The Root of All Evil?
A review of Richard Dawkins' controversial TV programme
Dave Crofts, 10th January 2006
Eminent evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has long been one of the most vociferous voices against organised religion in the UK. And now, in The Root of All Evil? (9th January 2006, Channel 4), he has been granted an opportunity to present his case that religion is not only opposed to science, it is deeply counter-intuitive and results in atrocities on a global scale. Controversial views, even for the non-Christian.
But Dawkins has never been afraid to court controversy. Indeed, in the first programme in the two-part series, his narration was a barrage of anti-religious soundbites, some more credible than others - and some frankly laughable. Whilst Dawkins is clearly passionate in his advocacy of science, some of his comments, rather than being eloquently persuasive, undermine what should be considerable intellectual credibility.
For instance, Dawkins closed his first programme with the crass statement that "Unlike religion, science does not pretend to have an answer for everything." The most cursory investigation of any of the world's major religions gives the lie to this claim. Indeed, some faiths make a virtue of their mysticism and the fact that they do not and cannot provide answers. Even the biblical Christian's claims for the exclusive truth of Christianity do not amount to claims for its exhaustive truth. It is absolutely true, but there are questions to which mankind is not necessarily entitled to answers. We can't know everything - something God himself concedes in the book of Isaiah:
"For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."
Isaiah 55:8, ESV
Of course, Dawkins views this sort of talk as an intellectual cop-out, an excuse not to honestly pursue evidence and answers to explain profound questions such as the origin of humanity. His view is that "the process of non-thinking called faith" encourages the believer not to think or question but to simply adopt a childlike credulity and acceptance of whatever that faith's authority figures propagate as truth - even if that is to "nourish intolerance to the point of murder".
Dawkins polarises faith and reason as opposites and has absolutely no concept of 'reasonable faith'. For him, the very idea would be a contradiction in terms, doublethink of the worst and most dangerous sort. Once again, his argument suffers from lumping all religions together into a homogenous whole. Across the world, there are religions for which evidence and rational thought are much less important than experience or tradition, for example, and there are religions where evidence plays a central role.
By its own admission, biblical Christianity falls into the latter camp. John's gospel account of Jesus' life concludes with an open admission that it is - like the modern scientific journal - a persuasive presentation of eye-witness evidence:
"Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."
John 20:30-31, ESV
There are millions of intelligent, rational Christians worldwide who believe Jesus is the Son of God not in spite of but - at least in part - because of the evidence. This is not blind faith any more than evolution is blind chance - yet Dawkins is content to caricature it as such.
Dawkins is, to borrow a biblical metaphor, so obsessed with the specks in the eyes of the religious types around him, that he fails to see the log in his own eye. Much of what he said in part one of The Root of All Evil? saw him contradicting his own arguments. For instance, whilst he railed against the polarisation between American Christianity and fundamentalist Islam, and the resulting social conflict on a global scale, he seems quite content to push for a polarisation between religion (of whatever sort) and scientific materialism. Surely all he will achieve by this is to replace one conflict with another?
Honest Christians would concede that bloodshed and atrocity taint the history of their faith. Yet we can persuasively argue that these are a result of individuals or groups corrupting that faith's principles for their own ends. Man's botched job of propagating God's word is no more reason to dismiss that word than science's development of the atomic bomb is reason to dismiss science. Moreover, the few atheistic states or nations mankind has attempted to establish through history have a record for atrocity no better than the religious ones.
The danger of Dawkins' programme is, ironically, that people will simply believe his caricatured portrayal of religion without examining the evidence. Just as Christians such as the Bible Belt minister Dawkins met in his programme have to be careful they do not abuse their positions of authority, so must Dawkins. Personally, I would have welcomed a clear and structured presentation of the evidence for evolution - something Dawkins ought to be well positioned to deliver. Yet his series, in this first programme at least, gives us a sweeping, contradictory and quite irrational indictment of religion that shows both a lack of thought and a lack of evidence.
In part two (16 January 2006, Channel 4), Richard Dawkins continued his invective against "the virus of religion" - this time criticising faith for preying on the young and impressionable and denouncing religion as a valid source of morality. Following the pattern laid down in his first programme, part two contained numerous controversial soundbites designed to provoke or even shock the viewer - for instance, the assertion that, under normal circumstances, "Good people do good things and evil people do evil things. For good people to do evil things, it takes religion."
It's powerful, even incendiary stuff. Yet, as in his first programme, Dawkins' vociferous arguments lack the substance to be genuinely persuasive. The example above is a case in point: whilst Dawkins is fervently opposed to the black and white view of morality espoused by the American Bible belt Christians he meets, he's quite prepared to take an equally polarised view when it serves his purpose.
Dawkins has little time for the moral standards laid down in the Bible or other religious texts, describing religion as "simply a parasite on a much older moral sense." His argument that altruism emerged as the generally approved way to behave because it is evolutionarily advantageous is credible - and convenient, since it enables Dawkins to advocate the kind of "morality by consensus" that is commonplace in today's society. However, the credibility of evolution as an explanation for our moral standards by no means rules out the existence of a moral divine being behind it all. There is no logical inconsistency in believing that morality is both beneficial for society and a result of being made in the image of a moral God.
Not that Dawkins sees the Bible's system of morals as beneficial for society. Indeed, he describes them as "poisonous," labels God "the most unpleasant character in all fiction," and likens Moses to Hitler and Saddam Hussein. Citing some of the less palatable incidents and judicial sentences in the first few books of the Old Testament, Dawkins concludes that God is selfish, egotistical, cruel and vindictive. And taken out of context, you can see why he draws those conclusions.
But, conspicuously, he does not engage with the wealth of Biblical scholarship that reasonably and intelligently explains why God behaves like this and encourages the Israelites to do likewise - that explains the almost incomprehensible seriousness of rebellion against God, that explains the importance of God exercising moral judgement, and that explains God's incredible love and mercy in all his dealings with mankind. Instead, he seeks out representatives who - either through liberal dismissal of parts of the Bible, or through extreme over-emphasis of God's judgement - fit in very nicely with his argument.
Dawkins' preoccupation with examining the evidence for a point of view is admirable - yet in this case he appears not to have followed it through. If he had, he would not be able to claim that "Jesus was not content to derive his ethics from the Scriptures." Not only does Jesus spend chapter after chapter using the Old Testament as a basis for his moral teaching (See, for instance, Matthew 5-7 (the 'Sermon on the Mount')), he also, when tempted by the devil, uses Scripture and Scripture alone to rebuff him (Matthew 4).
Yet evidence remains Dawkins' watchword, particularly when considering the impact of religion on children. Unless there is scientific evidence for something, we should not be persuading children of its truth - a sensible statement but one that Dawkins espouses to extremes. The impressionability of a child's mind means that to impose one's personal reality (as Dawkins would put it) on a child is at best irresponsible and at worst a form of child abuse. Whilst Dawkins is able to find isolated cases that support this viewpoint, the majority of parents who aim to bring their children up in a particular faith do so with the aim that the child will make his or her own rational and considered decision about the reality of that faith. I for one am immensely grateful that my parents took the time to plainly set before me the evidence for Christianity and leave me to make up my mind.
And, perhaps more to the point, Dawkins is once again assuming that evidence has no part to play in faith. When Adrian Hawkes, a member of staff at a Christian school, told Dawkins that he didn't know how God created the world, and was quite content with that, Dawkins flew at him for a lack of concern for the truth. Not that he was given chance to explain, but I suspect Adrian Hawkes is passionately concerned for the truth - he just has a better sense of perspective as to which questions to prioritise. If it is true that God made the world, that he made everything and everyone in it, then how he made it is a secondary issue, whose implications for how we live our lives are far less important.
"If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile," (1 Corinthians 15:17) wrote the apostle Paul. Christianity, perhaps more than any other major religion, relies on certain things being historical fact. A risky position, you might think - particularly with people like Dawkins so desperate to prove it a lie. Yet in spite of this it has survived for 2,000 years and - much to Dawkins' alarm - continues to persuade people that it is not only intellectually credible but also profoundly life-changing.
Dawkins was right about one thing. We live in a jaw-droppingly wonderful world. And science is unveiling more and more of that wonder with every new discovery. The Root of All Evil? ended on an upbeat note, with an exhortation to make the most of the here and now - but if Christianity is to be believed, Jesus Christ has opened the way for humanity into a world infinitely more wonderful. That has to make the evidence for it well worth a closer look.