Plonka's Blog: Dawkins

In this series I intend to post speeches, or snippets of speeches that I’ve found that were never intended to be sermons but nevertheless, turned out that way.

First, a little bit of background about our speaker…

Clinton Richard Dawkins, ethologist, evolutionary biologist, writer and holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University.

He was born on March 26, 1941 in Nairobi, Kenya and moved to England with his parents at age 8.

Education, Positions and Degrees
1954-1959 Oundle School
1959-1962 Balliol College, University of Oxford
1962-1966 Research Student, Oxford University (D.Phil., 1966)
1965-1967 Research Assistant to Professor N.Tinbergen FRS
1967-1969 Assistant Professor of Zoology, University of California, Berkeley
1969-1970 Senior Research Officer, Department of Zoology, Oxford
1970-1990 University Lecturer in Zoology, and Fellow of New College, Oxford
1989 D.Sc. (Oxford)
1990-1995 Ad hominem Reader in Zoology, University of Oxford
1995- Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science,
University of Oxford, and Professorial Fellow of New College

This speech was given at TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) and was titled “The Design Of Life”. I’m not sure what they were expecting, but what they got was a brilliant sermon on the virtues of atheism. In it, he explains why it is he’s so adamant about his disbelief, among other things.

It’s a 30 minute clip but is well worth the watch, so you’ll need a bit of time. Download it as an MP4 here and view it at your leisure, or grab a cuppa, hit play and enjoy…

Excellent stuff! Gimme more...

I found myself watching a documentary series over at Beep’s the other day, concerning the history of atheism (“Atheism – A rough history of disbelief” by Jonathan Miller). It was a brilliant series which I seem to have gotten quite a lot out of. It caused me to think about some of the many facets of atheism (and belief) and wonder about what it really means to me to be an “atheist” or if indeed, I am one at all. There’s no doubt that I’ve certainly thought of myself as an atheist and have definitely been labelled as such from time to time but to be honest, I’m not sure I really fit the mould any more.

Early on in the first episode he said something that made me take notice and a mild sort of umbrage; “for those of us that enjoy the luxury of thoughtless disbelief.” I’m sure however, that most of my fellow bloggers, believers included that may read this post will probably agree with me when I say that there’s really nothing thoughtless about our disbelief (or belief) at all. Rather, it’s because we’ve thought about it that we’ve come to the conclusions that we have.

But so it seems to me when I see things like this and read Dawkins or Harris, that atheism has gained an air of staunch disbelief which I’m not sure I share quite so completely as some.

You see, if you were to ask me if I believe that God does exist, I would simply say that I do not know. If however, you were to ask me if I believe that God does not exist, I would simply say that I do not know. That does not mean that I’m not of the opinion that He probably doesn’t though, but I’ll get to that. To me it’s quite simple and logical and it was part of the process that lead me away from religion in general, not just Christianity.

In examining and discussing whether or not God exists, we soon come to the stark realisation that the argument has no tangible, or at least no observable evidence to support either side. So therefore once again, viewed in the stark light of logic and common sense, if there can be no firm case made for either the affirmative or the negative, then the answer, obviously, lies somewhere in between. To me, what lies in between “yes” and “no” is “I don’t know”, the rest is pure conjecture.

As I said however, that doesn’t mean I don’t have an opinion. I am the sort of person that likes to see a bit of evidence before I believe something is implicitly true after all, and I don’t think there’s any reason why that same rationale should not be applied to God. And so it is that I’ve arrived at my opinion that due to a serious lack of evidence, God, and everything that goes with Him, probably does not exist and probably never did.

I’m also of the opinion though, that if God does exist and should deign to provide us some direct evidence of his existence, then I would certainly change my opinion to the affirmative. But this is where I seem to differ with people like those I mention above. I find I simply cannot be as adamant as some are when it comes to pure “disbelief”.

Dawkins will quite happily tell you “God does not exist”. To me, that claim seems a little outlandish. We all know, Dawkins included, that he cannot furnish any proof of that claim, so what that statement is, is pure assertion and is nothing more than an opinion. One that I happen to agree with, but an opinion none the less. That said however, I’m sure that like me, if god should meter out a bit of personal smiting in the Dawkins direction, he’d pretty soon change his tune I think. But I think the only real difference here is that I am quite happy to admit to ignorance and say “I don’t know” whereas Dawkins needs an answer.

Admittedly, “I don’t know, but I doubt it” isn’t really much of a stance to take on the whole God thing is it? But the way I figure it is this. If God really wanted me to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that He exists, then He would tell me so in no uncertain and very godly terms, I’m sure. So it’s obvious to me that at this juncture, He would very much like me to remain ignorant of His Devine person, and probably His Devine plan as well, and so I shall until He (or it) deigns that I need to know.

The other problem I have with God is that if there is such a thing, I think it would have to be much bigger and better than any of the models we’ve come up with so far. It seems to me, as I look at different religions and try and make sense of the why and how of what they believe, that most deities seem at best to behave like petulant children or at worst, like “senile delinquents”, as Tennessee Williams puts it. To be honest, I don’t really think a god that has the power to create a whole universe out of nothing needs the likes of us to worship him “or else”, nor has he any business behaving the way he has in the past. No, if a god does exists in the context of being the kind of god that can create a whole universe out of nothing, then I think it’s more likely to be something so unutterably alien to us that we probably wouldn’t recognise it as such anyway. Do I worry about what might happen to me when I die? Well, here's a tip…;)

That leaves me just one more question. So what’s the bible all about? Well, it’s a fantastic collection of extremely ancient stories that carry a common theme. I think some of them, especially the Pentateuch, are much older (the stories themselves, not the texts) than we give them credit for and that others may be much younger than we give them credit for. It doesn’t matter though. As Jonathan Miller said, my life would have been much poorer had I not been exposed to those stories and the magnificent works, in all aspects of art and literature, that they have inspired.