The God Delusions: A Critique

In September, I got to read The God Delusions on recommendation by a close friend. A good book but missionary at times and containing a chunk of imperfect arguments. Let me delve into my critique. There are close to no references to the statements about the people before the 18th century that Mr. Dawkins make so confidently. Just saying that Historical Evidence does not point towards so, does not make me any more confident in his judgment disguisedly presented as a matter of fact. I anyway do not like opinionated authors, unless the opinion is well-researched and crafted one with a good objective. What Mr. Dawkins want is to create another cult (of supposedly intelligentsia), who do not believe in God almost as vehemently as followers of various religion do. In short, he wants to further split the already divided world. There is no empirical evidence to suggest that just because people start disbelieving in a personal God or do not have religious differences, world shall be a better place to live in just like there is no empirical evidence to suggest that atheism directly leads to evil. And to have any motivation to change the status quo, we need empirical evidences to the contrary. Nepal is a Hindu country with close to zero religious differences and no conflict there ever had God at its roots, yet can you say Nepal is a better place to live in than UK or France, where religious conflicts have cropped up time and again. The role of church in promoting Science in Europe from 500 AD – 1700 AD cannot be neglected. Rebuffing Dawkins on normative criteria, now I get back to positive rational of disbelieving his flimsy logic. I shall define God into three disparate, but not mutually exclusive alternatives, for the purpose of invalidating Richard Dawkins’s fallacious arguments: 1. Superhuman Intelligence –A being that is more intelligent than humans. It may not have any real power over the nature as we know it. If any being is more intelligent than us, then it shall be our objective to attain that intelligence, and anything that I aspire to attain, but hasn’t been able to until now can be classified as God on both positive and normative grounds. There are zillions of stars in this universe. I cannot even comment on the number of planets. Now the probability that a being of considerably more intelligence than humans reside on some of these planets is definitely more than 99%. Even otherwise, formation of animated beings on a planet is not the only possibility. Animated beings of radically different composition may reside on stars, or in the vast space. Can we rely on the assumption that the compositions of organic compounds can only give birth to life, just because our microscopic mind does not allow us to think beyond. As per some well-researched documents, the idea of personal god percolates from superhuman intelligence that descended on earth some 2 million years ago, when there was sudden transformation in genes of human antecedents like Chimpanzees et al. The cross-breeding between these beings and selected mammalian species gave birth to homo-sapiens. These earliest races regarded these beings who used to come on earth from time to time as God. The evidence of such personal God still lies hidden with Brotherhood societies mistakenly believed to be in possession of some secret related to Jesus’s lineage. 2. Supernatural Intelligence – The definition closest to Dawkins’. A being with full control over nature and thereby on humans. Dawkins relies on the assumption that all mathematical logic holds good in denying the existence of such an entity. A true scientist, before claiming the truthfulness of his claim verifies each one of his assumptions. The limitation of scientific logic is that a few basic assumptions can never be tested. 2+2=4 remains an assumption that cannot be tested as all underlying mathematics is based on this. What our brain perceives as a result of skeptical observation of worldly phenomena is a fact is again an assumption relying on the unbiased and sound human mind. If I start disbelieving in all scientific observations, all hypotheses stand nullified. Scientists know this limitation of Science, and hence qualified in all their judgmental statements. But Dawkins has got the courage to assert him confidently in exploring a supernatural phenomenon through natural observations. An ant asserted that “Man has no intelligence” by observing that man’s movements are random. In her sample of 50 men including Jains and non-Jains, some of the limbs moved exactly opposite to where ants lay, while some moved exactly over them. There was no pattern in the movement. Hence Man’s intelligence is a misnomer. Any such assertion by an ant without even dissecting human brain is as silly as Dawkins’s assertion that a supernatural entity does not exist by observing natural phenomenon. Even with all mathematics and science holding good, Dawkins does not come up with any argument, that actually belies the existence of a supernatural entity. He only criticizes the proofs in favor of God, whose critique already lies in various philosophical treatises. At some points, his reasoning sounds as silly as the arguments he seeks to disprove. The best argument against the existence of omniscient, omnipotent, and all-loving god has already been established by the impossibility of such an entity existing. 3. Self as God – Dawkins refuses to delve into this all-encompassing definition in his half-heartedly researched book. Self as God concept is the central tenet of Hinduism, and it includes all sort of superhuman and supernatural intelligence. It proposes that God lies within, not without. Self is God concept is an extension of personal god concept; hence validation of Self as God concept shall automatically validate personal God. Attaining God is just like attaining your-self. Dawkins deny the existence of spirit, implying that we are just toys meant to live until the time we can survive determined on the basis of laws of natural selection. If we are such toys in the hands of some esoteric laws, I believe not in the existence of human, and the question of God’s existence becomes irrelevant. There are sufficient proofs in the Upanishads that through a combination of free will and spiritual intelligence proves the existence of a spirit within a body. When we attain that spirit, whole universe merges into us, and all bounds on our intelligence gets lifted and we become all too aware of the oneness of the whole universe, a universe that terminates in us. As per one of the best interpretation of Upanishads that I read, When you cut your limbs from your body, your mind loses control over them. If you are capable enough of endowing your limbs with a little intelligence, they may live a life of their own, oblivious of their oneness with you (imagine a split tail of a lizard vibrating on its own). It may conspire against your other limb or try to harm that. However, if by some mechanism you reunite your limb with yourself, it may feel ashamed of its microscopic view of the world. In the same way, we are aimless wanderers in this world with our spirit having lost control over us. We fail to recognize our oneness with every animate and inanimate thing in the world. The purpose of our life shall be to seek reunion with our spirit and aid it in consummating that reunion. That lays to rest my critique.