The God Delusion

1. The God Delusion Engaging the worldview of : By: Dr. Richard Dawkins

2. Considerations As we read through the quotes from the book: • Set you personal feelings to the side for a moment and consider how reasonable it sounds to our children and those who don't have a relationship with Jesus. • Recognize that theses statements come from a worldview that resonates with the "generation x" and millennials in western society, because they were taught to think this way. • Consider how you would respond to the quote if someone asked you to address it right now.

3. — James 1:5-7 (HCSB) Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives to all generously and without criticizing, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith without doubting. For the doubter is like the surging sea, driven and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

4. Chapter - sections CHAPTER 4: WHY THERE ALMOST CERTAINLY IS NO GOD • THE ULTIMATE BOING 747 (pg. 113) • NATURAL SELECTION AS A CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISER (pg. 114) • IRREDUCIBLE COMPLEXITY (pg. 119) • THE WORSHIP OF THE GAPS (pg. 125) • THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE: PLANETARY VERSION (pg. 134) • THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE: COSMOLOGICAL VERSION (pg. 141) • AN INTERLUDE AT CAMBRIDGE (pg. 151)

5. the ultimate boeing 747

6. — Dr. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 113 What is the Ultimate 747? “The name comes from Fred Hoyle’s amusing image of the Boeing 747 and the scrapyard… Hoyle said that the probability of life originating on Earth is no greater than the chance that a hurricane, sweeping through a scrapyard, would have the luck to assemble a Boeing 747.”

7. — Dr. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 113 OBJECTION “The creationist misappropriation of the argument from improbability always takes the same general form…Some observed phenomenon— often a living creature or one of its more complex organs, but it could be anything from a molecule up to the universe itself— is correctly extolled as statistically improbable.”

8. WHY THERE ALMOST CERTAINLY IS NO GOD the ultimate boing 747 Dawkins complains that the issue with “The Ultimate Boing 747” is that theists are appealing to improbability. Yet, he uses the argument that “there almost certainly is no God” because the existence of God is improbable. How is the Dawkins argument any different that his critique of the creationist?

9. — Dr. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 114 CLAIM “In fact, as I shall show in this chapter, Darwinian natural selection is the only known solution to the otherwise unanswerable riddle of where the information comes from.”

10. — Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, Chapter IV “Several writers have misapprehended or objected to the term Natural Selection. Some have even imagined that natural selection induces variability, whereas it implies only the preservation of such variations as arise and are beneficial to the being under its conditions of life.”

11. WHY THERE ALMOST CERTAINLY IS NO GOD the ultimate boing 747 Even though evolutionists claim that new genetic information is generated by: • Mutation • Genetic Reshuffling (transposons or polyploidy) • Natural Selection • Genetic Drift / Reproductive Resequencing These all shuffle or degrade existing information, but are they fundamentally creating new information?

12. — Dr. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 114 “A deep understanding of Darwinism teaches us to be wary of the easy assumption that design is the only alternative to chance, and teaches us to seek out graded ramps of slowly increasing complexity.”

13. natural selection as a consciousness-raiser

14. — Dr. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 116 “Natural selection not only explains the whole of life; it also raises our consciousness to the power of science to explain how organized complexity can emerge from simple beginnings without any deliberate guidance.”

15. WHY THERE ALMOST CERTAINLY IS NO GOD natural selection as a consciousness-raiser A reality of the evolutionary process is that it depends on a immense number of minute and unseen changes. We assume that two things are related by evolution, through a process that cannot be directly observed or reproduced. How is this any different than a evolution-of-the-gaps argument?

16. — Dr. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 117 “That scientifically savvy philosopher Daniel Dennett pointed out that evolution counters one of the oldest ideas we have: ‘the idea that it takes a big fancy smart thing to make a lesser thing.“

17. WHY THERE ALMOST CERTAINLY IS NO GOD natural selection as a consciousness-raiser Who is making this “big complicated creator” argument? As a materialist Dawkins is speaking from a strict matter and energy point of view. In that respect we would argue that God is supremely simple. He has no physical attributes. Simplicity or complexity has no bearing on being and contingency.

18. — Dr. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 117 “Darwin’s discovery of a workable process that does that very counter-intuitive thing is what makes his contribution to human thought so revolutionary, and so loaded with the power to raise consciousness.“

19. — Dr. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 140 A PREDICTION “We can safely predict that, if we wait another ten million years, a whole new set of species will be as well adapted to their ways of life as today’s species are to theirs. This is a recurrent, predictable, multiple phenomenon, not a piece of statistical luck recognized with hindsight.”

20. WHY THERE ALMOST CERTAINLY IS NO GOD natural selection as a consciousness-raiser Darwinian Evolution (like any other scientific theory) is a framework to interpret the data placed into it. • Any theory is an approximation of what we believe is happening. The fact that the theory itself changes over time proves it is in fact an approximation. • A framework is only as good as the philosophical restraints, axioms, and data you put into it. Does the theory of evolution have any specific predictive power for macroevolution? Does the theory of evolution make any specific predictions about fossils that will be found?

21. irreducible complexity

22. — Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, Chapter 6 WHY IS Irreducible complexity a big deal? “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.”

23. — Dr. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 119 “Life— How Did It Get Here?, with no named author but published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society in sixteen languages and eleven million copies, is obviously a firm favourite because no fewer than six of those eleven million copies have been sent to me as unsolicited gifts by well-wishers from around the world.”

24. WHY THERE ALMOST CERTAINLY IS NO GOD irreducible complexity Dawkins opens his arguments against irreducible complexity with a quote from The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. • While the Jehovah’s Witnesses do have a view on creation and they share it widely around the world, they are not actively engaged in the larger public creation debate. • It is intellectually questionable tactic to state that your book will focus on Christianity and discuss irreducible complexity and the ID movement; but then start the discussion by referencing a cult who has no interest in irreducible complexity or ID.

25. — Dr. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 121 “Natural selection is a real solution. It is the only workable solution that has ever been suggested. And it is not only a workable solution, it is a solution of stunning elegance and power.”

26. — Dr. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 121 “Indeed, design is not a real alternative at all because it raises an even bigger problem than it solves: who designed the designer?”

27. WHY THERE ALMOST CERTAINLY IS NO GOD irreducible complexity The naturalist is limited to a universe where all things are contingent and therefore must have a creator into an infinite regress. The supernaturalist doesn’t have the contingency limitation. Because God would necessarily exist outside the universe He would not be limited to cause and effect. • To ask who created God is a logically inconsistent question because it fails to recognize the eternal and uncaused attributes of God.

28. — Dr. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 122 “Creationists who attempt to deploy the argument from improbability in their favour always assume that biological adaptation is a question of the jackpot or nothing…But this is simply wrong. Such intermediates abound in practice— which is exactly what we should expect in theory.”

29. WHY THERE ALMOST CERTAINLY IS NO GOD irreducible complexity No one would argue that there are examples of primitive and complex examples of very similar structures that perform different functions. • This is seen by the evolutionist as evidence of change over time. • This is also seen by the creationist as evidence of a creator using the same basic engineering principals and components to solve engineering and design issues. Irreducible Complexity recognizes these structures but also proposes others that cannot be fit into the evolutionary paradigm.

30. The worship of the gaps

31. WHY THERE ALMOST CERTAINLY IS NO GOD the worship of the gaps Dawkins equates the Intelligent Design movement to a God-of-the -gaps argument. • A counter argument can be made that evolutionists are simply making a science-of-the-gaps argument. Either way, more work needs to be done on the subject to determine if ID can create a scientifically viable foundation to work from. The ID movement made a tactical mistake by getting involved in a creation in the classroom case. ID has not been fully formulated so it could not stand up to rigorous scrutiny.

32. WHY THERE ALMOST CERTAINLY IS NO GOD the worship of the gaps We should recognize that evolutionists have a very broad framework that is capable answering almost anything, but not so powerful as to make strong macroevolution predictions. ID has a long way to go before it is ready to make a strong stand in the marketplace of public opinion. An honest evaluation of both endeavors is a benefit to the person willing to set their preconceived notions to the side.

33. the anthropic principle: Planetary version

34. — Dr. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 135 THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE (Planetary) “We exist here on Earth. Therefore Earth must be the kind of planet that is capable of generating and supporting us, however unusual, even unique, that kind of planet might be.”

35. — Dr. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 136 “Two main explanations have been offered for our planet’s peculiar friendliness to life. The design theory says that God made the world, placed it in the Goldilocks zone, and deliberately set up all the details for our benefit. The anthropic approach is very different, and it has a faintly Darwinian feel. The great majority of planets in the universe are not in the Goldilocks zones of their respective stars, and not suitable for life. None of that majority has life. However small the minority of planets with just the right conditions for life may be, we necessarily have to be on one of that minority, because here we are thinking about it.”

36. THE JUST SO EXPLANATION “If the odds of life originating spontaneously on a planet were a billion to one against, nevertheless that stupefyingly improbable event would still happen on a billion planets.” — Dr. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 137 “…we can make the point that, however improbable the origin of life might be, we know it happened on Earth because we are here.” — Dr. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 138

37. — Dr. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 141 “Natural selection works because it is a cumulative one-way street to improvement. It needs some luck to get started, and the ‘billions of planets’ anthropic principle grants it that luck. Maybe a few later gaps in the evolutionary story also need major infusions of luck, with anthropic justification.”

38. WHY THERE ALMOST CERTAINLY IS NO GOD the anthropic principle: planetary version Anthropic principle is used to provide enough probabilistic resources to ensure that any probability is met. Luck/chance doesn’t have the capability to cause anything (causally effete).

39. the anthropic principle: cosmological version

40. — Dr. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 145 “This objection can be answered by the suggestion…that there are many universes, co-existing like bubbles of foam, in a ‘multiverse’…The laws and constants of any one universe, such as our observable universe, are by-laws. The multiverse as a whole has a plethora of alternative sets of by-laws. The anthropic principle kicks in to explain that we have to be in one of those universes…”

41. — Dr. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 145 “Some big crunch models have the universe then bouncing back into expansion, and so on indefinitely with, say, a 20-billion-year cycle time.”

42. WHY THERE ALMOST CERTAINLY IS NO GOD the anthropic principle: cosmological version The Anthropic Principle provides the same probabilistic resources as it did with the planetary version. The multiverse theory is firmly in the area of metaphysics. • The multiverse exists only in mathematical models and so far has no testable theory at this time. The Big Crunch model is now essentially dead since it has been discovered that the universe is not only expanding but that the expansion is accelerating.

43. CONCLUSION

44. CHAPTER 4: WHY THERE IS ALMOST CERTAINLY IS NO GOD conclusion Dawkins primary complaints against a creator are: • An infinite regression of who made the creator. Who made God? • This is the same issue that the multiverse model runs into. • A creator that can create a universe must be more complex than the universe itself. This makes the creator less probable than the universe itself. Anthropic Principle is used to provide enough probabilistic resources to allow any thing which has the possibility of happening. Anthropic Principle is a just-so story.

45. — James 1:5-7 (HCSB) Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives to all generously and without criticizing, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith without doubting. For the doubter is like the surging sea, driven and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.