Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion a critique by Tim Morgan Introduction This essay started as a review of Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion for a book club in Orlando, Florida. I posted a small portion of it on Facebook which started a deep, engaging three week discussion with hundreds of comments. It seemed that I had some useful insight to contribute to the discussion, so I decided to post it here. I have not read Allister McGrath’s, The Dawkins Delusion, yet although I plan to and would recommend it for a more in-depth analysis based on his other works. I suspect Allister will make better points than me but I can at least offer my reader brevity. For brevity’s sake, I have only responded to Dawkins’ points that meaningfully contribute to the Atheism/Theism debate. So, for example, when he spends an entire chapter justifying his open hostility toward religion, I don’t see how this makes any meaningful contribution to the discussion so I leave it untouched. This is not a critique of Atheism and should not be taken as either pro or anti Atheism. It is a review of Dawkins key points and a critique of his arguments. At times, Atheists may agree with me, for example, where Dawkins’ suggestion for an objective system of morality differs from the mainline Atheistic view. At times Theists may disagree with me, for example, when I argue for the Big Bang as evidence against one of Dawkins’ points. It is not my purpose to refute Atheism but rather to interact with Dawkins’ writing and, hopefully, generate meaningful dialogue. I have watched numerous Atheist vs. Theist debates like Richard Dawkins vs. William Lane Craig, Christopher Hitchens vs. Frank Turek, Sam Harris vs. William Lane Craig, etc. The unique thing about the Richard Dawkins vs. John Lennox debatei held in the Natural History Museum of Oxford University was that they interviewed people from the crowd afterwards. It was interesting that some people who watched the same debate and heard the same evidence came to different conclusions about the facts. Clearly there were factors influencing their conclusions beyond just the facts. What caused people in that crowd to draw different conclusions from the same set of facts? Aristotle said people form their beliefs by three factors: an intellectual factor that he called logos, an emotional factor, pathos and a social factor, ethos. The influence of their emotions and social context would explain the mixed reactions of the spectators to the same set of facts of the Richard Dawkins/John Lennox debate. I think Aristotle was correct that our emotional reaction to the facts and our social context make the difference in how we conclude what is true.

The American legal system clearly understands the fact that facts don’t speak for themselves. Attorneys on both sides are allowed to dismiss potential jurors who exhibit pre-conceived notions. This step occurs before both sides present their evidence. This would not be necessary if evidence alone can change people’s minds. Dawkins seems to agree with this when he cites anthropologist Lionel Tiger from his book Optimism: The Biology of Hope:

There is a tendency for humans consciously to see what they wish to see. They literally have difficulty seeing things with negative connotations while seeing with increasing ease items that are positive. (p.218)

If Aristotle and Tiger are correct, Dawkins’ objectivity is highly questionable because his disdain for religion is overflowing with such “negative connotations” that would make it very difficult for him to see it as true. Dawkins' loathing hatred of religion is obvious in comments like, "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction." (p. 51) He describes religion as, "time-consuming, hostility-provoking rituals, anti-factual, and counter-productive" (p. 194). He delights in Thomas Jefferson describing God as "a being of terrific character--cruel, vindictive, capricious, and unjust." (p.51) and Gore Vidal's comments that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are "anti-human" and responsible for "the loathing of women for 2000 years in those countries afflicted by the sky-god" (p. 58). Dawkins rails against suicide bombers, the Crusades, witch-hunts, the Israeli/Palestinian wars, the Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, the trouble in Northern Ireland, honour killings, televangelists, and the Taliban yet he never once acknowledges Christian hospitals, orphanages, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, the humanitarian efforts of the Salvation Army, or how the Catholic church funded scientific research in the middle ages. Dawkins writes, “I am hostile to fundamentalist religion because it actively debauches the scientific enterprise…It subverts science and saps the intellect.” (p321). He goes on, “I am hostile to religion because of what it did to Kurt Wise [a scientist turned creationist]” (p323) and continues, “the Kurt Wise story is just plain pathetic –pathetic and contemptible.” (p.322). Dawkins even stoops to the level of schoolyard bully name calling, repeatedly labeling religious people “faith-heads” (p. 28, 348). Despite all this, Dawkins claims objectivity, saying he possesses "passion that can change its mind" (p.18) and all he needs to give up Atheism is "Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian." (p.19). However, it is all too convenient to conjure hypothetical evidence instead of addressing the appropriateness of your response to the evidence which is there. If a potential juror wrote an entire chapter devoted to what was wrong with the defendant, calling him a “psychotic delinquent”ii, “cruel, pathetic and contemptible”, hurling insults at the defendant and openly professing hostility toward him, then feigned objectivity about the case and promised their emotions would not affect their judgment, they would immediately be tossed out the

courtroom as too biased to reach an objective verdict. Yet Dawkins rants for an entire chapter on the evils of religion then qualifies it with, “…but I could change my mind about it.” and expects us to believe he is objective. Particular details of his emotional bias are exposed in his comment, "I shall not be concerned at all with other religions such as Buddhism or Confucianism. Indeed, there is something to be said for treating these not as religions at all but as ethical systems or philosophies of life." (p.59) It would be difficult, if not impossible, to find any book on comparative religion that does not label Buddhism a religion. One wonders why Dawkins gives Buddhism a free pass from his vicious attacks on religion. Its doctrine of an impersonal yet supernatural force conflicts with Dawkins' view that "An Atheist in this sense of philosophical naturalist is somebody who believes there is nothing beyond the natural, physical world." (p.35) but Dawkins does not devote a single sentence to refuting a supernatural, impersonal god. It seems that it is only the idea of a personal God that Dawkins finds offensive. It seems like Dawkins is not arguing against any God but rather the God of Biblical Theism. This leaves the reader wondering whether Dawkins’ Atheism originates in his scientific study or with his disdain of Yahweh Theology. In this case, it matters whether the chicken or the egg came first. It should be noted that Dawkins, by his own account, rejected Christianity in his mid-teens before he became a scientist. Coming back to Tiger's comment that "we see what we wish to see", if Dawkins starts with the rejection of Yahweh, it is unlikely anything in science will convince him otherwise because, although some evidence is there, it would have to be overwhelming and undeniable to win over someone with such strong personal prejudices. Otherwise, his scientific studies only enable him to make a better argument for what he already believed in the first place. Dictionary.com defines objectivity as, “judgment based on observable phenomena and

uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices.” It is certainly worth noting that both Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens espouse(d) extremely negative emotional views of religion. If they felt more along the lines of the British Atheist group that bought bus ads saying, “God probably doesn’t exist. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”iii, people would find it easier to believe their assertions that they object to God for purely intellectual reasons, as they would have us believe. In sum, Dawkins case would be more convincing if it sounded like, “My scientific research has led me to conclude God most probably does not exist”, instead of how it comes across which is “God doesn’t exist and I hate Him.” An Atheist may protest, “His motivation doesn’t matter as long as he arrives at the right conclusion.” This completely misses Aristotle and Tiger’s point that it may not be possible to arrive at the right conclusion unless one has the right motivation. Science deals with observation but no one saw the universe emerge or witnessed the origin of life. We can only scientifically look at individual facts that are like pieces of a giant puzzle and try to explain the big picture by analyzing the pieces.

Whether those pieces are seeing expansion in the universe or fossils in rock, at some point we must interpret how these individual puzzle pieces fit in the puzzle. The problem is every puzzle has two sides—a colorful side with an image and a grey, empty side. The puzzle of why we are here is an extremely complex one where no one has seen the box. If you don’t like colorful things and want the big picture to come out grey and empty, you will have a different interpretation how the pieces fit together than someone who thinks the big picture is a colorful image. Chapter 2 – The God Hypothesis Dawkins has a long section on “The Poverty of Agnosticism”. He writes, “There is nothing wrong with bring agnostic in cases where we lack evidence one way or the other….How about the question of God? Should we be agnostic about him too?” (p. 69). He goes into a long discussion of TAP, Temporary Agnosticism in Practice and PAP, Permanent Agnosticism in Practice. The principle can be succinctly summarized as TAP is when there is an answer and you just haven’t assembled the evidence while PAP is when the answer may never be known because there isn’t enough evidence to make a case one way or the other. Dawkins claims, “the existence of God belongs firmly in the temporary or TAP category” (p. 70) meaning there is enough evidence to reach a verdict beyond a reasonable doubt. He would have us believe there is enough evidence to get off the fence and definitely conclude that “there almost certainly is no God.” Since he is British, I wonder if Dawkins is familiar with the American legal system and what we require to “prove” someone guilty. Consider the standard of proof in American criminal court verses civil court. OJ Simpson was found innocent of murder in criminal court because the standard there requires “proof beyond a reasonable doubt”. However, he was found guilty in civil court because the standard there requires, “a preponderance of evidence”. Dawkins decrees a criminal court verdict again God’s existence even though he only provides civil court evidence at best. At one point, Dawkins writes, “If he existed and chose to reveal it, God himself could clinch the argument, noisily and unequivocally, in his favor.” (p.73) Michael Sherman has made similar remarks in more than one recorded debate suggesting Theist should all unite in prayer that God would grow back the arm of just one solider wounded in combat defending our countryiv. This seems to be his version of Dawkins’ “fossil rabbits in the Precambrian." (p.19). Every Atheist seems to have their own idea of what would constitute absolute convincing proof. I tried to imagine a proof that would be universally acceptable to all atheists and came up this hypothetical scenario. I acknowledge it may seem overly dramatic but I am not trying to be. There is a logical point at the end if you will briefly indulge me. Imagine the hypothetic debate-to-end-all-debates with Richard Dawkins, Michael Sherman, and Sam Harris on one side debating William Lane Craig, John Lennox and Frank Turek. Imagine with this all-star cast, the debate was run by ABC live on

national television. Imagine the Atheist side was really cleaning the Theist’ clock, making them look downright stupid. Suppose at this moment God decided that was all He was going to take and He appeared on national television bringing Christopher Hitchens with him back from the dead as a witness. Christopher pleads with the Dawkins’ camp to reconsider saying he was drastically wrong. Sam Harris converts but Dawkins and Sherman insist it is some kind of illusion so God says, “Have it your way” and strikes them dead with lightning (I should note I would find that very sad). Here is the point. The conversion rate among Atheists would probably be about 99%. I speculate 99% and not 100% because of the glorious free will God has given us that we can ultimately choose our own path even in the face of imminent death. There is no doubt God could convert nearly 100% of humanity “noisily and unequivocally in his favor” but how coercive, how manipulative, how controlling would that be? Consider, just hypothetically and for arguments sake, God did in fact create us with free will, how utterly diabolical it would be to over-ride that free will with absolute convincing proof of his existence such that even those that hated him would serve him, not out of faith, but merely out of concern for their own well-being. It would be better to be created a robot without free will then to have the free will to choose not to serve to God but be coerced into serving someone you hated. Dawkins wrote, "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction." (p. 51) Would he feel differently about God’s character if he found the “"Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian" (p.19) or would he only feel differently about God’s existence? Dawkins spends nineteen pages (p. 269-288) discussing how offensive he finds the God described in the Bible. Finding a fossil rabbit would not rewrite the Bible, it would only convince Dawkins that this horrible God exists. How awful would it be to be thoroughly convinced God exists while also being thoroughly convinced he is “cruel, vindictive, capricious, and unjust” (p.51)? How horrible would it be to find convincing evidence that the God you call a “psychotic delinquent” does in fact exist? A close parallel would be the medieval peasant living under the reign of a mighty despot king, unable to deny his existence while, sadly, also knowing there is absolutely nothing the peasant can do about it. Soren Kierkegaard suggested an excellent parable along those lines. There was a good king wielding absolute power over his realm. This king saw the most beautiful of women among his subjects. He wanted to approach her and see if she might possibly love him. But, as the king, he could never approach her and know for sure her love was genuine for his power was too great. Even if she despised him, she would surely feign love for him from fear what he may do if she rejected him. After wrestling with this dilemma, the king realized he could only experience her love from free will if he came to her in the form of an equal—as another servant. So he gave up his authority and took on the garments of a peasant and went to her as one

of her own. That, according to Kierkegaard (and Christian theology), is the story of the incarnation. Dawkins says, “Bertrand Russell was asked what he would say if he died and found himself confronted by God, demanding to know why Russell had not believed in him. ‘Not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence,’ was Russell’s (I almost said immortal) reply.” (p. 131) My question to Russell, or anyone who feels this way would be, if God did exist, do you think He is more interested in people serving him or people loving him? Kierkegaard’s king was more interested in the maiden’s love than in her subservient servility. Thus, he approached her without overwhelming power and authority. The kind of proof we have is the kind you would expect from a God who wants a loving relationship with his creation rather than coerced servility. If I had to guess God’s response to Russell, I think it would be, “That’s because I wanted to love you Bertrand, not rule you.” We see God seeks a loving relationship in the Bible, “Because of his love God had already decided that through Jesus Christ he would make us his children—this was his pleasure and purpose” (Eph 1:5 TEV). Now I know it’s pointless to quote Bible verses to people who don’t believe the Bible but this one contains a principle of common sense that, hopefully, people can see regardless of their opinion of scripture. That principle is if God hypothetically existed and he wanted a loving relationship with humanity we would expect a different kind of evidence than if he demanded a ruling relationship over humanity. The king who wants the voluntary love of a maiden must show himself to her in a very different manner than the kind who wants subjects that serve him. So here would be my first talking point, put yourself in “God’s shoes”. Just imagine, momentarily and for the sake of argument, that you were all powerful God—so powerful that people find your very existence threatening. You want to have a loving relationship with those people not a relationship of servility. How do you prove to them that you are real without that same proof manipulating them? I dare say no one could come up with a better solution than how God did it. Chapter 3 – Arguments for God’s Existence One of Thomas Aquinas’ Proofs for God is the Cosmological Argument. It should be noted that Dawkins devotes six pages to refuting the Ontological Argument, six pages to refuting Arguments from Personal Experience, seven pages to refuting Arguments from Scripture, yet only offers two paragraphs on the Cosmological Argument before quietly moving on. This is not surprising because Dawkins apparently has no good answer to the Cosmological Argument. The two paragraphs he does offer aren’t even relevant to Aquinas’ argument. They are a Red Herring about God’s omniscience which is unrelated to Aquinas’ argument.

Dawkins (well) summarizes the Cosmological Argument, “There must have been a time when no physical things existed [i.e. before the Big Bang]. But, since, physical things exist now, there must have been something non-physical to bring them into existence, and that something we call God.” (p. 101) Scientists universally accept matter and time sprang into existence at the Big Bang. Time, at least as we understand it, is based on planetary motion. A day is a revolution of the Earth around its access. A year is an orbit of the Earth around the Sun. Months are based on lunar cycles. No physical matter and thus no time existed before the Big Bang. Many Theist accept the Big Bang and believe that God existed before it as an immaterial, timeless being that caused the Big Bang—the non-physical thing Aquinas wrote of that brought physical things into existence. Dawkins offers no probable cause for the Big Bang. Perhaps he agrees with his former colleague Christopher Hitchens who espoused nothing caused the Big Bang, it just happenedv. This is such an incredibly unscientific answer for a scientist, it is not surprising that Dawkins prefers to just remain silent. Dawkins offers no response to Aquinas’ Argument that the origin of the universe speaks of an immaterial, timeless, powerful Being that created it. Apparently, Dawkins remains silent because he cannot argue against the true God of the Theist. Dawkins entire argument throughout the book is against a Straw Man version of God that he defines as “any creative intelligence, of sufficient complexity to design anything, [that] comes into existence only as the end product of an extended process of gradual evolution.” (p.52). He tries to depict the debate as a false dichotomy between some kind of highly evolved intelligence and “a superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it.” (p. 52) The dichotomy is false because Dawkins abridges key characters of the Theist’s God to dissect him down to a diluted version Dawkins is capable of attacking. The key attributes Dawkins leaves out are immaterial and timeless. Theists insist this is an irreducible attribute of God both from Aquinas’ logical argument (which Dawkins cannot refute) and from scripture. Why does Dawkins leave out these attributes of God? His understanding of scripture and Aquinas’ arguments would seem to indicate he understands these are God’s attributes. The answer is simple—he has no response to such a God. Dawkins can argue against “very probably alien civilizations that are superhuman, to the point of being god-like in ways that exceed anything a theologian could possible imagine.” (p. 98) He agrees this type of evolved intelligence could possibly have designed the Earth but that answer “evades the problem of improbability” (p.172) What is that “problem of improbability”? According to Dawkins, “The theist’s answer is deeply unsatisfying, because it leave the existence of God unexplained” (p. 169). By unexplained, he means “explained by evolution” since a God capable of

creating could “come into existence only as the end product of an extended process of gradual evolution” (p. 52). But the Theist doesn’t believe in an evolved God, he believes in a timeless God. Simply put, the kind of God Dawkins does not believe in, Theist do not believe in either. Dawkins relentlessly dismisses a Designer, not because the universe doesn’t seem to speak of one (Dawkins admits it does have “the complex, improbable appearance of design” p 188), but because the Designer “raises the larger problem of who designed the designer.” (p. 188) However, Theist also do not believe in a designed God! This is a false paradigm of God Dawkins injects because he can argue against it whereas he has no answer for the immaterial, timeless God of Theism. Dawkins logic is so poor, a child in one of the Atheism kids’ campsvi he endorses could spot the logical flaws. Dawkins argument goes: #1 Natural Selection can explain everything that exists #2 Natural Selection cannot explain God, therefore #3 God must not exist. However, Natural Selection deals with material things that live for a limited time so #1 is a bald assertion that Natural Selection could ever hope to explain an immaterial, timeless God. Dawkins’ #2 argument is as illogical as saying, “my microscope cannot explain math therefore math must not exist”. Therefore, it is completely non sequitur then that #3 follows from #2. Chapter 4 – Why There Almost Certainly Is No God Dawkins says, “It is important not to mis-state the reach of natural selection” (p.252) then spends almost all of Chapter 4 doing exactly that. Dawkins starts his argument in biology. He presents the theory of evolution as if it were the law of evolution. Dawkins says, “I am no more fundamentalist when I say evolution is true than when I saw it is true that New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere.” (p.320) Dawkins spends an entire chapter, The God Hypothesis, defining “God”. According to Dawkins, it does not mean “awe at the structure of the world” (p. 31) as Einstein meant when he used the term. But rather “a supernatural creator that is ‘appropriate for us to worship’” (p.33). Similar to how Dawkins finds it necessary to define “God”, we need to define “evolution” to evaluate Dawkins claims. If by “evolution”, Dawkins means, “variation within species caused by chance genetic mutations” then, yes, evolution is as verifiable as New Zealand. However, Dawkins means way more than that by the term. When Dawkins uses the term “evolution” he means “chance genetic mutations, the best of which are preserved by natural selection (a.k.a. survival of the fittest) leading to more complex organism over vast amounts of time.” This cannot be observed the way we can see New Zealand. At best we can observe variations within species and make theories about their origin based on those observations plus observation of fossils but no one has seen evolution the way we can see New Zealand. Dawkins overstates the proof of evolution to an absurd

degree comparing something that occurs over millions of years to a country we can visit. Dawkins cites all the possibilities of the theory while never acknowledging any improbabilities. For example, in his example of the flatworm he says, “A flatworm has an eye that, by any sensible measure, is less than half a human eye...Unlike the flatworm eye, which can detect light and shade but see no image, the Nautilus ‘pinhole camera’ eye makes a real image; but it is blurred and dim compared to ours…these invertebrate eyes, and many others, are all better than no eye at all.” (p.150). He goes on to assume worms with primitive eyes would survive to reproduce and allow further evolution toward an eyeball but that is not necessarily the case. True, even a primitive photosensor eye like the flatworm’s, only able to distinguish light and shadow, might give it some survival advantage to escape its hunter but how much less adapted to survival would it be than a flatworm with a mutation making it toxic to its hunters and thus having no need to escape because it has no natural predators. Dawkins assumes the primitive photosensor eye remains in the flatworms’ gene pool until subsequent mutations bestow improved sight capability but that does not prove that alternative mutations could not bestow greater survivability to non-photosensor equipped flatworms such that a strain of toxic, non-seeing flatworms are the ones that survive and the primitive eye is lost rather than evolves. Merely observing different grades of “eyes” in nature, does not prove that one directly led to the other. His view also doesn’t take into consideration setbacks of disease, natural disaster, climate change, rise of new predators, and food shortage that wipe out entire species before there is enough time for the additional mutations required to create the retina, optic nerve, cornea, lens, iris, cones and rods. As Christopher Hitchens has observed “99% of all life that ever existed has gone extinct.”vii It’s an incredibly convenient assumption that with the odds stacked 99-to-1 against it, the flatworm worm with its primitive eye managed to beat those odds for thousands (if not millions) of years until further mutations continued the process. I remember when I was first introduced to evolution in school. The teacher used the example of giraffes. “Suppose,” said our teacher, “that you have a heard of short-necked giraffes in an environment where food is becoming scarce. Then a giraffe has a mutation causing it to be born with a long-neck. That giraffe would have a survival advantage because it could eat leaves higher in the trees not available to the short-necked giraffes. Therefore, you would expect it to survive and bear more long-necked giraffes. If the food shortage continued, short-necked giraffes may become extinct all together.” Puzzled at this logic, I raised my hand and asked, “So when this long-necked giraffe is young and most vulnerable to predators, are you assuming this giraffe, who is no faster than his siblings, is the one who is lucky enough to not be attacked by the lions throughout his entire adolescence until he becomes old enough that his neck makes any difference?” After a long pause the teacher responded, “Yes, I guess I am

assuming that. But that’s why they call it a theory.” Someone should tell Richard Dawkins that. I have trouble with the assumption that the fittest survive based on observing the world around me. Statistics show that about twenty years from now, Caucasians will be a minority in America. Does this mean Caucasians are less fit to survive? Or does it merely that other races are breeding more? I also have trouble with the assumption that evolution will lead to more complex species because it assumes complexity equals survival. Compared to humans, an earthworm is very simple. Yet simple earthworms far out-survive more complex species. If you doubt this, go outside and flood your lawn. You will bring up dozens and dozens of earthworms surviving in the same space as you and your family and/or roommates. It seems like the simple worm is out surviving us complex humans right where we live. The point is not all scientists believe natural selection is able to account for everything Dawkins claims it can. On that subject, I would refer the reader to more authoritative sources likes Michele Behe’s excellent book, Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution and Phillip Johnson’s classic Darwin on Trial. For the sake of argument though, let’s concede to Dawkins that all complexity and diversity in nature is accounted for by natural selection. Even if we concede this debated point, Dawkins tries to apply the principle “all complex things must be evolved” in fields where it has no relevance. He applies it to cosmology as if immaterial planets and solar systems must evolve because, after all, biological matter evolves. He applies it to physic as if physics must evolve because, after all, biological matter evolves. But the principles of random mutation and natural selection do not apply to these fields. The universe does not give birth to mutated versions of itself, some of which are consumed by predator universes such that only the most evolved universes survive. Dawkins seriously over extends the reach of biology in applying biology principles to non-biological fields clearly failing to “not mis-state the reach of natural selection”. One example of mis-stating the reach of natural selection is how Dawkins applies it against the Teleological Argument. The Teleological Argument is the observation that the universe is fine tuned to support life on such a fine scale that it speaks of a designer. One example Dawkins gives is “the magnitude of the ‘strong’ force that binds the components of an atomic nucleus: the nuclear force that has to be overcome when one ‘splits’ the atom…the value of this number in our universe if 0.007, and it looks as though it had to be very close to this value in order for any chemistry (which is a prerequisite for life) to exist…If the strong force were too small, say 0.006 instead of 0.007, the universe would contain nothing but hydrogen, and no interesting chemistry could result. If it were too large, say 0.008, all the hydrogen would have fused to make heavier elements. A chemistry without hydrogen could not generate life as we know it.” (p.170)

On the surface, this kind of incredible, improbable fine tuning seems to indicate a Designer who tuned it. Dawkins’ response to incredible, improbable fine tuning is, “Biologist, with their raised consciousness of the power of natural selection to explain the rise of improbable things, are unlikely to be satisfied with any theory that evades the problem of improbability altogether.” (p.172) What makes a Designer an improbable explanation for a seemingly designed universe? According to Dawkins, a Designer of the atomic structure can’t be allowed because he has already concluded in the field of biology that all designed things must be evolved, the Theist’s God is not a product of evolution, therefore, He is not allowed into the pool of available options for explaining Teleology. I call this logic the, “You can’t play chess because I beat you at basketball” theory. Regardless what anyone believes about evolution, one thing evolution certainly cannot explain is nuclear strong force. This “raised consciousness” Dawkins speaks of means taking principles from one field and trying to force them onto another field where they have no relevance merely because “they worked somewhere else so they must work here”. When challenged that the atom appears designed, Dawkins responds that it cannot be because the Dutchman’s Pipe appears designed but we “know” according to natural selection that it is not. It is irrelevant whether Dawkins’ point about the Dutchman’s Pipe is correct, the fact that plants evolve does not mean atoms do. It’s an absurd misapplication of a principle from one field imposed upon a field where it has no relevance. Dawkins “raised consciousness” is tantamount to arguing that Black Holes do not exist because there is no evidence in biology that they do. If someone wants to study Black Holes, they do not seek answers in the field of biology. The Achilles heel of Dawkins logic is his assumption that ALL highly complex things must be evolved. All includes anything complex whether it is biological or not. Therefore, God is allowable only if he is evolved. Says Dawkins, “It may even be a superhuman designer [behind the universe] –but, if so, it will most certainly not be a designer who just popped into existence, or who always existed…if the designer reads our thoughts and hands out omniscient advice, forgiveness and redemption, the designer himself must be the end product of some kind of cumulative escalator or crane, perhaps a version of Darwinism in another universe.” (p.186). The absurdity of this is so blatant one wonders how Dawkins cannot see it. The argument that all complex things must be evolved because complex biological things are evolved, would mean a Rolex must be evolved because a Rolex is complex. It’s as ridiculous as saying, “I believe in ghosts but only if they are evolved ghosts that started as single cell ghosts that mutated into more complex ghosts over time. I don’t, however, believe in ghosts that just appeared.”

The “god” that Dawkins is open to is the alien God of the movie Prometheus that came to Earth from another planet to seed Earth with DNA to start the evolutionary process. He says, “Whether we ever get to know about them or not, there are very probably alien civilizations that are superhuman, to the point of being god-like in ways that exceed anything a theologian could possibly imagine. Their technical achievements would seem as supernatural to us as ours would seem to a Dark Age peasant transported to the twenty-first century.” (p.98) Dawkins is so relentless, passionately, and blindly committed to natural selection, that he is open to a God who is a super evolved alien-god (a la the alien-god of Christian Science) yet completely closed to the supernatural, timeless God of Theism. It is interesting how Dawkins arbitrarily cherry picks out of the Bible the attributes of God that support his position and reject the attributes that refute his position. In Chapter 7 when Dawkins wants to attack God for being angry, he assumes God must be angry because the Bible says so. But when the Bible says God is immaterial and timeless, Dawkins rejects that because those attributes don’t fit his argument. It should be noted, Dawkins’ choice of the strong force of the atomic nucleus is very misleading. By using an example of “0.007” without explaining the unit of measure, Dawkins commits the fallacy of “Argument from Blinding with Science” (p.109) that he argues against in the prior chapter. One is left with the impression we are talking about a small number instead of what it really is—a force ten to the thirty-ninth power greater than gravity.viii I cannot help but wonder if Dawkins is not intentionally trying to mislead his reader about the degree of fine tuning in the universe since the degree of fine tuning is far greater than Dawkins suggests. He has already quoted a professor of German language when talking about the historicity of Christ’s life without disclosing his sole expert wasn’t even a historian. Dawkins is equally misleading in this argument, by shifting the problem from what it really is—the mind boggling improbability of there being a life-bearing planet—to the much easier to answer problem of finding a life-bearing planet. He writes, “The chance of finding any one of those billion life-bearing planets recalls the proverbial need in a haystack. But we don’t’ have to go out of our way to find a needle because (back to the anthropic principle) any being capable of looking must necessarily be sitting on one.” (p. 166). Put another way, “It’s as unlikely to find a life-bearing planet as it is to find a needle in a haystack…unless you are an ant sitting on the needle in which case it’s no problem at all.” Quite contrary to how Dawkins tries to re-frame the problem, his Atheist scientist colleagues have been quite clear the problem is the incredible unlikelihood of there

being a life-sustaining planet anywhere in the galaxy. Stephen Hawking has calculated “that if the rate of the universe’s expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have collapsed into a fireball.”ix British physicist P.C. W. Davies has concluded the odds against the initial conditions being suitable for the formation of stars—a necessity for plants and thus life—is one followed by at least a thousand billion billion zeroes.x Davies also estimated that if the strength of gravity or of the weak force changed by only one part in a ten followed by a hundred zeroes, life could have never developed. xi The entire universe collapsing into a fireball would prohibit life on any planet, not just life on our planet. The Teleology Argument is that the universe is so incredibly fine-tuned to allow life anywhere in the universe that it takes more faith to believe these perfect conditions happened by chance than it does to believe conditions were Intelligently Designed to support life. Dawkins grossly distorts the argument as if the problem were only finding this life in the universe and, “Guess what? We are the ant sitting on the needle in the haystack. Problem solved.” Not at all. To the contrary, not only does he not have a good answer, Dawkins doesn’t even answer the question! Let’s look at Dawkins’ own illustration (technically one he quotes from John Leslie) and see if the illustration fits the facts. He quotes John Leslies’ “analogy of a man sentenced to death by firing squad. It is just possible that all ten men of the firing squad will miss their victim. With hindsight, the survivor finds himself in a position to reflect upon his luck…and toy with the hypothesis that they were bribed, or drunk.” (p.173) The point being it is very unlikely that all ten men missed but the very fact that the condemned man is still there contemplating it proves that they did in fact miss. If the fellow thinks about it too long and hard, he may come to the wrong conclusion that there was outside interference in the form of someone who bribed the firing squad or took them out for drinks and got them drunk. But he’s reading too much into the simple fact that they missed. When Dawkins chooses an example of variations of 0.006-0.008 within the strong force ruling out life as we know it, he would have us think it’s very unlikely that we should be here at all—kind of like how it’s unlikely a ten member firing squad would all miss. But we are in fact here and, thus, we should read too much into it—or so he would have us believe. However, is a ten member firing squad a remotely valid illustration? Hawking has already told us the odds against life existing are one in a hundred thousand million million. Davies concluded the odds against life existing are “one followed by at least a thousand billion billion zeroes”xii. To make the illustration fit the scientific data, we need to adjust it as follows. Suppose this same man is sentenced to death by firing squad. Instead of a ten member firing squad, the condemned man is put on the 50 yard line of the New Orleans Superdome. The dome is filled to its capacity of

76,468 people, each of which is equipped with a high-power riffle capable of hitting a man even from the nosebleed section and these riffles are equipped with laser sights for optimal aiming. Now the man’s odds of existing without intervention are closer to Hawking and Davies’ odds but 76,468 shooters is still way short of Hawking’s figure so let’s assume every one of those 76,468 shooters are highly trained Marine snipers. However, the man’s odds of existing are “one in a hundred thousand million million” so the analogy still falls far short so we need to gather about a thousand of the rifles and replace them with bazookas. Now….ready…aim…fire! Yet despite these odds the man finds he still exists after the shooting. The Atheist says, “He got lucky”. The Theist says, “Someone or something intervened.” Chapter 5 - The Roots of Religion Dawkins does not see any direct survival benefit of religion and therefore wrestles to explain it "because Darwinian natural selection abhors waste, any ubiquitous features of a species--such as religion--must have conferred some advantage or it wouldn't have survived." (p. 222). He concludes that religion didn't provide its own survival benefit, rather it was "an accidental by-product of a misfiring of something useful" (p. 218). In building this "general theory", he admits "the details are various, complicated and disputable". He gives an example but is qualifies it with, "I must stress that it is only an example of the kind of thing I mean." (p.202). This is amusing because one finds it hard to imagine an attorney making a case with, "I must stress that this is not evidence but the kind of thing that could be evidence.", nor a scientist arguing, "I'm not saying this is proof just the kind of thing that could be proof." The example he gives is "Natural selection builds child brains with a tendency to believe whatever their parents and tribal leaders tell them. Such trusting obedience is valuable for survival." (p. 205). There are several problems with his example. First, we know what gene causes blue eyes, or male children, or brown hair but there is no scientific evidence of the "trust gene". However, let's assume for argument's sake Dawkins' hypothetical trust gene exists. His example still fails. He says...

The truster has no way of distinguishing good advice from bad. The child cannot know that, "Don't paddle in the crocodile-infested Limpopo", is good advice but "You must sacrifice a goat at the time of the full moon, otherwise the rains will fail" is at best a waste of time and goats.

...While Dawkins' point that a child cannot distinguish the value of these two sayings (until he builds up enough experience to weigh them for himself) is true, his analogy fails to account for the origin of these sayings. Obviously, the saying not to swim in crocodile infested waters originates from personal observation of the perils of doing so as experienced by oxen or, worse humans. However, how does the saying about sacrifice originate? If someone hasn't been told to sacrifice, how would he know to

attribute the failure of the rain to a missed sacrifice he didn't even know he was supposed to make? Even if we assume for argument's sake someone just made it up, his personal observation that his neighbor didn't sacrifice yet it still rained on his crop would cause him to question the value of sacrificing his own goats. At best, all his example could address is the acceptance of religious sayings but falls flat explaining their origins. In fact, it doesn’t even explain acceptance well since it pertains to children. A grown adult can make rational decisions about the pros and cons of swimming with crocodiles or the value of sacrificing a goat. That said, perhaps in Dakwins' mind it explains how adults are accepting of religion because he apparently thinks people of faith have childlike intellects when he says statements like "a Roman Catholic possessed...less than normal intelligence" (p.195) and "children are native teleologists, and many never grow out of it." (p. 210). One wonders why Dawkins should be taken seriously when he makes arguments tantamount to, "I am right because you are a stupid child and don't know better." He borrows his second example from anthropologist Helen Fisher, in Why We Love. Dawkins argues Fisher has, "beautifully expressed the insanity of romantic love...it is extremely unlikely that any one woman of his acquaintance is a hundred times more lovable than her nearest competitor, yet that is how he is likely to describe her when 'in love'...We happily accept that we can love more than one child, parent, sibling, teacher, friend or pet. When you think of it like that, isn't the total exclusiveness that we expect of spousal love positively weird?...Evolutionary psychologists agree with her that the irrational coup de foudre could be a mechanism to ensure loyalty to one co-parent, lasting for long enough to rear a child together...Could irrational religion be a by-product of the irrationality mechanism that was originally built into the brain by selection for falling in love?" Dawkins sums up marriage as an, "apparently irrational but useful habit of falling in love with one, and only one, member of the opposite sex." (p.217) Arguing that love is misfiring of a propensity which once was useful in order to argue against religion is surely cutting off one's nose to spite the one's face. If I am to believe things as important and meaningful as love or sincere religious devotion are nothing more than a misfiring of my brain, than nothing I think can be trusted. The same argument can be turned around and levied with equal force that Dawkins' Atheism is nothing more than a misfiring in his brain. Dawkins impugning love is not the only argument that he makes to his own detriment. He elaborates the difference between dualisms and "monists like me" (p.209) which he uses as a synonym for materialists. He says, "This [experimental evidence from Paul Bloom] suggests that a tendency to dualism is built into the brain and, according to Bloom, provides a natural predisposition to embrace religious ideas....Our innate dualism prepares us to believe in a 'soul' which inhabits the body rather than being integrally part of the body. (p. 210)". However, this refutation that belief in Soul apart from a Body is irrational also cuts equally into the belief in a Mind apart from the Brain. Dawkins even concedes this, although without

realizing its implications, when he says, "A monist [materialist], by contrast believes that mind is a manifestation of matter--material in a brain or perhaps a computer--and cannot exist apart from matter." (p.209). The implication of this view is the Mind as a byproduct of the brain, hopeless tied to the chemical programming as a computer is tied to its programming. This is devastating to his position because it means his conclusions are the inescapable result of chemical reactions in his brain and therefore no more valid than anyone else's inescapable conclusions. Dawkins fails to fully consider the full implication of many of his points (or perhaps he does know the fallacies behind his statements and merely hopes the reader won't see the flaws in his logic). A great example is, "The idea of immorality itself survives and spreads because it caters to wishful thinking. And wishful thinking counts, because human psychology has a near-universal tendency to let belief be colored by desire." (p.221). However, Dawkins says this as if the atheist is above the effects of human psychology and incapable of having his belief colored by desire, which is patently not true. True, immortality appeals to wishful thinking. However, so does the idea there is no ultimate judgment beyond this world so that wherever one has cheated or stolen or lied or done someone wrong, as long as he is not caught in this life, he gets off Scot-free. Not to mention, Dawkins repeatedly attacks the idea God knows our thoughts, something he clearly wishes was not true. It is highly inconsistent to say religious people's belief is shaped by wishful thinking (in an afterlife) without acknowledging that atheist people's belief is shaped by wishful thinking (that no one can or will judge them beyond standards they voluntarily choose to submit to by where they live and whom they elect). Chapter 6 - The Roots of Morality: Why Are We Good? Dawkins opens this chapter with the classic Red Herring Atheists love to interject on the topic of morality, “Many religious people find it hard to imagine how, without religion, one can be good, or would even want to be good.” (p. 241) This is simply not the case and completely beside the point. Theist do not question that Atheists want to be good. I have never read nor heard a Theist claim that Atheists cannot do good things like love their spouse, or be good to their children, or kind to their neighbor. The point is what defines those things as good. Why am I “good” when I am gentle with my children and “bad” when I beat them with a cane? An Atheist may believe common sense dictates it is good to not beat your children but they are elevating the superiority of Western values over other cultures in doing so. During World War 2, it was common place for Japanese officers to beat the troops, not as a punishment for anything they did, but simply because they believed beatings were valuable in and of themselves as a way of toughening the troops. In their culture, beatings were valuable for becoming stronger. A Japanese father brought up with this mentality may sincerely feel he is toughing his son and preparing him to be a man when he beats his son.

Another example is my father growing up in Communist Hungary in a culture that values structure, discipline and order. If you were a parent with a kid throwing a tantrum in the grocery store because he didn’t get the candy treat he wanted, you failed to silence the kid with threats of lost privileges and you did not smack the child and put an end to the tantrum, then you were considered a horrible parent. Their culture would question your lack of common sense for not spanking junior. Thus, question is not whether an Atheist can be good to their children. The question is why are they good when they give them cotton candy and not good when they beat them with a cane? Why is the father wrong that beats his child because he sincerely believes he is acting in their child’s best interest? I say it is the classic Atheist’s Red Herring to deflect the conversation from what makes actions good to whether Atheist can be good because this has been the tactic in all but one Atheism/Theism debate I’ve seen. For example, when Christopher Hitchens debated Frank Turek, Christopher repeatedly listed “good” things Atheists have done and “bad” things religious people have been done—arguing along the lines Atheist can be good and Theists can be bad. This was completely beside the point Frank had challenged him on. Frank kept pointing out Christopher was assuming the actions he listed were good or bad as if there was some universal standard and challenging Christopher to define what makes them good but Christopher never did. Therefore, I applaud Dawkins for trying to build a case that there can be objective “right” and “wrong” beyond subjective personal opinions even without an Absolute moral being. Dawkins builds a case biology can give us morality. The example he gives is from Israeli zoologist Amotz Zahavi’s study of Arabian babblers, “little brown birds who live in social groups and breed cooperatively…give warning cries and they also donate food to each other.” (p. 250) Dawkins observes they are “altruistic, generous or ‘moral’ towards teach other.” (p. 251) He shows us “good” behavior in animals. They seem to understand this helps them survive. This kind of altruism in nature which results in a group surviving better than individuals and thus passing on their genes, he contends, is an objective basis for empathy and caring. Says Dawkins, “We can no more help ourselves feeling pity when we see a weeping unfortunate (who is unrelated and unable to reciprocate) than we can help ourselves feelings lust for a member of the opposite sex (who may be infertile or otherwise unable to reproduce). Both are misfiring, Darwinian mistakes: blessed, precious mistakes.” (p. 253) The idea being our ancestors helped each other and thus survived as a group. When I have pity to help someone, my “good” desire is my drive to have my genes survive even though this particular individual may not in fact aide my survival in response. Dawkins has apparently found a reason for morals without God—a god-less moral system. However, this god-less moral system completely collapses when he explains why animals behave this way. “W.D. Hamilton showed, animals tend to

care for, defend, share resources with, warn of danger, or otherwise show altruism toward close kind because of the statistical likelihood that kind will share copies of the same genes.” (p. 247) “Good” is defined not in moral terms but rather “that which leads to offspring.” Dawkins conveniently picks the example of birds sharing, cooperating, and donating because humans happen to see those actions as good. However, it cannot be missed that “good” in nature is any actions that lead to offspring. This principle equally applies to the lion or gorilla that violently chases away other males, forcibly copulates with multiple females and dominates the women in the herd. Thus violence, intimidation, forced intercourse and domination are equally “good” as demonstrated by the fact they lead to offspring. The implications of looking to Darwinism for morality are disastrous. The male human animal who is danger of not producing offspring because he happens to be too ugly to attract the female human animal, cannot be condemned as “wrong” in raping a female if it results in conception because the continuation of his genes in the gene pool is what defines his actions as good or bad. Violence, domination, forced copulation, and a long list of atrocities can all be justified as “good”, as long as they lead to offspring. Dawkins continues to build a claim morality is not subjective and situation by citing a study from Harvard biologist Marc Hauser’s book Moral Minds: How Nature Designed our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong. Hauser did extensive surveying of real people and found, “most people come to the same decisions when faced with these [moral] dilemmas, and their agreement over the decisions themselves is stronger than their ability to articulate their reasons. This is what we should expect if we have a moral sense which is built into our brains.” (p. 255) Those surveyed had some intrinsic sense of right and wrong because they believed certain actions right and certain actions wrong even when they could not articulate reasons why they felt that way. In other words, they sensed the rightness and wrongness within the dilemmas even when they could not explain why. This is quite the contrary of the normal Atheist position of moral relativism where objective ideas that are sensed but rather subjectively concluded by each individual. Contrary to that idea, those surveyed achieved nearly unanimous moral consensus as if there was some absolute moral standard by which they judged the moral dilemmas. They inherently knew some things were right and some things were wrong even when they didn’t know why. Dawkins does not believe this points to an Absolute moral standard but rather tries to explain this by saying it is merely “built into our brains” (p. 255). He, conveniently, never explains how. How is morality built into our brains? Does it come from carbon atom? The hydrogen atom? What does justice weigh? What color is good? Of course, these questions are absurd because we cannot explain morality from the material world.

Materialism cannot explain the universal moral sense of the people in the study. There is no gene that defines what is good. There is no atom that caused the people to recognize something was wrong even when they could not explain why. If Materialism cannot explain moral sense yet we have “a moral sense” like Dawkins says, that moral sense must come from an immaterial source. That immaterial source is most likely the immaterial, timeless God. Moving to another subject, Dawkins says, “Do we really need policing – whether by God or by each other – in order to stop us behaving in a selfish an criminal manner? I dearly want to believe that I do not need such surveillance – and nor, dear reader, do you.” (p. 260) Unfortunately, two studies would seem to indicate society’s ability to behave with God (or without a good police force at a minimum) is wishful thinking. M.P. Koss in a 1988 study titled “Hidden Rape”, found that one in four men believed rape was acceptable if the woman asked the man out and he paid for the date. When rapist sincerely believe their conduct is acceptable behavior, it would seem society does indeed need supervision. In another alarming study at UCLA, an account of rape was read to male subjects (without the word “rape” included). 53% said there was some likelihood that they would behave in the same fashion as the man described in the story—if they could be sure of getting away with it. (Without this assurance, only 17% said they might emulate the rapist’s behavior.) An incredible 36% were restrained not from conviction or right or wrong, but only from fear of punishment. This demolishes Dawkins’ point that we don’t need God (or at the very least a very good police force) to be good. No wonder crime has risen dramatically in America since we took God out of public schools. People watch OJ Simpson and Kacey Antony apparently get away with murder. They see video of police officers merciless beating Rodney King yet getting away with it. When people lose faith the legal system will punish the guilty and that is coupled with losing faith in God (and thus the idea there will be any diving judgment beyond our human legal system), society begins to break down. This is where I differ with Dawkins. Sure an Atheist can choose to do good as they understand it. But when someone sees no wrong in rape or beating children, there are no grounds for anyone to tell them they are wrong once we dump an Absolute being and His rules. Chapter 7 – The “Good” Book and the Changing Moral Zeitgeist In other chapters, I find Dawkins at fault for both deception and hypocrisy. He is deceptive when he claims historians doubt Jesus even existed and cites as his sole source, not a historian, but a language professor without disclosing his historical expert isn’t even a historian. He is a hypocrite for criticizing Focus of the Family for promoting Christian values while he simultaneously supports Camp Quest whose stated goals include “Demonstrate Atheism and humanism as positive, family-

friendly worldviews.”xiii I trust the hypocrisy of believing Atheists have the right to teach their children their values while espousing that Theists do not have the same right is self-evident to everyone regardless of their worldview. However, I must give credit where it is due in his honest assessment of Hitler’s worldview. I am not anti-Dawkins as I hope is clear in acknowledging his integrity on this issue. Dawkins points out, “Hitler was born into a Catholic family, and went to Catholic schools and churches as a child.” (p.310) As well as, “Hitler never formally renounced his Catholicism” (p.310) and “as late as 1941 he told his adjunct, General Gerhard Engel, ‘I shall remain a Catholic forever.’” (p.311) At this point, I thought Dawkins was taking Christopher Hitchens’ tactic of insisting Hitler was a Theist by ignoring large amounts of evidence to the contraryxiv. However, Dawkins is more intellectually honest than Hitchens in acknowledging quotations from Hitler’s Table Talk, “in which Hitler expressed virulently anti-Christian views, as recorded by his secretary.” (p.312) These anti-Christian views include statements like, “The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity.” (p.312); “The reason the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of…Christianity.” (p.313); and “we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let’s be the only people who are immunized against the disease.” (p. 313). Dawkins rightly concludes, “It could be argued that, despite his own words and those of his associates, Hitler was not really religious but just cynically exploiting the religiosity of his audience.” (p.313) This stance is far more intellectually honest than Christopher Hitchens. When you hear Christopher selectively quote Hitlerxv, if you didn’t know enough about history to be aware of Hitler’s anti-religion statements, you would be left with the impression Hitler was a devout Catholic. Dawkins, on the other hand, better handles the dilemma of reconciling Hitler’s pro-religion and anti-religion statements. There are two possible interpretations: first, Hitler believed both sets of statements were true or second, he believed one and lied about the other. The first option would make him schizophrenic. It’s hard to believe someone mentally disabled would come close to conquering all of Europe. The second option makes sense only if Hitler was a closet atheist who publically claimed to be a theist. As Dawkins points out, he probably agreed with “Seneca the Younger: ‘religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.’” (p.313) Hitler had much to gain politically by at least professing Christianity publically even if he hated it privately. For example, Pope Pius XII persistently refused to take a stand against the Nazis and thus sway Catholic opinion against Hitler. Atheists have often faulted the Catholic church for this but it should be noted Hitler himself courted the church in not renouncing his Catholicism. It was Hitler who tried to deceive the Pope to believe that he might have some possibility of mitigating the atrocities if he did not excommunicate Hitler.

What about the opposite—that Hitler was a private Theist but a public Atheist? That would have accomplished nothing except to undermine his political base. As Sam Harris correctly observed, no matter how educated or intelligent someone is, they will never hold political office in America if they are an Atheistxvi. This was equally true in 1930-1940s Germany and Hitler knew it. He had nothing to gain by claiming to be an atheist if he was a closet theist. The most logical explanation is he kept his Atheism private while espousing Theism to the masses. Despite acknowledging Hitler was probably an Atheist, Dawkins tries to assert it ultimately doesn’t matter saying, “What matters is not whether Hitler and Stalin were atheists, but whether atheism systematically influences people to do bad things.” (p.309). He also says, “Individual atheists may do evil things but they don’t do evil things in the name of atheism.” (p. 315) This is an obviously logical fallacy since it’s technically impossible to do anything “in the name of atheism” since Atheism is a belief in nothing. Atheism is belief in the absence of God—“somebody who believes there is nothing beyond the natural, physical world" (p.35), in Dawkins’ own words. To say someone does anything “in the name of atheism” would literally mean they did something in the absence of a cause. This amounts to saying people don’t do things for no reason at all. Thus Dawkins excuses Hitler with semantical wordplay. True, Hitler did not act “in the name of atheism” but his atheism enabled him to act as he did. The very Darwinism that Dawkins argues for as an alternative to belief in God was the same Darwinism that inspired Hitler’s actions. It was Hitler’s rejection of God that freed him to embrace the neo Darwinism that inspired his actions. In the words of his SS General, Karl Wolff:

The dream had a pseudo-scientific base, neo Darwinism, propagated in films like this [referring to German films showing beetles battling to the death in nature], only the fittest survive, the weak go under. That after all was the law of nature. Farmers knew it perfectly well. Horses were bred for pace or for the plow. Why not pedigree humans too? It was time to develop a new race, a better one, a race of super men. There was no harm in that. With Himmler at their head [of the SS], they would create a racially superior Europexvii.

It was Darwinism that inspired Hitler. The same Darwinism that Dawkins praises cover-to-cover throughout his book. Yes, Hitler did not technically act “in the name of atheism” but atheism provided the foundation for his neo Darwinism to flourish. Atheism also robbed him of Absolutes to see the moral wrong of his actions. Dawkins can say that atheism did not influence Hitler or Stalin but it certainly enabled them. A foundation does not cause a building but a building is impossible with a foundation. Hitler and Stalin built their “eugenics theory” and “Marxism” on the foundation of atheism.

It was in the name of scientific progress, that Dr. Eduard Wirths, for Hitler’s sake, oversaw medical experiments were humans were emerged in tanks of ice water for up to five hours, intentionally exposed to malaria, exposed to mustard gas or bacteria, given nothing but sea water to drink, burned using phosphorus material extracted from incendiary bombs, and deprived of oxygen in low-pressure chambersxviii. These experiments were never intended as torture. They were believed to be legitimate scientific research. The Nazi’s believed these experiments were done for beneficial purpose. The hypothermia experiments, “were conducted for the Nazi high command to simulate the conditions the armies suffered on the Eastern Front”xix in order to help troops survive and/or recover from cold exposure. They burned people not explicitly to hurt them but “to test the effect of various pharmaceutical preparations”xx in aiding burn victims. These experiments were carried out by credentialed doctors and scientists in the name of science. Atheists are quick to point out this is not true science, but a horrible miss-application of science. However, they are also quick to point to the Crusades and suicide bombings, as true religion not the miss-application of religion. I cannot understand this double standard where, when science goes horribly wrong, it is understood to be a miss-application of science but when religion goes wrong, those examples are lifted up as true religion not the miss-application of religion. Why are the mistakes of science accepted as mistakes while the mistakes of religion are considered more than mistakes? Why are misguided German scientists assumed to not speak for all science but misguided Muslims assumed to speak for all believers? It is such a blatant double standard to say, “The worst people in our group, do not represent our group but the worst people in your group are assumed to represent the whole”. If I can unite Theists and Atheists on any point, it would be this. Can we stop pretending the very worst the other side has to offer is the very best they have to offer? Conclusion I want to close with the distinction between belief that something is true and believe in something. I am an airline pilot by profession. Every week I see people who are afraid to fly. In order to reach their destination, they must believe that it is possible for the airplane to get them to their destination before they believe in the airplane to get onboard. It should be noted that their degree of belief that the airplane is trustworthy has no bearing on whether they will reach their destination. For example, the customer in 1A may believe the airplane is absolutely trustworthy, while the customer in 11C believes the airplane is probably trustworthy, and the customer in 25B thinks it is just barely possible that maybe the airplane might be trustworthy. Yet, once they put their belief in the airplane by getting onboard, they

all have the same statistical probability of reaching their destination. Moreover, when they have put their belief in the airplane, once they are all hurtling at 38,000 feet through the air at 600 mph in a hollow metal tube, their different levels of belief that the airplane was trustworthy becomes irrelevant. Most Atheists that I encounter are like the traveler in 1A. They want to be completely overwhelmed by evidence that God exists before believing in God. I watched Frank Turek lay out six very good reasons to believe in God, only for Christopher Hitchens to say it wasn’t good enough.xxi If you watch the debate, you’ll notice Hitchens does not refute Turek’s points. He’s not saying Turek doesn’t provide evidence, rather he doesn’t provide enough evidence. Hitchens admits that he demands “extraordinary evidence”. I don’t think there is enough evidence to overwhelm someone with Hitchen’s mentality. He represents the gentleman in seat 1A. Sadly, he chose to let his flight leave this world December 15, 2011 with his reserved seat vacant because he demanded more “extraordinary evidence”. I hold out hope, however, to the gentleman in 11C and the lady in 25B. Getting home only requires faith in the possibility that the airplane is airworthy. As long as you can accept the possibility the plane is trustworthy, it can get you home. Faith only requires belief in the possibility that God exist. God does not require us to believe there is an overwhelming probability that He exists. He is perfectly accepting of those who are willing to merely say, “"I do believe; help my unbelief." (Mark 9:24) ihttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0UIbd0eLxw&list=FLtxzoawJX0NXbQ9f29r3f2w&index=2&feature=plpp_video ii http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M_ZF8r5e7w&feature=related iii Dawkins was a major financial contributor to the Atheist bus ads campaign but did not have final say in the wording of the ad. ivhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaq6ORDx1C4&list=FLtxzoawJX0NXbQ9f29r3f2w&index=9&feature=plpp_video v http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVZnwZdh-iM&list=FLtxzoawJX0NXbQ9f29r3f2w&index=5&feature=plpp_video vi Dawkins does publicity appearances for Camp Quest whose mission statement includes to “Demonstrate Atheism and humanism as positive, family-friendly worldviews.” This is incredibly hypocritical in light his denouncement of Focus on the Family. Apparently, raising your children to believe in your values is only acceptable behavior for Atheists. viihttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlozGOXJNFg&list=FLtxzoawJX0NXbQ9f29r3f2w&index=1&feature=plpp_video viii http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_interaction ix Stephen W. Hawking, A Brief history of Time x P. C. W. Davies, Other Worlds xi Ibid. xii P. C. W. Davies, Other Worlds xiii http://www.campquest.org/mission

xiv http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVZnwZdh-iM&list=FLtxzoawJX0NXbQ9f29r3f2w&index=10&feature=plpp_video xv http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVZnwZdh-iM&list=FLtxzoawJX0NXbQ9f29r3f2w&index=10&feature=plpp_video xvi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi2IC6e5DUY xvii World At War (British television documentary), episode 20 “Genocide”, original air date 27 March 1974 xviii http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation xix Ibid. xx Ibid. xxihttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlozGOXJNFg&feature=my_favorites&list=FLtxzoawJX0NXbQ9f29r3f2w