October 26, 2006
Marilynne Robinson on Dawkins
Harper's review of Dawkins's The God Delusion, via Darwiniana:
It is never a surprise to find Dawkins full of indignation. In his new book, The God Delusion, he has turned the full force of his intellect against religion, and all his verbal skills as well, and his humane learning, too, which is capacious enough to include some deeply minor poetry. Truly this book is a sword which turneth every way, to judge by the table of contents at least. There is no doubt in Dawkins’s mind that the evils of the world are to be laid at the doorstep of the church, mosque, and synagogue, and that science must be our salvation. It is the “God delusion,” which has afflicted almost everyone almost anywhere through the whole of recorded time, that has made us behave so badly. And Science (by which he really means his version of Darwinism) is our potential rescuer from this vale of tears. We need only to become more Dawkins-like in our thinking. This is a fairly cheery view of things beside others on offer, at least as regards the ongoing life of the planet, which he seems to assume.
Still, it is a difficult thing to set reason aside, and the habit of critical thought, and the sense of the past, not to mention the morning news.
More here.
Posted by S. Abbas Raza at 11:48 PM | Permalink
Comments
Well, as is a tradition of the intellectual left in the US, still stuck one layer in, unable to see their "Belief in Belief of Religion" as Dennett points out. So meme infested, they are blind to their own limitations.
Posted by: Scott Ahlf | Oct 27, 2006 12:47:12 AM
I am not going to take a position on Dawkins's book--I haven't read it--but a devout believer like Maryanne Robinson is a poor choice to review the book. (See The Death of Adam.) That's not a reflection on Robinson, as I very much like her fiction, but on the editorial board of the Atlantic.
Posted by: Mario Bruzzone | Oct 27, 2006 2:24:59 AM
Ugh... once I made it to this little metaphorical treasure I just couldn't read anymore:
"The tectonics of culture are suddenly active, and all the old rifts and stresses and pressures that seemed to have fallen dormant have awakened at once, with a great deal of portentous rumbling and spouting."
...you've got to be kidding me.
Posted by: Nathaniel Frentz | Oct 27, 2006 10:36:23 AM
Curious that none of these comments respond at all to the content of the review.
Posted by: fasdfasd | Oct 27, 2006 10:41:52 AM
in terms of atheist books, bertrand russell's 'why i am not a christian' is by far the best.
dawkins does have some strange points and strange emphasis in areas. he does a good job but his logic is a little blunt.
Posted by: porgy | Oct 28, 2006 2:56:41 PM
"When the Zeitgeist turns Gorgon,the impulses toward cultural and biological eugenics have proved to be one in the same."
WTF?
Anyway, that Dawkins slams the Amish is enough for me to read that book.
Posted by: beajerry | Oct 28, 2006 4:55:39 PM
She writes extremely well, and I was interested at first. Ultimately it's all a flowery rehash of the old arguments...quantum mechanics and uncertainty, our bodies are not who we are since subatomic particles go in and out of existence, a lot of harm has been done in the name of science, science can't explain everything so religious metaphysics is just as good as naturalism, etc etc etc. It's apparent that she's a theist, and has done some of the popular works on string theory, but she ultimately comes off as way out of her league despite the great writing.
Posted by: kougar | Oct 28, 2006 8:57:30 PM
I found Robinson's article compelling. Besides being very well written, it drills down to levels of thinking that are unknown to Dawkins, well beyond the question of theism or atheism.
Posted by: Macjeffff | Nov 5, 2006 11:20:59 AM
Robinson's arguments are markedly weak. She argues, first, that science does bad things and religion does bad things, so science is not better. Never mind that science cannot be fairly blamed for war, holocaust, and racism, while religion certainly can. Grant her premise and her argument is still nonsense. Science learns from its mistakes and builds up understanding, while religion cannot see its mistakes and institutionalizes them.
Second, Robinson argues that science does not know everything, see quantum mechanics, therefore a soul exists, and, implicitly, God. So, it follows, that unless Man becomes an all-knowing God, there is an all knowing God. Un huh.
I'd settle for better arguments and less literary flourish.
Posted by: Hewitt | Nov 11, 2006 2:17:40 PM
fasdfasd writes: "Curious that none of these comments respond at all to the content of the review."
There's not a lot of space here to do justice to all the various misrepresentations and logical mis-steps that Robinson perpetrates, but for anyone interested I recommend Earl Doherty's very thorough dismantling of her mendacious "review", which can be read here: home.ca.inter.net/~oblio/AORComment17.htm
Posted by: Jonathan Dore | Dec 12, 2006 12:56:15 PM
Jonathan Dore seems to be going across the Internet promoting Earl Doherty: https://www2.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=28511165&postID=116224815692250402
I actually saw this review before reading Dore's comment, but I don't find it terribly persuasive. It's hardly a product of cool rationalism, but a hysterical rant.
Posted by: johnasdf | Mar 6, 2007 3:33:32 PM
This is one hot button! Neither Dawkins nor Robinson makes what you could call a real argument, for, to do that one must be fully rational -- that is, radically uncertain of the very biggest things the mind can ponder -- yet still follow the rules of argument, and fundamentalism of any stripe will get in the way of that. The thing wrong with Dawkins is not that God exists, or might. And the thing wrong with Robinson -- here, anyway -- is not that He probably doesn't. It's that the form of argument each has chosen is deeply inappropriate to the discussion, and poorly conducted despite the lavish gifts of both.
Still, it's a pleasure to read them -- like watching the duel between Settembrini and Fr. Naphta in "The Magic Mountain," back when it was presumed there were ideas worth dying for.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Mar 6, 2007 8:50:41 PM
"Jonathan Dore seems to be going across the Internet promoting Earl Doherty".
You're right -- I am, since it's rare to find discussion of "The Gold Delusion" on the internet that actually argues in detail, rather than being generalized and sniffy dismissals, of which johnasdf's last two sentences (see above) are another fine example, sounding grandly unimpressed but enlightening nobody.
If you look at all of the sites on which I posted links to Doherty's review, you'll see that what is painfully evident is that the great majority of posters have never read any Dawkins -- indeed actively run away from any opportunity to do so -- and whose only interest in Robinson's "review" was that it comfortingly reinforced some pre-existing prejudices.
Posted by: Jonathan Dore | Mar 13, 2007 2:50:33 AM
...or even "The God Delusion".
Posted by: Jonathan Dore | Mar 13, 2007 2:52:20 AM
Earl Doherty is an Athiest Terrorist
Posted by: Matt | Apr 17, 2012 11:45:17 AM
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