During a conversation between Prof. Richard Dawkins and Dr. Alister McGrath that took place at Oxford, Prof. Richard Dawkins stated, “What I care about is what’s true; I want to know, is there a God in the universe or not?”
I freely admit that it may have been a simple misstatement but this little sentence is jam packed with various typical atheist fallacies.
In this essay I would like to address a few of the fallacies:
It is certainly admirable that Prof. Richard Dawkins is interested in truth, seeks to acquire truth and wants to know, really know, if God does or does not exist. He has claimed that God’s non existence is almost a certainty which he has quantified to 99% certainty. Incidentally, other scientists have quantified the likelihood of God’s existence at 62% (see the Statistical Probability portion of my parsed essay Is Richard Dawkins a Fundamentalist? for more on both percentages). He is interested in truth-science is about ascertaining our best guess thus far and its conclusions are necessarily are tentative. Thus, he cannot find God through scientific means alone since he could never claim to have the final scientific word on the subject. This is probably why Creationists or Intelligent Design proponents claim that discoveries in the natural world serve to point us towards a super intelligent cause.
But this is getting way ahead of ourselves. Let us consider what Prof. Richard Dawkins is looking for, “is there a God in the universe or not?” He, at least in this particular statement, has in view a God who, if it exists at all, exists in the universe. This means that he seeks for the God of a very particular theology: not a good who is outside of the universe, not one that is the universe, not one that is part of the universe, or whatever else one can imagine. Rather, he seeks a God who would be inside of the universe. It is perhaps in conceiving of God according to this particular theology that Prof. Richard Dawkins would think to apply the scientific method to seeking to ascertain God’s existence.
But this is getting way ahead of ourselves. Since Prof. Richard Dawkins does not know God, does not know what God is like, he does not know if God exists or not so how does he know what to look for and how does he know how to look? Prof. Richard Dawkins is an adherent of a sect of atheism and scientism which asserts that one cannot come to supernatural conclusions until one has exhausted absolutely every possible materialistic explanation. This not only refers to material causes of which we are aware but it is also the expectation that if we cannot explain it materialistically now, today, we may uncover as of yet unknown material causes tomorrow, or next week, or in one hundred years, or one million years. This is the fallacy of validation by expectation of future human omniscience.
In other words, this sort of scientifically faa&#a7;aded atheist asserts that you cannot appeal to a supernatural agent until we humans know everything that there is to know about everything and we know everything that there is to know about everything that there is to know. Until we know everything, and how it all interacts in every scenario any and everywhere they reject supernatural concepts that have at least some merit and instead accept materialistic concepts that have no merit. For example, consider the concept of miracles: atheists generally claim that the do not ever occur-they do this without having investigated all such claims or sometimes not even one. They make the claim based on the presumption that the natural laws cannot be broken-they do this while not knowing if we know all of the natural laws, nor if we understand them fully, nor if there are as of yet undiscovered ones, nor if we understand their interactions in every situation. Alternatively, they claim, without evidence, that miracles are not divine occurrences but the out-workings of as of yet unknown or not understood natural laws. Prof. Richard Dawkins has a particular and peculiar view of miracles which plays of off our imperfect knowledge of natural laws-he claims miracles are really coincidences, it had to happen that way at some time and in some place (see the Miraculous portion of “Is Richard Dawkins a Fundamentalist?”).
But this is getting way ahead of ourselves. Prof. Richard Dawkins is asking for evidence.But why?Why?What do I mean by asking, “Why ask for evidence?”?
Well, I would ask him to please show me the evidence upon which he bases his claim to require evidence. Also, if science is the manner by which to acquire knowledge of God it must first be scientifically demonstrated that science is the manner by which to acquire knowledge of God. He is asking for evidence of God without knowing if God gives off evidence. Prof. Richard Dawkins may be seeking material evidence of an immaterial being. Do we look for wet evidence of a dry object?
This is why he is ultimately seeking for a God in the universe.
Thus, Prof. Richard Dawkins is looking for a particular god, in a particular way, in a particular location-let us see what he uncovers.
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