Close up of the book cover. Photo: Penguins Book.
‘Outgrowing God: A beginner’s guide’ by Richard Dawkins
Review by Reg Naulty
In its early pages, this reads like a book for children. But its author soon gets into his stride, and it becomes vintage Richard Dawkins: clear, vigorous, going in for the kill. Religion has nothing going for it; it is sheer superstition which can be explained.
The book proceeds by attacking the Old Testament, the New, then the Bible as a source of morality. Beyond that, Dawkins appears to believe that religion is a misplaced source of explanation: ‘Whenever there is a gap in our understanding, people try to plug the gap with God. But the trouble with gaps is that science has the annoying habit of coming along and filling up the gap.’
Hence religion is left without a foundation.
But there may be any number of motives for religious belief. One of the most frequent may consist of a cry for help when things have gone badly wrong. If we fall into a river on a dark night, we may be incapable of checking to see whether there is anybody nearby. We cry out just in case there is. If there is, we couldn’t help feeling grateful. What if the same person fell into another desperate situation, cried out for help, and received it? Something like that happened in the history of Japan. Two Mongol invasion fleets were destroyed by typhoons, which the Japanese came to regard as ‘divine winds.’
Dawkins would be unimpressed. But we can imagine a different kind of inference. As we get older, the world strikes many of us as wonderful. Further, some of us are inclined to think that there is a kind of benign intent behind it. We may reason that if there is, it may respond if we address it. So we do. The reply may not be verbal; it may be a feeling which induces peace and serenity. It may even have visible effects, as with George Fox: ‘I kept on my horse’s back, and rid through [the noisy crowd] in the Lord’s power. “Oh!” said they, “he shines, he glisters!”’
Towards the end of the book, Dawkins approvingly quotes the following passage: ‘The world behaves exactly as you would expect it would, if there was no supreme being, no supreme consciousness, and no supernatural.’
It doesn’t strike everyone that way. There does seem to be something like Providence, a power providing for our good, as the ancient Stoics believed and as Jesus believed. The Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote that: ‘Whatever happens, happens rightly… [there is] an order that is just and right, as from the hand of one who dispenses to all their due.’ Aurelius was overstating his case. The Holocaust wasn’t dispensing any due to anyone. But if we allow that human choices have to be accommodated, there is still room for Providence. The Persian rug-maker gives a good analogy. At one end of the rug work his children, who sometimes make mistakes. When they do, their father, working at the other end of the rug, alters the design to allow for their mistakes. Once we perceive that, life becomes an adventure, a drama in which we all have a part. And it is a great drama.
Comments
I have long-since ceased to be concerned about Dawkins’ attacks on religion. I once called into the Barnes & Noble book store in Carbondale, Illinois. It is the only bookshop I have ever visited where “The God Delusion” was remaindered. But with good reason, frankly, because the book revealed to me that the author’s understanding of the Bible and of the messages of Christianity were very basic, simplistic and somewhat literal. His powers of communication do make his arguments seem formidable, but they appear to me to be founded on an almost school-boy like understanding of religion. I suspect most Quakers left that sort of understanding far behind long ago. If indeed they ever had them!
By markrdibben@gmail.com on 18th October 2019 - 18:34
Just to add to my point above, the Catholic mystic Richard Rohr - who I’m convinced speaks in a way that would resonate with Friends - has just written this daily meditation. It speaks to the limited view of Christianity embodied by most mainstream churches (that seems to be all Richard Dawkins knows), and the more encompassing view by comparison - that I sense has been part of the Quaker tradition for centuries. https://cac.org/the-emerging-church-2019-10-28/
By markrdibben@gmail.com on 28th October 2019 - 10:28
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