Richard Dawkins And Agnosticism

"It's still a very, very bad argument," he went on to say, "but it's the best one going." He noted that a major problem with the argument is that it leaves unexplained where the fine tuner came from.^[15]

In 2012, in video recorded discussion with Rowan Williams Archbishop of Canterbury, Richard Dawkins said he was 6.9 out of 7 of sure that God does not exist and counted himself as an agnostic.

A 6.9 out of 7 would mean that Richard Dawkins believes there is about a .986 percent chance that God exists. In short, according to Dawkins, there is about a 1% chance that God exists.

Since Richard Dawkins likened God's existence to fairies being at the bottom of the garden, why does Dawkins believe there is about a 1% chance that fairies are at the bottom of the garden?

Dawkins is either being disingenuous or he is being irrational or a combination of both is occurring. Anyone who gives weight to Dawkins' views on the existence of God or his views on the creation vs. evolution controversy is obviously displaying bad judgement.

Sin is very irrational. Dr. Don Batten, a scientist at Creation Ministries International, wrote that despite Richard Dawkins' skeptical protestations, Dawkins appears to be a God-hater. This seems to be the best description of Dawkins' behavior.

It really comes as no surprise that Dawkins has been noticeably quiet about the 15 questions for evolutionists of the Question Evolution! Campaign. He obviously cannot satisfactorily answer the 15 questions.^[25]

This week’s debate, however, was different because from the off Dawkins moved it onto safer territory– and at the very beginning made a most startling admission. He said:

A serious case could be made for a deistic God.

This was surely remarkable. Here was the arch-apostle of atheism, whose whole case is based on the assertion that believing in a creator of the universe is no different from believing in fairies at the bottom of the garden, saying that a serious case can be made for the idea that the universe was brought into being by some kind of purposeful force. A creator. True, he was not saying he was now a deist; on the contrary, he still didn't believe in such a purposeful founding intelligence, and he was certainly still saying that belief in the personal God of the Bible was just like believing in fairies. Nevertheless, to acknowledge that ‘a serious case could be made for a deistic god’ is to undermine his previous categorical assertion that

...all life, all intelligence, all creativity and all ‘design’ anywhere in the universe is the direct or indirect product of Darwinian natural selection...Design cannot precede evolution and therefore cannot underlie the universe.^[26]

"Dawkins will tell the story of his own intellectual evolution, explaining how his groundbreaking work as a scientist led to his work as an atheist," states Dawkins' new publisher HarperCollins' Ecco. The book has not yet been given a title, but is expected to be on bookshelves by 2014.^[27]

First, Richard Dawkins has gone from being a militant atheist to being an agnostic.

Theodore Beale wrote about Dawkins' inconsistency when it comes to the issues of atheism and agnosticism.

Christians should call Dawkins on his disingenuous flip-flopping if his publisher continues to promote the book as a book focusing on his journey to atheism without mentioning the fact that Dawkins is presently an agnostic who has rejected atheism.

An author calling himself an atheist or a publisher giving the impression that someone is an atheist may sell more books as it is more provocative, but it isn't intellectually honest if the author has rejected atheism and is an agnostic. If Dawkins claims to be an agnostic who is unsure if God exist or not, then he should clearly communicate this to the public and so should his publisher. Dawkins has been unreasonable as far as his alleged agnosticism and I recommend reading the article Why does Richard Dawkins have such a high belief in the possibility of fairies being at the bottom of the garden?

Given the weakness of his argumentation and the vitriol which often accompanies it, I agree with Dr. Don Batten that the weight of the evidence points to Dawkins being a God-hater.^[29]

Think about it. If there was a 1% chance that something existed, would you call your neighbor delusional if he believed it existed? No, you would not. Sure, you would think the odds are against your neighbor in terms of his belief, but you would not think he is delusional. The term delusional is generally used in connection with ideas that are insane to believe due to there being overwhelming evidence to the contrary.^[30]

DAWKINS: "Well, it could come about in the following way. It could be that at some earlier time, somewhere in the universe, a civilization evolved, probably by some kind of Darwinian means, probably to a very high level of technology, and designed a form of life that they seeded onto perhaps this planet. Now, um, now that is a possibility, and an intriguing possibility. And I suppose it's possible that you might find evidence for that if you look at the details of biochemistry, molecular biology, you might find a signature of some sort of designer."

Ho,ho! That is precisely what the Raelians say:

Years ago, everybody knew that the earth was flat. Everybody knew that the sun revolved around the earth. Today, everybody knows that life on earth is either the result of random evolution or the work of a supernatural God. Or is it? In "Message from the Designers", Rael presents us with a third option: that all life on earth was created by advanced scientists from another world.

Richard Dawkins and Rael; "clear thinking" kindred spirits! ^[33]

He made the comment while being interviewed with Alister McGrath on the BBC Heaven and Earth television program, hosted by Gloria Hunniford.1 The interview opened with both men recounting how they’d arrived at their present views—McGrath from atheism to belief in a Creator, specifically the God of the Bible; Dawkins from ‘a Christian upbringing’ to atheism. Note the two ‘events’ that Dawkins cited as being pivotal in his slide into atheism:

He remembers thinking, ‘Since there are so many different religions, they can’t all be right’, so he says he became an agnostic. [Indeed, they can’t all be right, but it is logically fallacious to argue from this to ‘they must all be wrong.’ For a counter to this, see: ‘Holy Books?’]

Dawkins says the key atheism-inducing event was ‘really when I discovered Darwinism’. [And he’s not the only one to have unfortunately (and erroneously) been so influenced — see ‘Playwright just plain wrong’.]

Sitting next to the eloquently-spoken McGrath, and under some pressure from interviewer Ms Hunniford’s challenge that Dawkins had ‘no proof’ to justify his ‘there is no God’ stance, in his following comments Dawkins—though still clinging to his belief in a self-creating universe—appears to forget his past outspoken disdain for the concept of an Intelligent Designer:

‘You can’t prove the non-existence of anything, so it’s impossible to prove that God doesn’t exist. … None of us believes in Thor and his hammer, none of us believes in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. … The best explanation I could just about imagine somebody saying [would be] some sort of immense cosmic intelligence—that I could …—I mean, I don’t believe that but I could just about respect that.’

On the face of it, that’s quite a concession, compared to Dawkins’ previous rants and disparaging railings against any such suggestion of an ‘immense cosmic intelligence’ being behind the laws of the universe.^[36]

Professor Dawkins’ obsessive campaign to try to convince others to be atheists reminds me of those days. Perhaps it is not that Dawkins really believes that there is no Creator-God, but that he wishes there were not and if he could just convince enough others to agree with him, then he will feel more secure. Has he confused his wishful thinking for reality? Perhaps ironically, the Humanist Manfesto III says, ‘We accept our life as all and enough, distinguishing things as they are from things as we might wish or imagine them to be.’ Dawkins’ wishful thinking comes out in his definition of biology, where he wishes away the evidence for design (a Creator):

‘Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.’

Another self-professed atheist, Thomas Nagel, Professor of Philosophy at New York University, put it rather candidly:

‘I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and naturally, hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that.’...

So, is Richard Dawkins an atheist? He seems more like a God-hater than a genuine atheist. That’s why my colleague, Jonathan Sarfati, invented the word ‘misotheist’ (hater of God), which he has applied to Professor Dawkins and other fanatical opponents of the God of the Bible.

George Orwell identified this sort of ‘atheist’ in the character of Bozo, in Down and Out in Paris and London: ‘He was an embittered atheist (the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him)’. Interestingly, in The God Delusion, Dawkins carries on about what he doesn’t like about the God he doesn’t believe in.^[39]