richard_dawkins_-_the_god_delusion

108 THE G O D D E L U S I O N
strongly in God's favour, whereas I don't see that it should really
shift him, in either direction, from his initial prior expectation.
Chapters 6 and 7 will show that there is no good case to be made
for our possession of a sense of right and wrong having any clear
connection with the existence of a supernatural deity. As in the case
of our ability to appreciate a Beethoven quartet, our sense of goodness
(though not necessarily our inducement to follow it) would be
the way it is with a God and without a God.
On the other hand, Unwin thinks the existence of evil, especially
natural catastrophes such as earthquakes and tsunamis, counts
strongly against the likelihood that God exists. Here, Unwin's
judgement is opposite to mine but goes along with many uncomfortable
theologians. 'Theodicy' (the vindication of divine
providence in the face of the existence of evil) keeps theologians
awake at night. The authoritative Oxford Companion to
Philosophy gives the problem of evil as 'the most powerful
objection to traditional theism'. But it is an argument only against
the existence of a good God. Goodness is no part of the definition
of the God Hypothesis, merely a desirable add-on.
Admittedly, people of a theological bent are often chronically
incapable of distinguishing what is true from what they'd like to be
true. But, for a more sophisticated believer in some kind of supernatural
intelligence, it is childishly easy to overcome the problem of
evil. Simply postulate a nasty god - such as the one who stalks
every page of the Old Testament. Or, if you don't like that, invent
a separate evil god, call him Satan, and blame his cosmic battle
against the good god for the evil in the world. Or - a more
sophisticated solution - postulate a god with grander things to do
than fuss about human distress. Or a god who is not indifferent to
suffering but regards it as the price that has to be paid for free will
in an orderly, lawful cosmos. Theologians can be found buying into
all these rationalizations.
For these reasons, if I were redoing Unwin's Bayesian exercise,
neither the problem of evil nor moral considerations in general
would shift me far, one way or the other, from the null hypothesis
(Unwin's 50 per cent). But I don't want to argue the point because,
in any case, I can't get excited about personal opinions, whether
Unwin's or mine.