human society there can be several other motivations for Altruism like acquiring a reputation, a means to exercise superiority etc. 

We have a built-in moral sense which guides us, just as our built in survival skills. There are tests, where people were asked if they would kill one person to save 5 people from being killed from an oncoming train. It actually depended on the nature of how that 1 person was killed, that affected the answer. People would say no, if the person was an Innocent Bystander(a person walking on a side bridge, dropped in front of the train to stop it), and yes, if he was Collateral Damage(a person who happens to be standing on the track by his own will). We can conclude that, consent matters a lot in morality.  Morality tests conducted showed no difference between atheists, religious believers, and African tribals. 

Further, Moral code can be of 2 types:

• Absolutism - There are absolute rules for right and wrong. context-free.
  
• Consequentialism - The consequences decide if it’s right or wrong. context matters.

Religion has promoted Absolutism. Many philosophers and scientist today, agree that Consequentialism is the right way to deal with moral dilemmas. Utilitarianism is part of Consequentialism which argues that greatest pleasure(or lack of suffering) for the greatest number, should be sought after. 

Moral Zeitgeist is the argument that morality changes with generations and cultures. Sex, Race, Sexual Preference which were highly prejudiced against at some point, are now not scrutinized. Many Brilliant people have succumbed to some kind of racial or sexual bias. Hence it depends on the time and culture, in general. 

Religion is comforting

Again this is a result of the carefully-seeded, now deeply rooted religious ignorance that our society has accepted. Holding a false belief close to your heart, will make you more delusional. Being well educated in Science, and seeing the beauty of science, the truth in the Universe, can be much more comforting and enlightening. There is a need for raising consciousness, and Science helps us achieve that. 

What should be done?

Science Education is the single point long term solution for the problem. Children ought to be taught “How to think”, and not “What to think”. They should be properly introduced to facts, and then allowed to make up their own minds, about everything, including Religion.

Religion should not be given special privilege by governments.

Belief-in-belief should be destroyed too, because it is a passive excuse, failing to recognize the need for religion to go away.