Post
by rasetsu » Sat Aug 18, 2012 5:22 am
"I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy."
— Richard Feynman
I think the primary value of The God Delusion, beyond it helping people feel good about their atheism, or giving them reasons to keep going into godlessness, is that it was one of the first books to make atheism mainstream. Before Dawkins and Hitchens et al, atheist books didn't get window seats at Barnes & Noble. Atheism before the four horsemen, was kept out of the limelight, and not allowed a seat at the table of public discourse. Yes, there were authors before them, but it was their books which more or less kicked the door wide open. (If my understanding of the history of you godless heathens is correct.)
That being said, other people have complained about the quality of the arguments in The God Delusion. Recently on another forum, someone brought up "The Dawkins Scale," from TGD, and when I remarked that it seemed to imply you either believed in the Abrahamanic god, or were some kind of atheist or agnostic, I fussed. Unfortunately for me, a moderator who had it in for me chose to use it as pretext for a personal attack, but unless I'm misreading Dawkins (and yes, I've checked), he's claiming that I, as a Hindu, basically don't exist. Which gets to the point of the Feynman quote. It may have been Mae West, but some vixen said that when they're good, they're good, but when they're bad, they are oh so very bad. That's Dawkins to a tee. When he sticks to the science, he's fair to excellent. When he's not talking about the science, well, sometimes he's oh so very bad. (His waffling about his statements regarding child abuse and religious education being another example that pops to mind.)
I haven't read The God Delusion aside from a spot check as mentioned above, so I can't comment on the whole of it. I did read The Blind Watchmaker, and, despite my impression that he represented some of the science as settled in certain regards, which to me appeared to be settling the science by the fiat of his pen, rather than in the community of scientists, I greatly enjoyed the book. I have also read Hitchens' God Is Not Great, and despite finding it an enjoyable romp up and down the back of the prostrate, felt there were significant elements missing from his argument. I've read Dennett over the years, and he's wisely remained tactfully distant from directly trashing religion. Of the four horsemen of the new atheism, the only one who, as far as I know, has effectively landed his punches, is Sam Harris (I've read Letter but not End Of Faith). So either I'm overly critical of their arguments — of which I'm sure there's an element of truth to that — or these books succeeded largely for reason other than the excellence of their arguments and a sudden change in the availability of readers. The New Atheists have played an important role in the growing tide, but I think you have to look elsewhere than the arguments and their abilities for the answer to why atheism is quickly becoming as mainstream as religion.
(ETA: I may be overstating the question of availability of readers; I was simply trying to suggest that something other than the quality of their books was involved in the growing tide of atheism surrounding their publishing. The American Atheists' magazine is now being carried at Barnes & Noble, if I recall rightly, and I don't recall the figures, but that change in exposure made a massive difference in sales from before when the magazine wasn't carried by a mainstream retailer. I don't know how much the change in acceptability of publishing and marketing books about atheism has been responsible for the change, but it sure couldn't hurt. At the American Atheists conference this weekend, they touted someone's new book, and I had to groan when they mentioned it was being published by Prometheus. That's all well and good, but non-mainstream publishers also means non-mainstream audience, and that as much as anything will keep atheism in the closet, so to speak.)
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