richard_dawkins_-_the_god_delusion
THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 31The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasantcharacter 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, capriciouslymalevolent bully. Those of us schooled from infancy in his ways canbecome desensitized to their horror. A naif blessed with theperspective of innocence has a clearer perception. WinstonChurchill's son Randolph somehow contrived to remain ignorant ofscripture until Evelyn Waugh and a brother officer, in a vainattempt to keep Churchill quiet when they were posted togetherduring the war, bet him he couldn't read the entire Bible in a fortnight:'Unhappily it has not had the result we hoped. He has neverread any of it before and is hideously excited; keeps readingquotations aloud "I say I bet you didn't know this came in theBible ..." or merely slapping his side & chortling "God, isn't Goda shit!"' 16 Thomas Jefferson - better read - was of a similaropinion: 'The Christian God is a being of terrific character - cruel,vindictive, capricious and unjust.'It is unfair to attack such an easy target. The God Hypothesisshould not stand or fall with its most unlovely instantiation,Yahweh, nor his insipidly opposite Christian face, 'Gentle Jesusmeek and mild'. (To be fair, this milksop persona owes more to hisVictorian followers than to Jesus himself. Could anything be moremawkishly nauseating than Mrs C. F. Alexander's 'Christianchildren all must be / Mild, obedient, good as he'?) I am not attackingthe particular qualities of Yahweh, or Jesus, or Allah, or anyother specific god such as Baal, Zeus or Wotan. Instead I shalldefine the God Hypothesis more defensibly: there exists a superhuman,supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed andcreated the universe and everything in it, including us. This bookwill advocate an alternative view: any creative intelligence, ofsufficient complexity to design anything, comes into existence onlyas the end product of an extended process of gradual evolution.Creative intelligences, being evolved, necessarily arrive late in theuniverse, and therefore cannot be responsible for designing it. God,in the sense defined, is a delusion; and, as later chapters will show,a pernicious delusion.
32 T H E G O D D E L U S1ONNot surprisingly, since it is founded on local traditions of privaterevelation rather than evidence, the God Hypothesis comes in manyversions. Historians of religion recognize a progression fromprimitive tribal animisms, through polytheisms such as those of theGreeks, Romans and Norsemen, to monotheisms such as Judaismand its derivatives, Christianity and Islam.POLYTHEISMIt is not clear why the change from polytheism to monotheismshould be assumed to be a self-evidently progressive improvement.But it widely is - an assumption that provoked Ibn Warraq (authorof Why I Am Not a Muslim) wittily to conjecture that monotheismis in its turn doomed to subtract one more god and becomeatheism. The Catholic Encyclopedia dismisses polytheism andatheism in the same insouciant breath: 'Formal dogmatic atheism isself-refuting, and has never de facto won the reasoned assent of anyconsiderable number of men. Nor can polytheism, however easily itmay take hold of the popular imagination, ever satisfy the mind ofa philosopher.' 17Monotheistic chauvinism was until recently written into the charitylaw of both England and Scotland, discriminating against polytheisticreligions in granting tax-exempt status, while allowing an easy ride tocharities whose object was to promote monotheistic religion, sparingthem the rigorous vetting quite properly required of secular charities.It was my ambition to persuade a member of Britain's respectedHindu community to come forward and bring a civil action to test thissnobbish discrimination against polytheism.Far better, of course, would be to abandon the promotion ofreligion altogether as grounds for charitable status. The benefitsof this to society would be great, especially in the United States,where the sums of tax-free money sucked in by churches, andpolishing the heels of already well-heeled televangelists, reach levelsthat could fairly be described as obscene. The aptly named OralRoberts once told his television audience that God would kill himunless they gave him $8 million. Almost unbelievably, it worked.
- Page 2 and 3: Also by Richard DawkinsThe Selfish
- Page 4 and 5: TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS61-63 Uxbridge
- Page 6 and 7: ContentsPrefaceChapter 1Chapter 2Ch
- Page 8 and 9: Tread softly, because you tread onm
- Page 10 and 11: PrefaceAs a child, my wife hated he
- Page 12 and 13: PREFACE 3If you feel trapped in the
- Page 14 and 15: PREFACE 5herding cats, because they
- Page 16 and 17: PREFACE 7Free Inquiry, especially,
- Page 18 and 19: A D E E P L Y R E L I G I O U S N O
- Page 20 and 21: A DEEPLY RELIGIOUS N O N - B E L I
- Page 22 and 23: A D E E P L Y R E L I G I O U S N O
- Page 24 and 25: A D E E PLY R E L I G I O U S N O N
- Page 26 and 27: A D E E P L Y R E L I G I O U S N O
- Page 28 and 29: A D E E P L Y RE L 1 G I O U S N O
- Page 30 and 31: A D E E P L Y R E L I G I O U S N O
- Page 32 and 33: A DEEPLY R E L I G I O U S N O N -
- Page 34 and 35: A D E E P L Y R E L I G I O U S N O
- Page 38 and 39: T H E G O D H Y P O T II E S I S 33
- Page 40 and 41: T II E G O D H Y P O T H E S 1 S 35
- Page 42 and 43: T H E G O D H Y P O T H E S I S 37M
- Page 44 and 45: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 39although it ha
- Page 46 and 47: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 41enterprise. Ri
- Page 48 and 49: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 43God; because,
- Page 50 and 51: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 45Anecdotes of s
- Page 52 and 53: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 47Carl Sagan was
- Page 54 and 55: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 49Huxley was not
- Page 56 and 57: T H E G O D H Y P O T H E SIS 51can
- Page 58 and 59: T H E G O D H Y P O T H E SIS 53in
- Page 60 and 61: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 55McGrath goes o
- Page 62 and 63: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 57the Cambridge
- Page 64 and 65: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 59unequivocally
- Page 66 and 67: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 61non-interventi
- Page 68 and 69: T H E G O D H Y P O T H E S I S 63s
- Page 70 and 71: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 65Another typica
- Page 72 and 73: T H E G O D H Y P O THESIS 67NOMA -
- Page 74 and 75: T H E G O D II Y P O T H E S I S 69
- Page 76 and 77: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 71longer based o
- Page 78 and 79: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 73advanced techn
- Page 80 and 81: A R G U M E N T S F O R G O D ' S E
- Page 82 and 83: A R G U M E N T S F O R G O D ' S E
- Page 84 and 85: A R G U M E N T S F O R G O D ' S E
THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 31
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. Those of us schooled from infancy in his ways can
become desensitized to their horror. A naif blessed with the
perspective of innocence has a clearer perception. Winston
Churchill's son Randolph somehow contrived to remain ignorant of
scripture until Evelyn Waugh and a brother officer, in a vain
attempt to keep Churchill quiet when they were posted together
during the war, bet him he couldn't read the entire Bible in a fortnight:
'Unhappily it has not had the result we hoped. He has never
read any of it before and is hideously excited; keeps reading
quotations aloud "I say I bet you didn't know this came in the
Bible ..." or merely slapping his side & chortling "God, isn't God
a shit!"' 16 Thomas Jefferson - better read - was of a similar
opinion: 'The Christian God is a being of terrific character - cruel,
vindictive, capricious and unjust.'
It is unfair to attack such an easy target. The God Hypothesis
should not stand or fall with its most unlovely instantiation,
Yahweh, nor his insipidly opposite Christian face, 'Gentle Jesus
meek and mild'. (To be fair, this milksop persona owes more to his
Victorian followers than to Jesus himself. Could anything be more
mawkishly nauseating than Mrs C. F. Alexander's 'Christian
children all must be / Mild, obedient, good as he'?) I am not attacking
the particular qualities of Yahweh, or Jesus, or Allah, or any
other specific god such as Baal, Zeus or Wotan. Instead I shall
define the God Hypothesis more defensibly: there exists a superhuman,
supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and
created the universe and everything in it, including us. This book
will advocate an alternative view: any creative intelligence, of
sufficient complexity to design anything, comes into existence only
as the end product of an extended process of gradual evolution.
Creative intelligences, being evolved, necessarily arrive late in the
universe, and therefore cannot be responsible for designing it. God,
in the sense defined, is a delusion; and, as later chapters will show,
a pernicious delusion.
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