Analysis of the Dawkins Debate - Essay Example

Your full full January 25, The God Delusion Debate (Dawkins-Lennox) The 90 minute debate was held in Alys Stephens Center in Birmingham, Alabama, on October 03, 2007 between two Oxford University colleagues; an atheist and secular humanist, Professor Richard Dawkins, and a Christian apologist, Professor John Lennox. The topic of the debate was the existence of God based upon the atheistic views that Dawkins presented in his book, The God Delusion. The views were explained by Dawkins regarding whether or not they related to the Christian faith. Dawkins is regarded as supporting ‘new atheism’ while Lennox talks about the relation between science and religion and believes that science itself has lead him to believe in the existence of God. Analysis of the debate In the debate, Dawkins explains his theses regarding the rejection of God’s existence saying that science is based on evidence-based grounds whereas faith is blind and is based merely on satisfactory beliefs and thus it drags humans to believe what is told in religion without the need of understanding and exploring. He says that science does not support religion; rather, it supports rationalism or atheism. He further argues that the designer God, if there is one, must need another designer to design him. He argues that Christianity poses dangers to the existence of humans as all wars and destructions comes as a result of the religious beliefs and difference in faiths. In short, the debate is all about the six main claims that Dawkins has presented in his book. The matchless arguments placed by Lennox dragged Dawkins to give a second thought on his atheistic views and at the end of the debate, Dawkins comes to admit that God is not a delusion. This report will discuss two of the six main claims about God’s non-existence put forth by Dawkins, counter-arguments placed by Lennox, and a personal reflection at the end. Dawkins’s Arguments Dawkins explains an argument from his book, that is, faith is blind whereas science is evidence-based (92). He argues that faith is by no reasons strengthening its grounds in the 21st century when it has nothing to do with evidence. It is another name for self-created superstitious beliefs. On the other hand, according to Dawkins, “science uses evidence to discover the truth about the universe” and scientific discoveries are based on research and investigation. Thus it is based on clear evidences and proofs and has “grown out of religious traditions”. The beauty and the complexity of the world make us want to worship something and thus we relate it to a creator, but “it is a supreme achievement of human intellect to realize that there is a better explanation” for the existence of universe- an explanation which blind faith is not able to give. Another argument that Dawkins explains from his book is the Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit, that is, the designer is dead; otherwise, one must explain who designed the designer (113). He explains this argument by saying that the creator of this universe and everything in it has to be as complicated as his creation, and if a complicated entity needs a designer to come into being, then the designer being complicated also needs a designer, and this process should go on to infinite times back. So, the question remains that- who made God? What is his origin? He refers to this claim as the designer hypothesis. He argues that the existence of life on this earth has been designed by natural selection and evolution and, thus, the designer must have evolved through the same mechanism. He argues that “Darwin explains life” by elaborating the whole process of evolution of the mankind, and that “a creator designer cannot be a satisfying explanation” for the complex designing of the universe we live in. Counter-Arguments Lennox presented his counter-arguments about faith being blind and science being evidence-based. He said that science is not able to answer the questions that come in a human being’s mind- Who am I? What is the purpose of my creation? Where am I going? Answers to these questions are taught by religion and faith in God. Science is not able to answer any of these questions. He further caught Dawkins off-guard by asking him if he had faith in his wife to which Dawkins responded affirmatively. And when Lennox asked what was the evidence of this faith, Dawkins gave contradictory statements. Lennox explained the evidence for some of the illustrations from the Bible to prove that “not all faith is blind faith”. John Haught asserts that faith develops religion, and theology puts forth logical arguments for everything happening around us and this is what atheists tend to ignore, and the faith of the existence of God cannot be related to science at all (91). About Dawkins’s assertion about the designer hypothesis, Lennox counter-argued that “Darwinism does not explain life” because he had just explained that the evolution began due to a mutant replicator but he failed to explain “how the replicator came to exist at the first place”. Lennox said that the designer of the universe has not been created by anyone and he is eternal. He spoke statements from the Gospel that God created everything and is not created by anything. He argued that if Richard believed that physics laws were always there in the universe, then this means that he believed in something being eternal. Then how can he negate God to be eternal? God does not need any explanation because “God is more complex” than anything you can explain. According to Haught, belief in the existence of God "claims that the story of life, even in its neo-Darwinian presentation, provides essential concepts for thinking about God and Gods relation to nature and humanity” and theology tends to show that “our new awareness of cosmic and biological evolution can enhance and enrich traditional teachings about God and Gods way of acting in the world" (36). Personal Reflection The God Delusion Debate was an interesting one for a person who ponders upon who he is and what is the purpose of his living. Atheism suggests that it is not wise to blindly follow what religion teaches without evidence. But I think religion is based on faith that we have been created by a creator who is himself complex enough to create a complex universe, but He is not created. He is eternal and has not been designed. Science, though is based on evidences and research, but has its own limitations and many scholars have proven this fact that science and religion have a very deep relation. Religion is not to be blamed for all the destruction that is happening on the globe. Had there been no religion, the world would have been facing even more havoc because all religions after all teach humanity and morality. We are not born moral, God has taught us in His revelations and Books that we should be moral to live peacefully. If Richard thinks that we naturally know that- do unto others as you want others do unto you, then this moral thought is the creation of human’s mind, and who is the creator of this mind? Of course, there is a designer up there who has designed Richard’s mind that can think that he should be moral. The mechanism of cloning humans has been in research and experimentation in which scientists create a living being from a basic cell. But can they create a cell too? Anyway, how one relates to God and his existence merely depends upon how one relates to his life’s experiences and to his own researched work. Works Cited Dawkins, Richard. “Ultimate boeing 747”, The God Delusion. NY, USA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006. Fixed Point Foundation. "The Dawkins Lennox Debate." 2007. University of Alabama .   Haught, John. God after Darwin: A Theology of Evolution. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000. Haught, John. God and the New Atheism: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens. Westminster: John Knox Press, 2007.  Read More