richard_dawkins_-_the_god_delusion

A R G U M E N T S F O R G O D ' S EXIS T ENCF, 87
And what a shame that we are deprived of Haydn's Evolution
Oratorio - but that does not stop us from enjoying his Creation. To
approach the argument from the other side, what if, as my wife
chillingly suggests to me, Shakespeare had been obliged to work to
commissions from the Church? We'd surely have lost Hamlet, King
Lear and Macbeth. And what would we have gained in return?
Such stuff as dreams are made on? Dream on.
If there is a logical argument linking the existence of great art to
the existence of God, it is not spelled out by its proponents. It is
simply assumed to be self-evident, which it most certainly is not.
Maybe it is to be seen as yet another version of the argument from
design: Schubert's musical brain is a wonder of improbability, even
more so than the vertebrate's eye. Or, more ignobly, perhaps it's
a sort of jealousy of genius. How dare another human being
make such beautiful music/poetry/art, when I can't? It must be God
that did it.
THE ARGUMENT FROM PERSONAL
'EXPERIENCE'
One of the cleverer and more mature of my undergraduate contemporaries,
who was deeply religious, went camping in the
Scottish isles. In the middle of the night he and his girlfriend were
woken in their tent by the voice of the devil - Satan himself; there
could be no possible doubt: the voice was in every sense diabolical.
My friend would never forget this horrifying experience, and it was
one of the factors that later drove him to be ordained. My youthful
self was impressed by his story, and I recounted it to a gathering
of zoologists relaxing in the Rose and Crown Inn, Oxford. Two of
them happened to be experienced ornithologists, and they roared
with laughter. 'Manx Shearwater!' they shouted in delighted
chorus. One of them added that the diabolical shrieks and cackles
of this species have earned it, in various parts of the world and
various languages, the local nickname 'Devil Bird'.
Many people believe in God because they believe they have seen