Succinct StatementsWhat For Art Thou?Wax and WaneIs and OughtPurpose Without a Cause
In Summation
Professor Richard Dawkins,
“we are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.”
Author Tom Robbins,
“Humans were invented by water as a means of transporting itself from place to place.”
Genesis 1:27,
“God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him. He created them male and female.”
In this essay we seek to introduce the worldview of Professor Richard Dawkins-the Dawkinsian Weltanschauung.
Succinct Statements
Succinctly stated, our conclusions on each subject are as follows:
Richard Dawkins on science/Darwinian macro-evolution/natural selection-as is typical of the Darwinian methodology, he mixes observation of real life facts that can be reproduced and verified with conveniently self-serving story telling. It is one thing if he looks though a microscope and merely tells us what he sees. But it is quite another thing when he begins to weave tales by which he seeks to infer atheism from biology. See our essay Look Both Ways Two Atheistic Logical Fallacies or succinctly the Richard Dawkins portion of that essay The Wizard of Biomorph Land.
Richard Dawkins on the Bible-he appears to be an adherent of the “document hypothesis” which relies on a document that does not exist and ignores two thousand years of proven reliable transmission. The hypothesis is based on various faulty premises and fallacious assumptions. See our essay When An Ethereal Hypothesis Beats Out Tangible Proof.
Richard Dawkins on morals/biblical morals-in attempting to disprove that we get morals from the Bible he refers to various biblical texts and draws certain conclusions. Sadly, it appears that he does not actually read the Bible when seeking to criticize it. Rather, he relies much too heavily, if not exclusively, on the research of others and does not seem to bother double checking their conclusions. In order to know that his own conclusions are erroneous one merely has to check the citation (if he even bother’s providing one) and read for context. The context, whether immediate or greater, utterly refutes that which he is attempting to prove. This is true of even simply reading one or two verses below the text that he is targeting. See our essay Planting God More Firmly on His Throne.
Richard Dawkins on abortion-he conveniently confines his statements to very early human life in the womb which is easier to dehumanize. He generally refers to these babies as cells, zygotes or embryos. He most certainly completely ignores partial birth abortion. In fact, he almost all but completely ignores any late abortions with the exception of making a point about pain and suffering. In this case he states that surely the human baby does not suffer any more than cows or sheep. He also compares, without providing any statistics, Islamic terrorists to “Christian” abortion “doctor” murderers. One look at the statistics that we provide makes his comparisons no less than unwarranted. See our essay On Abortion, Tadpoles, Rape, Cows, Murder and Sheep.
Richard Dawkins on the Ten Commandments-in apparently attempting to prove that the biblical Ten Commandments are nothing special he dictates “the new ten commandments” (of which there are fifteen). Some of them are decent enough, some far too generic and some fallacious. Yet, his exercise in concocting them does not prove anything except that which they were meant to prove and that is that anyone could invent any list of ten (or more). But what is their staying power, their authority, their advantage, their consequences (both for keeping and breaking) is left unstated so that the exercise is merely an exercise in futility. See our essay Ecce Homo’s Commandments.
Richard Dawkins on altruism-according to his Darwinian weltanschauung altruism, including a specific mention of adoption, is merely a “mistake.” As we will discuss further below, according to the Dawkinsian interpretation of nature as viewed strictly through Darwinism “accident” or “mistake” are the only way with which to explain things such as love and altruism. See our essay Altruism or Allfalseism.
Richard Dawkins on how we fill the gaps in our knowledge-having thoroughly belittled “faith” he demonstrates his own when he is specifically asked to present his “most persuasive” proof of Darwinian evolution/natural selection. His response is that his “faith” in natural selection rests on the fact that it is a powerful theory and that if we cannot imagine how it actually functions “that’s your problem, not natural selection’s problem.” See our essay The Gap Filler or succinctly the Richard Dawkins portion of that essay The Biologist Who Fills the Gaps in Our Knowledge With Faith.
This has been a foretaste of the Dawkinsian Weltanschauung. What is of interest to us in this essay is not only to provide examples of this weltanschauung but to demonstrate its failure when it is applied to real everyday life. Richard Dawkins quickly, and often, is forced to abandon it when he finds that it is taking him to a logical conclusion that he, for aesthetic or ethical (situational/relative ethics) reasons, does not find particularly palatable. In such cases Richard Dawkins often can do nothing more than through his hands up in abandonment of his weltanschauung and is completely incapable of rationalizing why he is rejecting the logical outcome of his own views.
We will focus on Prof. Richard Dawkins’ views regarding life and living things: what is life, what do living things do, and what is the purpose of it all. Next we will see how and why he makes a logical progression only to retreat when he realizes that he does not like where he is headed. Lastly, we will focus on the bottom line issue that undergirds the Dawkinsian weltanschauung and why it is, by necessity, schizophrenic. This final topic will deal with oughtness and how he determines what “is” as opposed to what “ought” to be.
What For Art Thou?
“What is man, that you are mindful of him_” Psalm 8:4
Let us begin this section by quoting what hopefully is an extreme point of view. Although it is one that clearly expresses the views of Sam Harris the atheist-Buddhist-mystic that does not like the term atheist, Buddhist or mystic. The following was asked to Richard Dawkins in an interview:
“[Nick Pollard:] Susan Blackmore said recently in The Skeptic: ‘I think the idea we exist is an illusion…The idea that there is a self in there that decides things, acts and is responsible…is a whopping great illusion. The self we construct is just an illusion because actually there’s only brains and chemicals and this ‘self’ doesn’t exist – it never did and there’s nobody to die.’ Would you agree with that kind of reductionist explanation of who your wife is, who you are?
[Prof. Richard Dawkins:] Yes. I mean, Susan is sticking her neck out for one particular view of what a self is, and it’s one that I am inclined to think is probably right; but I don’t think we are yet in a position to substantiate that…Certainly, the prediction that we don’t survive death seems to me to be overwhelmingly probable…if a self is something other than brain stuff, then it should survive when the brain rots – and Id place a very heavy bet (which I realise I could never actually win) that when my brain rots my self will not in any sense exist.”1
One may imagine that Christmas time would invoke thoughts of Jesus’ birth, glory to God, peace and good will toward men. But not so for Richard Dawkins who in his “Christmas Lectures for Young People” (1991) wrote the following:
“We are machines built by DNA whose purpose is to make more copies of the same DNA_It is every living object’s sole reason for living.’”2
He has elaborated thusly:
“that the purpose of all life is to pass on their DNA means that all living things are descended from a long line of successful ancestors…which can best be understood as fulfilling a purpose of propagating DNA…There is no purpose other than that.”3
Below we will touch upon the issue of purpose/meaning.
Considering that the only Darwinian reason for sex is procreation4, we are basically reproduction machines. What then does it mean to be a human being?
“What is a human? What is a human self, a human individual? That’s more difficult. It’s not a question I can answer – it’s not a question any scientist can answer at present, though I think they will. I believe it will turn out that what a human is some manifestation of brain stuff and its workings.”5
Thus, what is this brain stuff from which humanity, selfhood, and individuality flow?
“To me, human consciousness is a deep, philosophically mysterious manifestation of brain activity and is in some sense a product of Darwinian evolution. But we don’t yet really have any idea how it evolved and where it fits into a Darwinian view of biology. I don’t know whether it will yield to a sudden flash of enlightenment, whether it will become one of those rather messy problems that never really get a proper solution, or whether it will eventually turn out that there never was a problem at all and that we were actually making up problems where there really weren’t any. From where I sit, it seems to be a deeply difficult problem that has always been a philosophical problem but which I think is ripe for a take-over by evolutionary biology once we think how to do it.”6
That what a human is is some manifestation of brain stuff and its workings begs one to ask the following question posed by the late Professor of Genetics at London University, John B.S. Haldane:
“It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.”7
Richard Dawkins holds to a rather odd opinion to the effect that since he knows that absolute materialism is a fact he can appreciate and enjoy all that exists more than a theist could:
“Awe and wonder are things which religious people undoubtedly feel, but I get a bit irritated when they imply they have a monopoly of them. I think I can feel wonder at least as well as the next man, and I am stimulated to do so by contemplating the huge size and age of the universe, the immense range of sizes of things, from fundamental particles to galaxies, and the awe-inspiring consequences of evolution, starting from simple beginnings and working up to prodigies of complexity like ourselves.”8
The only difference between a Dawkinsian doxology and a biblical one is that the biblical one has an object and does not sing the praises of time, matter, chance, and imagination:
“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the expanse proclaims His handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor are there words; their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world. In them He has set a tabernacle for the sun, and he comes forth as a bridegroom from his canopy; he rejoices as a strong man to run a race, going forth from the end of the heavens, and its course is to their ends. And there is nothing hid from its heat” Psalms (19:1-6).
But what happens when we serve our purpose of reproducing our genes and our life comes to an end? Richard Dawkins stated:
“I’m certainly happy that we are a product of brains and that when our brains die, we disappear.”9
Thus, according to the Dawkinsian weltanschauung life began on earth by pure chance and it reproduces and changes by chance mutations and natural selection. Living organism’s such as human beings are machines that reproduce in order to pass on their genes and when that purpose has been expended we disappear. Incidentally, regarding life’s origins Richard Dawkins has stated the following, “The origin of life has got to be something self-replicating. We don’t know what it was, but whatever it was, it was self-replicating.”10 Let us just point out that this initial living thing must, to name just a few things: acquire and utilize energy (find something to eat), must realize that it must acquire information, must store information, must retrieve information, must correct information, must pass this information to its offspring, must of course, figure out how to have offspring, etc.
Wax and Wane
“_so that we no longer may be infants, tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine, in the dishonesty of men, in cunning craftiness, to the wiles of deceit…” Ephesians 4:14
We now come to the occasions in which we find Richard Dawkins attempting to either discredit that which he ultimately ends up accrediting or attempts to discredit only to realize that he has no logical reason for doing so.
In our essay Planting God More Firmly on His Throne we provided various examples of what appears to be Prof. Richard Dawkins’ lazy scholarship in relation to the Bible. He dedicates quite some pages to offering examples of immorality in the Bible in an attempt to prove that we do not get our morality from the Bible but simply pick and choose the parts we like and discard the rest. Please do read that essay if you are interested in seeing precisely how his conclusions are founded upon faulty assumptions, un-contextual presuppositions, and much too much reliance on the scholarship (if it may be referred to as such) of others.
Prof. Richard Dawkins’ ultimate failing is very simple, too simply a mistake for an erudite elucidator, he does not consider that just because the Bible mentions something it does not mean that it is endorsing the act. Should we refer to all newspapers as immoral considering that what they report are often examples of terrible deeds. From his vantage point Richard Dawkins has concluded:
“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”11
Yet, consider the statements that he offers after his survey of biblical immorality:
“the disconnect between scriptural and modern (one is tempted to say civilized) morals. Of course, it is easily enough understood in terms of the theory of memes, and the qualities that a deity needs in order to survive in the meme pool.”12
Let us first provide a scientist’s statement regarding the scientific view of Prof. Richard Dawkins’ “memes.” Memes is a concept that Richard Dawkins invented out of thin air. The basic concept is that memes are the equivalent of genes. That is to say that just as genes pass on genetic information, memes pass on ideas. H. Allen Orr, the Shirley Cox Kearns Professor of Biology at the University of Rochester, wrote that “most scientists do not accept Dawkins’s theory of memes”13 This is not surprising considering that in discussing “assertions without adequate evidence” evolutionary biologist and geneticist, Richard Lewontin mentioned Carl Sagan’s list of the “best contemporary science-popularizers” which includes Prof. Richard Dawkins. These authors have, as Lewontin puts it, “put unsubstantiated assertions or counterfactual claims at the very center of the stories they have retailed in the market.”
Getting back to Prof. Richard Dawkins’ survey, he condemns the God of the Old Testament but then ends up justifying that God’s actions (actually, Prof. Richard Dawkins’ misunderstandings, misinterpretations and misapplications of that God’s actions). How and why? Because he knows that in a Dawkinsian sense it only makes sense because those actions allowed that god-meme to survive the struggle for life. According to the Dawkinsian weltanschauung what we find in the Bible is a clearly Darwinian struggle towards the survival of the fittest god.
Thus, Richard Dawkins seeks to condemn his own fallacious perception of the Bible’s immorality based upon modern, civilized morals (read relative, situational or de jour). Yet, he realizes that according to his own weltanschauung it makes perfect sense in terms of the origin of that God by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favored gods in the struggle for life.Note where Richard Dawkins draws the line between the, according to him, absolute truth of Darwinism and its utter abandonment,
“As an academic scientist I am a passionate Darwinian. But I am a passionate anti-Darwinian when it comes to politics and how we should conduct our human affairs.”14
He has moreover stated:
“how do I react to the idea of being a vehicle for DNA? It doesn’t sound very romantic, does it? It doesn’t sound the sort of vision of life that a poet would have; and I’m quite happy, quite ready to admit that when I’m not thinking about science I’m thinking in a very different way.”15
Again and again we see that Richard Dawkins quickly abandons his weltanschauung the moment that he utilizes it for the purpose for which it is supposed to exists-in order to have it be applied to the real world. It is in the next section that we will discuss how Richard Dawkins attempts to explain away this schizophrenia by claiming that what “is” is not what “ought” to be.
Is and Ought
We now come to the disparity between what “is” (Darwinism) and what “ought” to be. What “is” according to Richard Dawkins is described precisely by Darwinism but what “ought” to be is quite another matter. Let us begin with his basic statement,
“I’m definitely not one who thinks that ‘is’ is the same as ‘ought.’”16
Now a definition of what “is”:
“I see absolutely no reason why, understanding the way the world is, you therefore have to promote it. The darwinian world is a very nasty place: the weakest go to the wall. There’s no pity, no compassion. All those things I abhor, and I will work in my own life in the interests of thoroughly unDarwinian things like compassion.”17
Therefore,
“I don’t think that following the dictates of Darwinism is necessarily what we ought to be doing.”18
One can only wonder what the qualifier “necessarily” is meant to convey. Incidentally, Dan Barker has stated that “Darwin has bequeathed what is good” which is not surprising considering his opinion on abortion, “I think it’s a good thing. I think abortion is actually a good thing for society_I think abortion is blessing” (Please see my essays about Dan Barker). As we mentioned above, Richard Dawkins has had quite a few things to state regarding (a conveniently very narrow view of) abortion.Let us come now to the logical question: how does one distinguish between what “is” and what “ought”?
“[Nick Pollard:] Where does that sense of ‘ought’ come from?[Prof. Richard Dawkins:] Yes, once again, I’m just not impressed. I know that brains are complicated_we have brains that are there for Darwinian reasons and those brains have unforeseen consequences.[Nick Pollard:] But the ‘ought’ is a by-product.
[Prof. Richard Dawkins:] It’s a by-product, yes.”19
Let us note that Prof. Richard Dawkins’ brain by-product tells him that certain things ought to be and thus he has embarked upon a lifetime, and makes quite a living, attempting to talk other people into believing that his unforeseen by-product is the absolutely true unforeseen by-product. We must again ask if we can trust what we think “ought” to be is really what ought to be considering that our concept is merely an unforeseen by-product of mental processes determined wholly by the motions of atoms in our brains. However, what happens when my unforeseen consequence produces a byproduct of what ought to be and I find that it contradicts or even directly clashed with another person’s unforeseen by-product? Well, on the Dawkinsian view his weltanschauung is right and anyone who disagrees with his in wrong.Yet, this is no mere intellectual exercise. Consider first the basis for Prof. Richard Dawkins’ morals, his oughtness:
“[Nick Pollard:] In my worldview, you are created in the image of God and that is why you know how you ought to be. I can explain your compassion. I’m wondering how you can.
[Prof. Richard Dawkins:] Well, one way to understand it is that, by accident, we have evolved a brain which is powerful enough to be able to look into the future and evaluate distant consequences. So, I can see that to spend my whole life satisfying selfish whims might make me less happy in the long run than if I spend it doing something else like helping other people.”20
Note very carefully what happens when one attempts to build ought-morality on the background of a Darwinian weltanschauung. Since that weltanschauung is based upon benefiting the self, and the self’s genes, we find that, as the conceptualist of “the selfish gene” concludes here, we end up with an ought-morality that is based on the self. Did you catch it? He will help other people because if he does not then he will be less happy in the long run. Dawkinsian altruism is based on selfish gains. Elsewhere, we have noted that Reginald Finley, aka “The Infidel Guy”, has contributed to and posted an article which states,
“if one does horrible things to people, that person will eventually have horrible things happen to him.”
While this is certainly hip “My Name is Earl” style pseudo karma it is very indicative of the foundations upon which ought-morality is based.Not consider that real life consequences of unforeseen by-product ought-morality:
“There is no logical connection between what is and what ought. Now, if you then ask me where I get my ‘ought’ statements from, that’s a more difficult question. Firstly, I don’t feel so strongly about them. If I say something is wrong, like killing people, I don’t find that nearly such a defensible statement as ‘I am a distant cousin of an orangutan’. The second of those statements is true, I can tell you why it’s true, I can bore you to death telling you why it’s true. It’s definitely true. The statement ‘killing people is wrong’, to me, is not of that character. I would be quite open to persuasion that killing people is right in some circumstances.”21
It is no less that fascinating to note that Prof. Richard Dawkins’ whole reason for rejecting the strictly Darwinian weltanschauung is that it describes what “is” as opposed to what “ought.” Yet, he schizophrenically states that he does not feel so strongly about the “oughts” and that his distinctions are not based on any logical considerations. He may feel that killing people is wrong but has nothing but personal preference to explain why it is wrong. In fact, killing people may be right in some circumstances. Sadly, he does not take the time to distinguish between the two categories into which taking a life falls, particularly human life-“killing” and “murder.” While the terms are sometimes interchanged, to “murder” is to take the life of an innocent person while to “kill” is indicative of self-defense, fighting a just war, capital punishment, etc.Frank Miele interviewed Richard Dawkins for “Skeptic” magazine. He read the following text from Prof. Richard Dawkins’ book “River Out of Eden,” p. 33 and asked his a follow up question:
“Science shares with religion the claim that it answers deep questions about origins, the nature of life, and the cosmos. But there the resemblance ends. Scientific beliefs are supported by evidence, and they get results. Myths and faiths are not and do not.””Skeptic: Well, if we don’t accept religion as a reasonable guide to ‘what is’ or even a reasonable guide to ‘what ought to be,’ does evolution give us such a guide? Can we turn to evolution to answer not what is, but what ought to be?
Dawkins: I’d rather not do that. I think Julian Huxley was the last person who attempted to. In my opinion, a society run along ‘evolutionary’ lines would not be a very nice society in which to live. But further, there’s no logical reason why we should try to derive our normative standards from evolution. It’s perfectly consistent to say this is the way it is-natural selection is out there and it is a very unpleasant process. Nature is red in tooth and claw. But I don’t want to live in that kind of a world. I want to change the world in which I live in such a way that natural selection no longer applies.”22
Clearly, as we have seen over and over again Richard Dawkins believes that we should abandon Darwinism-evolution-natural selection when dealing with life in general but now we will delve deeper into why and how we know that we should abandon “is” for “ought”:
“Skeptic: But then isn’t what we ought to do (as David Hume argued long ago) just a matter of preference and choice, custom and habit?
Dawkins: I think that’s very likely true. But I don’t think that having conceded that point, I as an individual should then be asked to abandon my own ethical system or goals. I as an individual can adopt idealistic or socialistic or unrealistic or whatever sort of norms of charity and good will towards other people. They may be doomed if you take a strong Darwinian line on human nature, but it’s not obvious to me that they are.”23
We are getting to the bottom line now and that is what has been obvious all along and has already been pointed out above. Ought-morality being “my own ethical system or goals” is a mere “choice, custom and habit” (aka situational, culturally contemporary, relative, de jour).
“Skeptic: So once again the discussion goes back to how do you determine whether something is good or not, other than by just your personal choice?
Dawkins: I don’t even try. You keep wanting to base morality on Darwinism. I don’t.”24
Oddly, at this point the interview heads in another direction and we never get a straight answer.Let us now focus again on the issue of murder and racism which are two things that Richard Dawkins has chosen to dislike.
“I don’t think racism is a good thing. I think it’s a very bad thing. That is my moral position. I don’t see any justification in evolution either for or against racism. The study of evolution is not in the business of providing justifications for anything.”25
“[Nick Pollard:] Suppose some lads break into an old man’s house and kill him. Suppose they say: ‘Well, we accept the evolutionist worldview. He was old and sick, and he didn’t contribute anything to society.’ How would you show them that what they had done was wrong?
[Prof. Richard Dawkins:] If somebody used my views to justify a completely self – centred lifestyle, which involved trampling all over other people in any way they chose roughly what, I suppose, at a sociological level social Darwinists did – I think I would be fairly hard put to it to argue on purely intellectual grounds. I think it would be more: ‘This is not a society in which I wish to live. Without having a rational reason for it necessarily, I’m going to do whatever I can to stop you doing this.’ I couldn’t, ultimately, argue intellectually against somebody who did something I found obnoxious. I think I could finally only say, ‘Well, in this society you can’t get away with it’ and call the police. I realise this is very weak, and I’ve said I don’t feel equipped to produce moral arguments in the way I feel equipped to produce arguments of a cosmological and biological kind. But I still think it’s a separate issue from beliefs in cosmic truths.”26
We ultimately get a red in tooth and claw view of morality without a cause. It has no Darwinian, evolutionary, natural selection, intellectual or rational grounds. Richard Dawkins merely wishes his way to morality-he has no reason for it but wishes to stop you from breaking his purely subjective morality. Note also that he allow society to dictate morality to him “in this society you can’t get away with it.” What if Richard Dawkins lived in a society in which for example it was perfectly acceptable and in fact lawful to do such things to Jewish people by the millions? Moreover, he is wrong in stating that “in this society you can’t get away with it.” According to absolute materialism they very well could get away with it as long as they do not get caught. Let us grant that there is no Darwinian, evolutionary, natural selection, intellectual or rational grounds for morality. What would happen if for example, someone takes it upon themselves to declare racism to be moral? While Richard Dawkins stated that “The study of evolution is not in the business of providing justifications for anything” he also stated “I don’t see any justification in evolution either for or against racism.” Just how could he argue against that? Just because he does not see any justification does not mean that other people cannot and in fact many have. Now ask yourself how Richard Dawkins can go on and on in interviews, lecture, books, videos, etc. besmirching anyone’s morality. Now we know that it is merely based on wish fulfillment. The only point on which we can fully agree is “this is very weak.”
Is it any wonder that Anthony O’Hear, an agnostic philosopher, commented thusly regarding Prof. Richard Dawkins, “this particular Darwinian is quite unable to explain why we have an obligation to act against our ‘selfish’ genes.”27
Purpose Without a Cause
We must return to the issue of purpose for a moment because not everyone will be as pleased as Richard Dawkins in enjoying a life that is built on absolutely no logical foundation and without purpose.Again, Mr. Miele read from “River Out of Eden,” p. 133 and asked his a follow up question:
“In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”
Mr. Miele also made references to other nihilistic statements,
“Physicist Steven Weinberg’s, ‘the more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless’ (The First Three Minutes), or William Shakespeare’s ‘a tale told by an idiot, filled with sound and fury, signifying nothing.’ Is that in fact your position?
Dawkins: Yes, at a sort of cosmic level, it is. But what I want to guard against is people therefore getting nihilistic in their personal lives. I don’t see any reason for that at all. You can have a very happy and fulfilled personal life even if you think that the universe at large is a tale told by an idiot. You can still set up goals and have a very worthwhile life and not be nihilistic about it at a personal level.”28
Elsewhere, we have commented on some of Steven Weinberg’s assertions. Whatever a “sort of cosmic level” may be, it is clear that Richard Dawkins is again suffering from intellectual schizophrenia. One the one hand there is no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference, the universe is pointless, idiotic, and signifies nothing. We may even add Dan Barker’s question about whether it matters what happens to us or a vegetable, “_what happens to me or a piece of broccoli, it won’t the sun is going to explode, we’re all gonna be gone. No one’s gonna care.” (see our essay Atheism is Holier Than Theism). On the other hand do not let that get you down because you can still enjoy a good book, a spot of tea, or a sunset (before the sun explodes).
In seeking a purpose to life, not just life in general but their own lives, people generally do not think of menial everyday tasks or even having a goal of completing a project (such as writing a book, an example that Richard Dawkins offers). They have something more grandeur in mind, something beyond death of brain equals the death of me, something more than the universe will entropy so be nice to people while you still can. Our natural inclination is to long for something transcendental, something eternal, something beyond brain stuff. Atheist are now not only claiming that atheism is holier than theism but that they are the only ones with the chutzpah to look into the great void that awaits us all, the great nothingness, the eater of black holes, and laugh while stating, “We still get to enjoy the ride.”
What is fascinating is the trend amongst the New Atheists to desperately attempt to prove to the world that they are happy and fulfilled. In a temporary fashion there is no reason to doubt it (we have touched upon this topic in our essay On Hills, Speed-bumps, Atheism and Christianity). Elsewhere, we have made the point that to the charge that on atheism life has no purpose or meaning the response is that it does have it sine we give it purpose and meaning. But, of course this is a concession since it is precisely because life has no purpose or meaning that we must give it some. Thus, the original point still stands as stated in greater detail: life has no absolute-intrinsic-objective purpose or meaning. Thus, life is purposeless and meaningless and so any purpose or meaning that they concoct is necessarily self-induced consoling delusion, which is the very thing of which they accuse theists.
Moreover, what if my self-induced consolingly delusional ought-morality is that the purpose of life is to murder infidels so that I may pass on my genes and memes while not have to compete with theirs? What if I choose to establish a Communist regime established upon atheism and the reason and science de jour? You may not like it but, as we have seen, at least on the Dawkinsian weltanschauung there is not much more than you can do short of expressing discontentment. Or consider even a benevolent view of purpose such as was posed to Prof. Richard Dawkins:
“[Nick Pollard:] Jesus said that love is the purpose of life. Does that sound nonsense to you?[Prof. Richard Dawkins:] It sounds like something grafted on, a superfluous excrescence on life, which I feel I understand better. But it doesn’t surprise me that, brains being what they are, they have a capacity to invent spurious purposes of the universe which -[Nick Pollard:] You would say that love is a spurious purpose?[Prof. Richard Dawkins:] Well, love is not a purpose, love is an emotion (which I certainly feel) which is another of those properties of brains.[Nick Pollard:] A by-product?[Prof. Richard Dawkins:] Well, it’s probably more than just a by-product. It’s probably a very important product for gene survival. Certainly, sexual love would be, and so would parental love and various other sorts of love. But to say that love is the purpose of life doesn’t in any way chime in with the understanding of life which I feel we have achieved_[Nick Pollard:] And that love is something more than ‘Let’s get together and continue our genes.’?
[Prof. Richard Dawkins:] I do reject that at an intellectual level.”29
There you have it: according to the Dawkinsian weltanschauung love is an appendage, mere extra baggage. Thus, obviously the by-product love must be some sort of Darwinian motivator for passing on our genes. No, he rejects that at an intellectual level. He is even incorrect in defining love merely as an emotion; love is a commitment and the commitment still stands even if the emotion fades. In fact he claims that:
“I can show that from a Darwinian point of view there is more Darwinian advantage to a male in being promiscuous and a female being faithful, without saying that I therefore think human males are justified in being promiscuous and cheating on their wives. There is no logical connection between what is and what ought.”30
Do note that above we read that Richard Dawkins stated that passing on DNA “is every living object’s sole reason for living” and “There is no purpose other than that.” Then he offers menial task sorts of temporary purpose. And now one can only wonder how Richard Dawkins has come to the conclusion that “Love is not a purpose.” Just who is he to determine that if you decide that the purpose of life is to love then you are wrong and he is right?
In Summation
Succinct Statements We read how we are mere machines built by DNA whose one and only purpose is making copies of the same DNA. “It is every living object’s sole reason for living,” and “There is no purpose other than that.”Wax and WaneHere we were introduced to Richard Dawkins advance and retreat from his own conclusions. He is anti-Darwinian and thinking in a very different way when it comes to the real world.Is and OughtThen we came to the reason for his abandonment of the Darwinian weltanschauung: “is” and “ought” are very different. For instance compassion is not Darwinian. And we learned that this sense of “ought” for which we ought to abandon Darwinianism is a mere by-product and one that Richard Dawkins does not feel so strongly about. He thinks that it is very likely true that “ought” is just a matter of preference. We may emotionally and subjectively decide that racism and murder are wrong but there are no Darwinian or intellectual reasons for doing so.Purpose Without a CauseSimply stated, life is purposeless and so any meaning we concoct is necessarily self-induced consoling delusion. Richard Dawkins feels free to discredit the purpose of others and suggests both, that producing other DNA machines is our one and only purpose but that you can also enjoy some temporary purpose-ettes on the side.As it turns out, I found myself reading both an interview with Richard Dawkins entitled “Nick Pollard talks to Dr. Richard Dawkins” (1995) as well as Francis A. Schaeffer’s book “The God Who is There” (1968) on the same day. Certainly these men are not the first or only ones to express their positions in the way that they did so. That particular interview with Richard Dawkins is one that, perhaps more than any other I have read, presents the most succinct and revealing window into the man and his views. After reading the interview I read Schaeffer and found it uncanny how circa three decades prior he had nailed (American parlance for, spot on) the likes of Prof. Richard Dawkins’ weltanschauung and his necessary schizophrenia. In part, this is what Schaeffer wrote in relation to what is man (a human). He makes the point that “scientific proof, philosophical proof and religious proof follow the same rules” which are:
“The theory must be noncontradictory and must give an answer to the phenomenon in question.”
“We must be able to live consistently with our theory…”
He proceeds thusly:
“After a careful definition weeded out the trivial, the other possible answers that do not involve a mystical leap of faith are of the following nature:1. That the impersonal plus time plus chance have produced a personal man. But this theory is against all experience and thus usually the advocates of this theory end with a leap of faith, often hidden by the use of connotations words.2. That man is not personal, but dead; that he is in reality a machine, and therefore personality is an illusion. This theory could fit the first criterion of being noncontradictory, but it will not fit the second, for man simply cannot live as though he were a machine. This may be observed as far back in the history of man as we have evidence-for example, from the art and artifacts of the caves or from man’s burial rites. We have already given many examples of the way in which a man, such as a scientist in love, has been driven to a Jekyll and Hyde existence on the basis of this conclusion. He is one thing in his laboratory, but something completely different at home with his wife and children…
3. That in the future man will find another reasonable answer. There are, however, two overwhelming problems with this answer. First, this could be said about any answer to anything and would bring all thought and science to an end. It must be seen to be an evasion and an especially weak reply if the person using it applies it only to this one question. Second, no one can live with this answer, for it simply is not possible to hold one’s breath and wait until some solution is found in the future. Continually the individual makes moral judgments which affect himself and others, and he must be using some working hypothesis from which to start. Thus, is a person offers this seriously as an alternative theory, he should be prepared to go into deep freeze and stop making judgments which touch on the problem of man…”31
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A plea: I have to pay for server usage and have made all content on this website free and always will. I support my family on one income and do research, writing, videos, etc. as a hobby. If you can even spare $1.00 as a donation, please do so: it may not seem like much but if each person reading this would do so, even every now and then, it would add up and really, really help. Here is my donate/paypal page.
Due to robo-spaming, I had to close the comment sections. However, you can comment on my Facebook page and/or on my Google+ page.