Stephen Hawking’s assertion that “Because there is a law of gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing” presumes that the law of gravity existed before the universe — which will not stand up to logical scrutiny.
Dawkins’s rhetorical question, “If there was a God, why would he have waited 14 billion years before man came along?” is misconceived in relation to an impersonal God, for whom the concept of 14 billion years would probably have no meaning.
As an explanation for the origin of the universe, the “Big Bang” is not incompatible with belief in God. Though the Big Bang was enthusiastically embraced by Pope Pius XII, it is more compatible with an impersonal God than with a personal God.
The atheists object that sticking the label “God” on the Big Bang is question-begging. But the whole idea of a “Big Bang” is itself a question-begging something-from-nothing theory — and the “cosmological principle” on which it rests is an unproven axiom.
The stages of creation in the Book of Genesis correspond remarkably well with the stages propounded by science. This ties in well with a deist view of the origin of the universe.
“Intelligent Design” (ID) is a pseudoscientific religion-based theory which will not stand up to scrutiny.
Francis Collins’s theory of “Theistic Evolution” with his assertion that “The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome” is untenable as a theory, let alone in terms of evidence. Evolution and belief in a personal God do not gel.
By contrast, deistic evolution, a combination of evolution with belief in an impersonal God, is feasible.
Jonathan Sacks’s “noblest hypothesis” is unprovable.
Sacks remarks: “The Bible simply isn’t interested in how the universe came into being. It devotes a mere 34 verses to the subject.” Instead, Sacks suggests that there is a “hint” of evolution in a strained translation of a single word in Genesis 2:3. But why is it necessary to clutch at a “hint” of evolution from one word when there is a loud shout of evolution from 34 magnificent verses — which conform remarkably well with the scientific account?
Sacks’s left-brain/right-brain dichotomy between Christianity and Judaism, based as it is on Iain McGilchrist’s book The Master and his Emissary, is unconvincing.
Sacks’s citing of a rabbinical debate in the Mishnah about the correct time for reciting the Shema prayer is not a good example of “right-brain” thinking in any event.
CHAPTER TWO
A Fistful of Fallacies
A. Some Atheist Fallacies
The Fallacy of the Kalahari Polar Bear
A good example of this fallacy from Christopher Hitchens on Northern Ireland.
I have named this fallacy after the following scenario, which perfectly encapsulates it: Two strangers share a compartment on a train travelling across the Kalahari Desert. Every now and then the one man takes a small tin from his pocket and sprinkles some yellow powder from it out of the window. His fellow traveller eventually allows his curiosity to get the better of him. “I hope you will not consider me rude,” he says, “but could you possibly tell me what that yellow powder is?” “Oh,” replies the other, “this is a miracle powder. It keeps polar bears at bay.” “Polar bears? But this is the Kalahari Desert. There are no polar bears here.” “Exactly. You see how effective it is!”
The logical sequence of this nonsensical argument goes like this:
This yellow powder keeps polar bears at bay.
There are no polar bears here now.
So the yellow powder is effective.
This is not a valid argument, because the absence of polar bears is not necessarily the result of the sprinkling of the yellow powder. It could be the result of any one or more of a number of factors. The polar bears may all have been eaten by dinosaurs; the polar bears may have died from dehydration in the desert sun; or there may never have been any polar bears there in the first place — which of course is the true reason.
Christopher Hitchens repeatedly fell into this kind of error in his “religion kills” spree, blaming religion, for example, for the “mayhem” in Northern Ireland.77 However, as was shown in Chapter 1, the conflict was political both in its origin and in its essence and was solved when the religious shrillness was taken out of it.
Northern Ireland is not an isolated example. In many other parts of the world as well, ethnic, national or political differences have been expressed in religious terms without being caused by religious differences. This is the explanation, for example, of why Northern Germany is Protestant and Southern Germany Catholic, or why, when Northern Germany went Protestant, Poland remained staunchly Catholic while Russia expressed its national spirit through the Russian Orthodox Church.
The Best Butter Fallacy
A choice example of this fallacy from Richard Dawkins on Islam
The title that I have given to this fallacy comes from the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. The March Hare had tried to repair the Hatter’s watch with butter. The following conversation then ensues:
“I told you butter wouldn’t suit the works!” he [the Hatter] added looking angrily at the March Hare. “It was the best butter,” the March Hare meekly replied. “Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,“ the Hatter grumbled: “you shouldn’t have put it in with the bread-knife.” The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily: then he dipped it into his cup of tea, and looked at it again: but he could think of nothing better to say than his first remark, “It was the best butter, you know.”
The quality of the butter was of course completely irrelevant to the success or failure of the repair of the watch. This type of logical error, known in Latin as ignoratio elenchi, or “ignorance of the nature of refutation”, was first identified by the Greek philosopher and polymath Aristotle. Alternatively, the March Hare’s error may simply be classified as a non sequitur (“it does not follow”), meaning that the conclusion does not follow from the premise.
Richard Dawkins fell into a logical error of this kind after making the sweeping statement, “I regard Islam as one of the great evils in the world.” When challenged, Dawkins admitted that he hadn’t read the Koran. Having shot himself in the foot, he then proceeded to shoot himself in the head by means of this fallacious argument: “Of course you can have an opinion about Islam without having read Qur’an. You don’t have to read Mein Kampf to have an opinion about Nazism.”78 This is essentially a “best butter” defence, because the place of Mein Kampf in Nazism is simply not comparable to the importance of the Koran to Islam. The Koran is Islam’s blueprint and its place is right at the heart of the religion.
Dawkins’s defence of his position on this point is also a good example of an Argument by False Analogy, because it presupposes that Mein Kampf is as central to Nazism as the Koran is to Islam — which is simply not the case.
The Bophocles Fallacy
An amusing example of this fallacy is provided by Dawkins’s attempt to enlist the non-atheist Einstein posthumously in support of atheism.
I have named this fallacy after the following apocryphal tale: It used to be possible for undergraduates at certain Oxford colleges to borrow from the Porter’s Lodge tutorial essays composed by previous generations of students. The story goes that a college athlete with little time or aptitude for reading borrowed such an essay on Greek Tragedy. The essay was written in a round hand in which a capital “S” could easily be mistaken for a “B”. In reading the essay out aloud to his tutor in time-honoured Oxford fashion, the unfortunate student, not knowing any better, kept repeating, “Bophocles said… And Bophocles said… And Bophocles…” His tutor, who by now was practically apoplectic, eventually burst out, “Don’t you mean Sophocles?” “Well, Sir,” replied the hapless student, “but it says here ‘Bophocles’.” The student’s defence was an argument from authority. In his case, of course, the “authority” was false because he had misread it.
Arguments from authority are frequently e
ncountered in academic disputes, and they are not necessarily unmeritorious. However, citing authority can’t be a substitute for reasoned argument — and it is of course essential that the authority actually supports the proposition in favour of which it is being cited!
A handwritten letter penned by Albert Einstein in 1954 was eagerly fastened on by Dawkins, who opined: “[T]his letter finally confirms that Einstein was, in every realistic sense of the word, an atheist” (Richard Dawkins Foundation website). The letter in question is described in a headline on the Richard Dawkins Foundation old website as “Albert Einstein’s historic 1954 ‘God Letter’ handwritten shortly before his death.”
So anxious was Dawkins to enlist Einstein in the ranks of atheism that, when the letter was auctioned in 2008, Dawkins in his own words “made a futile attempt to buy it as a gift for the Richard Dawkins Foundation”. The letter was sold again on eBay in 2012 for over $3 million. “I hope that whoever wins this auction”, wrote Dawkins, “will display it prominently, complete with translations into English and other languages.”79
Why all this fuss about one short letter? Chiefly because the letter contains this sentence: “The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.”80
However, this one sentence taken in isolation cannot possibly trump the accumulated evidence of Einstein’s religious views — from his writings, correspondence and interviews — which make it quite plain that Einstein was no atheist.
The 1954 letter in context
How then are we to explain the sentence in the 1954 letter that appears to give support to the idea that Einstein was an atheist? Dawkins quotes only extracts from the letter, but in order to understand it it is important to read the whole letter, and preferably in the original German. It’s only a page long in any case!
It’s important to realise that this was a private letter written to a certain Eric Gutkind, a radical Jewish religious philosopher and activist. Einstein didn’t know Gutkind personally, but Gutkind had sent Einstein a copy of his book Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt, and Einstein only read the book on the “repeated suggestion” of a mutual friend, L.E.J. Brouwer.
The “God sentence” in the letter can’t be read in isolation. It comes straight after a reference to “Brouwer’s suggestion”: “[W]ithout Brouwer’s suggestion, I would never have engaged with your book in detail, because it is written in language which is inaccessible to me.” Then comes the “God sentence”.
From this we can see that Einstein’s remark in the letter about the word “God” is not about the word “God” generally but refers specifically to the way the word “God” was used in Gutkind’s book — and Gutkind’s view of God was of a highly personal God active in the day-to-day affairs of the world.
What the 1954 letter really means
So, what Einstein was saying in this 1954 letter is that he didn’t believe in a personal God — something that he had been saying repeatedly for many years. Einstein didn’t mention his belief in an impersonal God — which is equally well documented — because in this letter Einstein is not setting out his religious philosophy but is merely responding briefly to Gutkind’s views.
Einstein’s belief in an impersonal God
In short, therefore, this 1954 letter is of no particular significance and certainly does not represent a deathbed conversion to atheism! (It wasn’t even written “shortly before” Einstein’s death, as the atheists like to say: Einstein lived for more than 15 months after writing the letter.) The letter is of a piece with all the other evidence we have of Einstein’s religious views: rejection of a personal God coupled with belief in an impersonal God.
Comical disquiet
The spectacle of Richard Dawkins chasing after an unremarkable letter in the desperate hope of belatedly recruiting Albert Einstein to the atheist cause is faintly comical. But it is also disquieting. Here’s why:
If Dawkins is as sure of the correctness of his views as he claims, it should make no difference to him whether Albert Einstein (or any other big name) agrees with him or not.
And, if Dawkins’s views are wrong, Einstein’s endorsement won’t make them right.
Dawkins’s selective quotation from the letter is worrying — especially as he omitted to quote the run-up to the “God” passage, which puts it in context and shows that Dawkins’s interpretation of the letter is wrong.
Dawkins insists that the 1954 letter shows that “in every realistic sense of the word” Einstein was an atheist. Yet Einstein’s numerous statements of belief make it clear that he was not an atheist in a “realistic” or any other sense of the word.
Einstein: “I am not an Atheist”
In an interview published in 1930 Einstein stated categorically: “I am not an Atheist.” Einstein then goes on to draw an evocative simile comparing the human mind to a child finding itself in a vast library. Here’s the whole passage:
Your question [about God] is the most difficult in the world. It is not a question I can answer simply with yes or no. I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist.
The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, towards God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza’s Pantheism. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things.81
Einstein here peremptorily rejects the atheist label, but he leaves open the possibility of defining himself as a pantheist. Pantheism (from the Greek pan, meaning “all” and theos, meaning “God”) covers a variety of beliefs but is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as: “The religious belief or philosophical theory that God and the universe are identical (implying a denial of the personality and transcendence of God); the doctrine that God is everything and everything is God.” Baruch Spinoza (1632–77) is commonly associated with pantheism, but Einstein’s view of Spinoza’s God is closer to deism than to pantheism.
As Einstein wrote to a rabbi in 1929: “I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals himself in the harmony of all that exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.”82
Einstein angry with atheists
Einstein was actually angry with atheists who tried to claim him as one of their own. His precise words as quoted by Prince Hubertus were: “In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views” (emphasis added).83 And again: “[T]he fanatical atheists… are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who — in their grudge against the traditional ‘opium of the people’ — cannot bear the music of the spheres.”84
Albert Einstein famously declared that he did not believe in a personal God, which he regarded as a “childlike” or “naïve” belief, but he also indicated that he would never combat such a belief, because “such a belief seems to me preferable to the lack of any transcendental outlook”.85 Another oft-quoted
remark of Einstein’s is that “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”86
It is hard to disagree with the simple commonsense rationality of Einstein’s position — and it is worth contrasting the genuine humility of this truly great mind with the arrogance of the champions of a belief in a personal God on the one hand, and of the advocates of atheism on the other.
B. Some Pro-Religion Fallacies
Argument from False Premise
In his book The Great Partnership, Emeritus Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks presents an argument based on two incorrect premises. An argument based on a false premise is completely invalid but may look formally valid. Here’s an example:
All fruits are poisonous
Apples are fruits
So apples are poisonous
In terms of formal logic, this syllogism, as it is called, appears to be valid. However, in real terms it is obviously false. The first statement (technically known as the “major premise”) is factually incorrect, which is enough to invalidate the conclusion.
An even more egregious error arises when both the major premise and the second statement (the “minor premise”) are both factually incorrect:
All fruits are poisonous
God Without Religion Page 5