Friday, September 14, 2007 | Reason : Commentary | print version

Review of Darwin's Angel

by Peter Stanford

Reposted from:
http://arts.independent.co.uk/books/reviews/article2959467.ece

Anyone who writes or cares about religion will have questioned of late whether they should attempt some sort of answer to the current bout of God-bashing dominating the bestsellers' chart. The caricature of all church-goers as simple-minded fundamentalists provided by Richard Dawkins, and the sheer factual inaccuracy of Christopher Hitchens's rant, God Is Not Great, deserve a decent response. But how to fashion it? First, you need a catchy title. God Is Sort of Alright Some of the Time If You Don't Take Him/Her Too Literally doesn't quite do it. Then there is the insatiable taste for negatives. A qualified positive is unlikely to catch the imagination.

And what of content, since in many ways the language of religion and science simply don't go together? This is where John Cornwell comes in. A former seminarian turned non-believer and now a typically wavering Catholic who, in Graham Greene's phrase, doubts his own doubts, he writes successfully on religion. But he is also director of the Science and Human Dimension Project at Jesus College, Cambridge.

His title - Darwin's Angel - is robust enough. He manages a healthy dose of negatives. He accuses Dawkins, for example, of "substituting yourself for God". But the core is his dismantling of Dawkins's answers and sources. Perhaps the most telling point is just how small and self-serving was the reading list for The God Delusion.

Cornwell does, however, start to get sucked in to Dawkins's fact-based approach. And religion is hard to fit in to that agenda, for it simply isn't about facts. The basic premise that has dominated our world since the scientific enlightenment is that unless you can put something under a microscope and prove it is what it says it is, you can't believe in it. Religion fails utterly this test. You cannot prove God exists because religion is not primarily about belief, as we understand the word today, but faith. Dawkins would call it blind faith. It is an intuition, a sense of something more than meets the eye, a glimpse of transcendence, of a higher purpose, but nothing more tangible.

Quite how you capture it in a book is a challenge that most religious writers fail to answer. In the meantime, Cornwell has done an excellent job in providing a book that should, in an ideal world, be sold taped to every copy of The God Delusion as an essential corrective.

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1. Comment #70131 by jimbob on September 14, 2007 at 7:34 am

Oops, there goes #9 again!

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2. Comment #70132 by fonex_86 on September 14, 2007 at 7:36 am

Cornwell does, however, start to get sucked in to Dawkins's fact-based approach.

Yeah, we don't want facts that contradict our warm, fuzzy beliefs in the Invisible Sky Daddy or the Flying Jewish Zombie!

Keep the delusions coming...!

And religion... simply isn't about facts.

Well, at least he got THAT right...

Quite how you capture it in a book is a challenge that most religious writers fail to answer.

... most...??? I'd say all of them fail -- after all, how DOES a drug addict capture the "glimpse of transcendence" bestowed by a healthy dose of crack?

In the meantime, Cornwell has done an excellent job in providing a book that should, in an ideal world, be sold taped to every copy of The God Delusion as an essential corrective.

Isn't it the other way around? Fleas are fleas are fleas, after all.

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3. Comment #70133 by BAEOZ on September 14, 2007 at 7:39 am

The caricature of all church-goers as simple-minded fundamentalists provided by Richard Dawkins

Lie number 1. RD doesn't tar all believers with the same brush.

Perhaps the most telling point is just how small and self-serving was the reading list for The God Delusion.

More ample than the reading list or primary source of all believers. After all, they base their beliefs in a single "good"* book.

Dawkins's fact-based approach. And religion is hard to fit in to that agenda, for it simply isn't about facts.

First truth, religion isn't about facts nor truth.

Religion fails utterly this test.

Never a more succint phrase has been spoken.

You cannot prove God exists because religion is not primarily about belief

He forgot to add that it's faith without evidence. But he's right, you can't prove god, again he forgot fairies too. Why can't you prove them with a book? Why?

Dawkins would call it blind faith.

Would he? I don't know, but the author has his the proverbial nail on the head anyway....

It is an intuition, a sense of something more than meets the eye, a glimpse of transcendence, of a higher purpose, but nothing more tangible.

So is mental illnesss? This is an argument against faith?

*Not guaranteed to be good nor no warranty of after life implied.

Other Comments by BAEOZ

4. Comment #70134 by hfaber on September 14, 2007 at 7:41 am

"The basic premise that has dominated our world since the scientific enlightenment is that unless you can put something under a microscope and prove it is what it says it is, you can't believe in it."

Nonsense. Parallel universes and superstrings in the 11th dimension have never directly been observed but there is solid science about this stuff. Logic is the part that is lacking in the above citation. Religion utterly fails the test of logic.

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5. Comment #70137 by _J_ on September 14, 2007 at 7:45 am

I love this. 'Religion...simply isn't about facts'. That should be used as a blurb quote on future editions of Cornell's book. And perhaps on the Bible.

It also pretty much spoils Stanford's own dream of seeing Darwins' Angel 'sold taped to every copy of The God Delusion'. As a collection of notes propping up something that 'simply isn't about facts', it surely belongs in the literary criticism section.

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6. Comment #70138 by ClemIsMe on September 14, 2007 at 7:47 am

I grew up around addicts and enablers. Why, when I read critiques of the current tide of atheist literature, do I hear so many echoes? Must be me.

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7. Comment #70140 by steve99 on September 14, 2007 at 7:48 am

And religion is hard to fit in to that agenda, for it simply isn't about facts.

Of course it is. When I was a Catholic and we recited the Nicene Creed it was an expression of what we believed to be true, not a vague reference to myths we kind of liked.

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8. Comment #70143 by BAEOZ on September 14, 2007 at 7:50 am

ClemIsMe:

I grew up around addicts and enablers. Why, when I read critiques of the current tide of atheist literature, do I hear so many echoes? Must be me.

There's a lot of that going around this site. Every time you shut a faith head down (which means he stops talking to you, he doesn't examine his faith to see where the error in logic is), another pops up and says the same line you just debunked like he just thought of it.....What comes around, goes around.....

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9. Comment #70145 by n0rr1s on September 14, 2007 at 7:57 am

Cornwell does, however, start to get sucked in to Dawkins's fact-based approach. And religion is hard to fit in to that agenda, for it simply isn't about facts.

So he is either a deist or a believer in a god of the gaps - weak positions in my opinion, but we can't disprove them. But I think that ends the discussion, so long as he doesn't start to extend his god into the natural world where it does contradict the facts.

You cannot prove God exists because religion is not primarily about belief, as we understand the word today, but faith. Dawkins would call it blind faith. It is an intuition, a sense of something more than meets the eye, a glimpse of transcendence, of a higher purpose, but nothing more tangible.

Come on, that's just dishonest. The beliefs of the religious are far more concrete than that. I can empathise with someone who says they have "a sense of something more than meets the eye", but to use this to claim there is a god, and he wants me to behave in a certain way, and that praying to him causes him to intervene in my life, and that I'm going to heaven when I die, that miracles occur, and so on... To claim all those precise statements on the basis of intuition is clearly ridiculous.

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10. Comment #70151 by drive1 on September 14, 2007 at 8:06 am

the sheer factual inaccuracy of Christopher Hitchens's rant

For instance? Go on .. just one example would be nice for all us fact-obsessives.

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11. Comment #70154 by n0rr1s on September 14, 2007 at 8:09 am

At risk of going off topic...

4. Comment #70134 by hfaber

Parallel universes and superstrings in the 11th dimension have never directly been observed but there is solid science about this stuff. Logic is the part that is lacking in the above citation. Religion utterly fails the test of logic.

The difference between the strings in other dimensions and the assertions of religions is that string theory will be tested when we have the technology, and will stand or fall based on those tests. It is interesting that you mention parallel universes, because I think they belong in the same category as religions: they can, in principle, never be tested, and so have no place in science.

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12. Comment #70166 by irate_atheist on September 14, 2007 at 8:27 am

My review of the above review:

Another load of ignorant tripe written by another pillock who doesn't know what he's talking about.

Was I close?

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13. Comment #70174 by Robert Maynard on September 14, 2007 at 8:46 am

*ringring*
"Great review, Stanford. Here's an advance, would you be interested in expanding that five paragraph review into a book, taking on those atheist buggers? New content? God, no! Research? Don't make me laugh. I would recommend just making shit up as you go along. HEY, hows this for an idea - write it from the perspective, of.. say.. Jesus! No no, hear me out! Write it from the perspective of Jesus, in agony on the cross, saying things like "Oh, religion is child abuse, eh Dawkins? Religion causes suffering? I'd be inclined to agree with you - BECAUSE I'M SUFFERING UNCEASING AGONY FOR YOUR SINS."
Trust me, that'd be great. Okay? Great. Can I expect a draft on my desk in eight weeks?"

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14. Comment #70176 by PeterK on September 14, 2007 at 8:47 am

Irate Atheist--

I would say "bang on"

What I find incredible is how these defenders of faith are able to create new sides of their mouths to speak from. These attacks on the "New Atheists" are becoming odder and odder as the months go by.

oh yes, and this concluding gem :

"....an essential corrective."

Give me a flipping break

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15. Comment #70178 by 601 on September 14, 2007 at 8:54 am

...Dawkins's fact-based approach. And religion is hard to fit in to that agenda, for it simply isn't about facts.

This has to be my favourite flea review to date. This shows we have gotten a foot in the door, and the house of cards is teetering.

Other Comments by 601

16. Comment #70179 by PeterK on September 14, 2007 at 8:54 am

Sounds like he's desperately crying out for someone from his side to intellectually take on Hitchens, Dawkins et al.

Trouble is, anyone as intelligent and knowledgeable as these men wouldn't be ON his side.

Other Comments by PeterK

17. Comment #70180 by Buddha on September 14, 2007 at 9:00 am

I wouldn't have expected an impartial review from Peter Stanford. He's a former editor of The Catholic Herald.

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18. Comment #70182 by jimbob on September 14, 2007 at 9:16 am

"the sheer inaccuracy of Hitchin's rant" tweaked another nerve in me too. It reminded me of Donohue's incessant charge that The Missionary Possition book has no reference citations (see also 08-24 entry at: http://www.catholicleague.org/chatterbox.php for more of the same.

In each case (especially when you go ahead-to-head with Donohue again Hitch!) the responding challenge should be "OK, just what is not accurate?"

The bee in my bonnet about "Oops, there goes #9 again" is largely because us (supposedly amoral) atheists keep missing easy opportunities to nail the lies of the religious zealots.

When Donohue invited Hitch to continue the debate outside, a comment about how easily religious folks resort to violence wouldn't have gone amiss either.

Not altogether direct comment of Stanford's piece -- but perhaps pertinent to the underlying issues?

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19. Comment #70185 by Steven Mading on September 14, 2007 at 9:25 am

from the article:

Oh No! - a fact-based approach - how dreadful!

The most disgusting thing about religion is how it tries to defend itself by doing the following convenient switch between objective and subjective modes: When excercising its power, telling people how to live their lives, it's doing so (whether it's honest enough to admit it or not) on the basis that its claims about reality are objectively true, that there really is a god, that the prophet of the religion really said the things he alleged to say, that the revelations of that prophet really did come from an actual god, and so on. BUT, as soon as someone comes along to question all of that and cast doubt on it, then the religion's adherents switch to subjective mode and claim the religion is actually in the realm of the subjective and therefore it's all just a matter of fuzzy opinion and all these complaints about literal truth aren't relevant.

To defenders of a religion, I'd like to say, "It cannot be simultaneously subjective and objective. PICK ONE OR THE OTHER and stick to it! and stop trying to dishonestly pretend you can switch it when it's convenient. If you want to call it subjective when defending it because that makes it convenient, then FINE, but that also means you cannot claim it has anything useful to say about our shared reality whatsoever, because the only reality that we can both share is that part of it that's objective.

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20. Comment #70186 by irate_atheist on September 14, 2007 at 9:26 am

1: Prufrock -

What I'd like to see are strongly worded responses from both RD and CH to The Independent about the defamatory remarks made in this so-called book review about their well researched books.

If, as I suspect, more people read the letters page then the book reviews, an own goal by the faith-heads seems to be on the cards.

2: Peter K -

What amazes me even more is how they can still be audible when sat down. Geddit?

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21. Comment #70188 by USA_Limey on September 14, 2007 at 9:31 am

Well, I took that as an admission that religion is all about having a nice warm fuzzy feeling inside that makes you feel good but you can't find any good reason for. Or is there another way of interpreting this:

It's nice when they make your arguments for you, but frustrating of course that they don't realize they are doing it.

__________________________________________________

Carousel is a lie! There is no renewal!

~ Logan

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22. Comment #70189 by Dr Benway on September 14, 2007 at 9:40 am

This is my favorite one of these things yet. The author says, essentially, that Dawkins is an idiot for not realizing that religious people are actually atheists.

Brilliant.

edit: just noticed I'm saying exactly the same as others above!

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23. Comment #70197 by NJS on September 14, 2007 at 10:00 am

Apart from the admitted "hole in the sheet" thing, can someone list the alleged factual innaccuarcies in Hitchens' book?

I finished it last week and found the amount of "facts" overwhelming at the time so can't believe this idiot has checked the truth of each and every one.

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24. Comment #70202 by phasmagigas on September 14, 2007 at 10:16 am

stanford is taking the piss yes??

'Cornwell does, however, start to get sucked in to Dawkins's fact-based approach'

SUCKED in?, like its something bad.

'for it simply isn't about facts'Religion fails utterly this test'

agreed.

' Cornwell has done an excellent job in providing a book that should, in an ideal world, be sold taped to every copy of The God Delusion as an essential corrective.'

corrective??? and this being composed the following:'It is an intuition, a sense of something more than meets the eye, a glimpse of transcendence, of a higher purpose, but nothing more tangible'

ie BS.

this write up is a piss take, it has to be.

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25. Comment #70207 by Northern Bright on September 14, 2007 at 10:46 am

I've already made my views of Darwin's Angel clear on the Honest Mistakes or Willful Mendacity thread, so I won't repeat them again here ...

... but I will just add that the jibe about the shortness of the reading list for TGD is exceedingly rich, given that Darwin's Angel doesn't contain a reading list at all! Just a single paragraph of Acknowledgements that refer to 1) a handful of individuals who were helpful in putting it together, 2) two journal articles that helped shaped his argument and 3) the recommendation to read 4 further books.

Still, since Cornwell's whole message can be pretty well summed up in the phrase "That Richard Dawkins gets right up my nose", and that comes through loud and clear on every page, maybe other references weren't required.

As I read Darwin's Angel, I was struck by how outraged Cornwell was by any attempt to pin religion down, to describe it, to define it, let alone to challenge it.

In his determination to place his religion well beyond the reach of anything tangible (and therefore to keep it safe from science and the demand for evidence), he virtually strips it of anything that might actually be called a belief at all.

He goes much, much further, for instance, than your average liberal Christian who is perfectly at ease with evolution and other non-literal interpretations of the Bible (in fact, Cornwell would have us believe that it is only an insignificant proportion of religious believers who take a literal view of anything in the Bible at all).

Rather astonishingly, at various points in the book, he claims that God isn't even supernatural; and that Christians don't actually believe in life after death (they may "hope" for it, he says, but that's as far as it goes).

So when we've stripped away the long list of things that Cornwell wants us to believe that religion is NOT about, what are we left with? I'll let him tell you in his own words:

Why is there something rather than nothing?
That is the God-question.

That's it. Nothing else. Religion, according to Cornwell, isn't about the supernatural or the Bible or revelation or resurrection or life after death. It's not about liturgy or the struggle to be moral. It's all about the basic question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" and he seems to think that the answer can best be found by letting our imaginations run free, by trusting our intuitions, and by feeling rather than thinking.

You could say that science, too, is eager to find out "Why there is something rather than nothing". But this is where, having read Darwin's Angel and now Peter Stanford's review of it, the real incompatibility of science and religion becomes strikingly obvious: for where science seeks to UNRAVEL the mysteries of the universe, religion has a vested interest in keeping them mysterious.

Science and religion may both ask the questions - but science very annoyingly insists on providing the answers too. The unspoken plea in Darwin's Angel is to stop looking for answers, because it's eroding the space left for mystery. And heaven forfend that religion should ever be completely redundant.

Other Comments by Northern Bright

26. Comment #70210 by radiohead1000 on September 14, 2007 at 10:54 am

Prufrock:
I agree totally. We can only free people using our calm logic. Throwing insults will just make us appear agressive and they'll become defensive.

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27. Comment #70212 by Dr Benway on September 14, 2007 at 11:05 am

Imagine you're a soldier bunkered down in some trench and catching a glimpse of one of your mates passing crates of munitions over to the enemy. That must be how religious people feel when they read apologists like Stanford and Cornwell.

"Religion isn't about facts." Right through your own goal posts fellas. Much obliged!

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28. Comment #70213 by Northern Bright on September 14, 2007 at 11:19 am

29. Comment #70212 by Dr Benway on September 14, 2007 at 11:05 am

"Religion isn't about facts." Right through your own goal posts fellas. Much obliged!

I'm not sure about this, Dr Benway. I thought Darwin's Angel was an utterly despicable book, but that was because of its tortured logic, mangled language, and not even barely concealed malice. I actually think that, as a reflection of why believers believe, and how they view their belief, it was pretty close to the truth, and that could be why it has been welcomed so warmly by pro-religious reviewers.

I really do think that, for many believers, religion is something floaty and ethereal and literally "otherworldly" rather than an attempt at anything approaching rationality.

And if that's true, it's important for us to be aware of it, because our whole approach to arguing with them may need to change in order to take account of it.

That said, I do think Darwin's Angel is extremely Anglocentric. I recognise the ethereal nature of the belief system it describes in a way that someone brought up in a world of tele-evangelists quite possibly wouldn't!

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29. Comment #70216 by Richard Dawkins on September 14, 2007 at 11:38 am

I don't normally reply to reviews, but since this is technically a review of somebody else's book I gave in to the temptation and sent a letter in to The Independent this morning. It was much longer than my letters to newspapers usually are, so they probably won't print it. I'll post it here if they don't (well, and if they do, too), although, reading the comments on this thread, I find that most of my points have been admirably covered here anyway.

Richard

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30. Comment #70217 by Liveliest Crib on September 14, 2007 at 11:40 am

***Tearing my hair out***

The caricature of all church-goers as simple-minded fundamentalists provided by Richard Dawkins . . .

Dawkins never f@!king said anything of the sort, but the maddening frequency with which church-goers mutter this supposed retort makes me wonder just what percentage of them are simple-minded fundamentalists.

First, you need a catchy title. God Is Sort of Alright Some of the Time If You Don't Take Him/Her Too Literally doesn't quite do it.

Let me get this straight -- that doesn't make for a catchy title, but it's your honest conviction? Listen up, complex-minded, non-fundamentalist church-goers: Your persistence in your "faith" constitutes not a healthy command of nuance or the ability to integrate your humility and doubt into your religion. It is marked by manifest cognitive dissonance that causes you to feel emotionally slighted by Dawkins and to blurt out gibberish in response.

No, Dawkins just calls it faith. You're just upset that its defining attribute is blindness.

[Religion] is an intuition, a sense of something more than meets the eye, a glimpse of transcendence, of a higher purpose, but nothing more tangible.

Rubbish! The human brain has that intuition, that sense of the transcendent. Religion harnesses that sense in a manner that purports to be tangible truth until it is challenged for doing so, whereupon it requires its captives to lapse into faith-based, metaphysical claptrap characterized by fear and divisiveness. If you'd like to harness your awe, your sense of higher purpose and the transcendent in a healthy manner, or truly reveal that "more" than meets the eye, try on some science and moral philosophy for size. It will meet those needs beautifully -- unless, of course, you still need those more tangible fairy tales to comfort you on your complex-minded, non-fundamentalist path.

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31. Comment #70224 by Dr Benway on September 14, 2007 at 11:53 am

Northern Bright:

I'm not sure about this, Dr Benway.

Oh these blokes want to have their cake and eat it, too. They would be horrified to be called out as atheists.

But that's why it's fun to do just that.

Other Comments by Dr Benway

32. Comment #70225 by Lana on September 14, 2007 at 11:57 am

Wonderful posts, Northern Bright. Thank you for reading Darwin's Angel so I don't have to.

Other Comments by Lana

33. Comment #70226 by steve99 on September 14, 2007 at 12:02 pm

It is interesting that you mention parallel universes, because I think they belong in the same category as religions: they can, in principle, never be tested, and so have no place in science.

Sorry to continue an off-topic discussion; parallel universes can be tested, at least in principle. David Deutch has some interesting ideas about this, and future observations of the cosmic microwave background can test the ekpyrotic hypothesis, which assumes a parallel universe in a different spatial dimension.....

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34. Comment #70229 by tieInterceptor on September 14, 2007 at 12:24 pm

I wondered why a reviewer from The Independent would say "and the sheer factual inaccuracy of Christopher Hitchens's rant" so I googled the name,

wikipedia comes up with this,

Peter Stanford~ is a British writer, editor, journalist, and presenter. He writes for The Guardian, The Sunday Times, and The Independent on Sunday. He was editor of The Catholic Herald , and a regular contributor to the New Statesman. He has written many books, mainly biographies and books about religion.

?

WHAT where they thinking???

what's next? monkeys reviewing bananas?

.

Other Comments by tieInterceptor

35. Comment #70234 by Northern Bright on September 14, 2007 at 12:47 pm

what where they thinking? what's next? monkeys reviewing bananas?

I don't actually have a problem with The Independent using a writer on religion to review a book about religion, and I think Peter Stanford's review is 100 times better than either Salley Vickers' or Christopher Howse's. At least he hasn't been tempted down the path of writing more about his mistaken interpretation of TGD than about the book he's actually meant to be reviewing. Imagine - a whole review of Darwin's Angel that doesn't end up claiming that Dawkins is a closet Nazi! :-)

When he writes that religion isn't about facts and that "It is an intuition, a sense of something more than meets the eye, a glimpse of transcendence, of a higher purpose, but nothing more tangible", he is actually accurately representing Cornwell's position; his own too, no doubt, but I think many, many believers would recognise and relate to that stance.

And if that's the case, then I think it's actually quite helpful to have it out in the open so we all know exactly what we're dealing with.

After all, if a believer's reason for believing has more to do with how they FEEL than with how they THINK, we may need to adjust our arguments accordingly.

(Having said all that, wouldn't it be fun to see a review of Darwin's Angel written by Richard Dawkins!)

Other Comments by Northern Bright

36. Comment #70237 by Northern Bright on September 14, 2007 at 1:03 pm

Thank you for reading Darwin's Angel so I don't have to.

LOL! That almost has religious overtones, Lana. Consider it my act of substitution, atonement and redemption on your behalf. (And it's Friday too - how spooky is that?)

I must devise some ritual for you to carry out on a weekly basis to remember my sacrifice by. Three is the magic number so how about this: first bang your head against the wall three times; then tear out three of your hairs; and then finally, roll around the floor laughing for three minutes. Yes, I think that would give you a flavour of the original experience! :-)

Other Comments by Northern Bright

37. Comment #70243 by seals on September 14, 2007 at 1:52 pm

It is an intuition, a sense of something more than meets the eye, a glimpse of transcendence, of a higher purpose, but nothing more tangible.

End of a long, long day and maybe I'm not quite with it. I haven't read Cornwell's book (have no intention of doing so) but from this review, this sounds like Einstein's version of god - so what is all the fuss about? Surely many if not most people have had those moments of awe and wonder. I don't think TGD was written with this barely-there god in mind. It seems a very flimsy frame to hold the weight of all that biblical fire and brimstone stuff.

It reminds me of Rene in 'Allo 'Allo who whenever his wife catches him in flagrante delicto, calls her "You stupid woman!" and comes out with some preposterous explanation for his actions.

Other Comments by seals

38. Comment #70244 by Northern Bright on September 14, 2007 at 1:57 pm

I haven't read Cornwell's book (have no intention of doing so) but from this review, this sounds like Einstein's version of god - so what is all the fuss about?

Yes, I think you're probably right, seals. Turns out that Richard Dawkins and John Cornwell BOTH think that God's all in the imagination. Who would've thought it? ;-)

Other Comments by Northern Bright

39. Comment #70246 by tieInterceptor on September 14, 2007 at 2:02 pm

I agree Northern Bright that he does a good job of shooting himself on the foot with that review, but I still would prefer 'the Independent' to put someone to the job that does not have such a history

If I read a movie review, I would like to know that the reviewer does not work at the cinema.

what annoys me is that unless people goggle for the name, they would not known that he is definitely not an objective reviewer.

.

Other Comments by tieInterceptor

40. Comment #70249 by roach on September 14, 2007 at 2:24 pm

I find that intelligent and well-meaning theists often retreat to a deist/pantheist position when pressed about their beliefs. It's completely unfair and demonstrates why there really is no better option than attacking the ideas/scriptures themselves.

I think many religious moderates are private deists or pantheists (poetic atheists) who "belief in belief" but like the community aspect of religion. It really is a shame that there isn't a secular equivalent to religious community building. Although I actually think that most people go to church not to hear a priest read from the Bible but rather to see and talk with their friends and neighbors (or attend whatever fun and entertaining activity the church is putting on that week).

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41. Comment #70282 by mmurray on September 14, 2007 at 5:33 pm

Although I actually think that most people go to church not to hear a priest read from the Bible but rather to see and talk with their friends and neighbors (or attend whatever fun and entertaining activity the church is putting on that week)."

I think these people need to have a good hard look at themselves or better at what their church is doing in the wider world. If it is the Catholic Church then some of it eg aids and condoms in Africa is pretty ugly. By attending the Church they are, in my opinion, lending support to the political organisation. I wonder if any of the SS officers at the Nuremberg trials got away with saying they were just in the SS for the `glimpse of transcendence' or for the tea and scones (or beer and sausage?) after the big rallies.

Michael

Other Comments by mmurray

42. Comment #70284 by mmurray on September 14, 2007 at 5:50 pm

20. Comment #70185 by Steven Mading on September 14, 2007 at 9:25 am

Great comment. Speaking as someone dragged up a Catholic I find guys like this who would appear to be Catholic to be particularly infuriating. The Catholic Church has a long list of objective opinions about the real world and it is quite clear that it has no room for believers who just detect a vague whiff of deity in the air.

Michael

Other Comments by mmurray

43. Comment #70287 by Russell Blackford on September 14, 2007 at 6:03 pm

I look forward to reading Richard's letter. Meanwhile, this is a pretty dreadful review. It seems to be by someone who has either not read The God Delusion or (more likely) has not done so with an open mind.

It does matter whether any of the various wordviews offered by religion are actually correct. Does religion describe the house of reality or a castle in the sky?

I'm tired of commentators who think that religion is some kind of cuddly, touchy-feely social phenomenon with no epistemic content - no truth claims - and no designs on our rights. In the real world, religion claims authority to tell us how to live our lives and to tell governments what laws to enact. If its epistemic content cannot be justified, whence does it derive that authority?

At this point in human history, it's crucial that public intellectuals engage with religion's truth claims. Dawkins deserves praise for that. Actually ... Cornwell does, too! From what I've seen of Cornwell's views, he misrepresents Dawkins' work in a most unsavoury manner, and that should have been pointed out in the review (the review actually reproduces a ridiculous caricature of Dawkins rather than correcting it). In the penultimate para, Stanford is criticising Cornwell for the last thing about his project that merits criticism.

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44. Comment #70298 by NormanDoering on September 14, 2007 at 7:20 pm

...after all, how DOES a drug addict capture the "glimpse of transcendence" bestowed by a healthy dose of crack?

The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley is about his experiences with mescaline. And there's more than a "glimpse of transcendence."

Crack is just not a good psychedelic. If you want a religious experience, try LSD

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45. Comment #70299 by Theocrapcy on September 14, 2007 at 7:43 pm

Reply to Stanford:

"Anyone who writes or cares about religion will have questioned of late whether they should attempt some sort of answer to the current bout of God-bashing dominating the bestsellers' chart."

Stanford begins by aligning his righteous forces behind him, and he implies anyone with an interest in religion must be in favour of religion and against the new atheists. This is a seriously flawed assumption, as Dawkins et. al. obviously care and write about religion - but do so critically. Stanford is constructing his straw man from the start - or in this case more like a straw trojan horse.

"The caricature of all church-goers as simple-minded fundamentalists provided by Richard Dawkins, and the sheer factual inaccuracy of Christopher Hitchens's rant, God Is Not Great, deserve a decent response."

This is a strange combination of statements, which if make any sense at all are simply insults. I am unaware of Dawkins ever explicitly refering to all church goers as either simple-minded or fundamentalist - I think he is more understanding of people's desire for faith, but he does suggest that moderate religionists do open the door for fundamentalists. Maybe Stanford has let slip his own subconscious views on the flock? It is the basis of any good writing to cite evidence when making serious claims against a person's honesty - please clarify and back up your statements about Mr Hitchens, Mr Stanford.

"But how to fashion it? First, you need a catchy title. God Is Sort of Alright Some of the Time If You Don't Take Him/Her Too Literally doesn't quite do it. Then there is the insatiable taste for negatives. A qualified positive is unlikely to catch the imagination."

Probably the only part of this piece that I agree with.

"And what of content, since in many ways the language of religion and science simply don't go together? This is where John Cornwell comes in. A former seminarian turned non-believer and now a typically wavering Catholic who, in Graham Greene's phrase, doubts his own doubts, he writes successfully on religion. But he is also director of the Science and Human Dimension Project at Jesus College, Cambridge."

Wow! What an accolade. Stanford is so excited about Cornwell's vitriolic retort to Dawkins I can alomst believe he is sexually aroused by it. However, the most revealing point is not Stanford's rising testosterone on the mention of Cornwell, but the phrase "he writes successfully on religion". What are your criteria for success Mr Stanford? Dawkins' book has outsold all the fleas combined, probably by a factor of ten. Do you mean to say that a successful religious writer is one whom you can only agree with?

"His title - Darwin's Angel - is robust enough."

What is so robust about it? Dawkins did not name himself "Darwin's Rottweiler" (which no doubt the title of Cornwell's book toys with), it was given to him. Cornwell's self-assigned blandishment is more Cromwellian than Darwinian.

"He manages a healthy dose of negatives. He accuses Dawkins, for example, of "substituting yourself for God"."

A narrow accusation at best. Richard is a very humble man, but again we see the strategy of the religionist - attack the man not what he says.

"But the core is his dismantling of Dawkins's answers and sources. Perhaps the most telling point is just how small and self-serving was the reading list for The God Delusion."

This is just peurile gibberish with no cogent explanation.

"Cornwell does, however, start to get sucked in to Dawkins's fact-based approach. And religion is hard to fit in to that agenda, for it simply isn't about facts."

At last, we have a confession. That will be two `Hail Mary's` and five `How's Your Father's` Mr Stanford. We really see here the guts of the matter, the black pearl of truth that even the most vehement holy man cannot deny: the existence of facts. And because facts cannot be denied, they can only be derided and made inconsequential. Flying teapots anyone?

"The basic premise that has dominated our world since the scientific enlightenment is that unless you can put something under a microscope and prove it is what it says it is, you can't believe in it. Religion fails utterly this test."

The failure of religion to stand the scrutiny of scientific rigor is correct. Your assessment of science's premises is disingenuous.

"You cannot prove God exists because religion is not primarily about belief, as we understand the word today, but faith."

How else can the word "belief" be understood? Are you harking back to the good old days when belief meant "either believe or be burned"?

"Dawkins would call it blind faith."

A precise definition. It also sufficiently describes Santa Claus.

"It is an intuition, a sense of something more than meets the eye, a glimpse of transcendence, of a higher purpose, but nothing more tangible."

Dawkins deals with this kind of sense of intuition in his book as Einstein's God. Stanford is asking us to fill in the gaps with his own religion-branded god. I just wish he'd be honest about it and tell us exactly what he believes instead of opening false doors and stepping over the cracks in the pavement of his words.

"Quite how you capture it in a book is a challenge that most religious writers fail to answer."

Bingo.

"In the meantime, Cornwell has done an excellent job in providing a book that should, in an ideal world, be sold taped to every copy of The God Delusion as an essential corrective."

This is all a bit of an anti-climax, after having built up Cornwell so mightily as the saviour of religion against the heathenist forces of new atheism. But where is the argument?

Has Stanford even read either books? I leave you to fill in the gaps on that question. What we can probably agree on is that this review is very poorly written at the academic level and can therefore not be taken seriously.

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46. Comment #70326 by Flagellant on September 15, 2007 at 12:16 am

Nice piece of filleting, Theocrapcy (48). A very unsatisfactory review, from so many angles.

I have a tiny confession to make. I have 'liberated' a copy of Darwin's Angel. A quick perusal seems to suggest that it is as full of disinformation as poor Northern Bright says it is, here and elsewhere.

Unless you are a masochist, as I so clearly am, or an atheist libel lawyer, please have care with this book.

Religion - an activity for consenting adults in private.

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47. Comment #70349 by mmurray on September 15, 2007 at 2:57 am

"His title - Darwin's Angel - is robust enough."

What is so robust about it? Dawkins did not name himself "Darwin's Rottweiler" (which no doubt the title of Cornwell's book toys with), it was given to him.

According to Wikipedia the Darwin's Rottweiler label can be traced to an article

http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/WorldOfDawkins-archive/Media/seattle.shtml

by Roger Downey where he suggests it came from Charles Simonyi:

Evolution's first great advocate, 1860s biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, earned the nickname "Darwin's bulldog" from his fellow Victorians. In our own less decorous day, Dawkins deserves an even stronger epithet: "Darwin's Rottweiler, perhaps," Simonyi suggests. Now, thanks to Simonyi's gift of £1.5 million sterling to England's venerable Oxford University, the Rottweiler is unleashed.

Michael

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48. Comment #70358 by n0rr1s on September 15, 2007 at 3:53 am

steve99, thanks for pointing that out. I was under the impression that wherever parallel universes were proposed, they were causally disconnected from our own. It seems that's not the case, and I have some reading to do. Sorry for the misinformation.

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49. Comment #70380 by MakingBelieve on September 15, 2007 at 7:07 am

When I read Cornwell, Stanford, Vickers, etc. trying to defend religion, religious belief and faith, I end up thinking that they know full well that it is silly stories for the credulous. But, nod-nod-wink-wink, they must never admit that to each other or anyone else because they have a cynical 'ends-justifies-the-means' view of human sociology. The controlled become the controlling in a self-perpetuating web of fantasy.

For some people, the light-bulb eventually goes on and they 'lose their faith' - I would say 'gain their freedom'. There are powerful forces trying to keep that bulb dark.

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50. Comment #70382 by Russell Blackford on September 15, 2007 at 7:34 am

Dr Benway

Imagine you're a soldier bunkered down in some trench and catching a glimpse of one of your mates passing crates of munitions over to the enemy. That must be how religious people feel when they read apologists like Stanford and Cornwell.

But alas, I often feel the same way when I see people who claim to have no religious faith themselves tut-tutting about nasty, strident atheists, and calling for the preservation of warm, cuddly religious beliefs.

Thinking about it, there's something deeply offensive about their attitude, their idea that people who are restricted by a fundamentally false view of the world should be protected from finding out the truth. It's as if religionists are seen by these "I'm an atheist buts" as a quaint feature of the world left over from another time - something ornamental to be preserved for posterity, like a gorgeous Florentine cathedral or a Balinese ceremony - and not as real human beings who are entitled to the harsh, glorious, liberating truth and to opportunities to live their lives in accordance with it.

I realise that many religious folks are, if we look at the matter coldly, almost immune to the truth about their universe. Their belief in the supernatural is so ingrained, so central a part of their web of belief, that it may be impossible for practical purposes ever to get them to abandon it: huge components of their understanding would have to change first to make such a shift possible for then.

But that doesn't describe all of them. Even when it's true, surely it's something to regret, not something to celebrate, as many "I'm an atheist buts" seem to do. It's not something to justify making the job of speaking truth to religion even harder.

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