OUTGROWING GOD

Atheist proselyte and biologist Dawkins (Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist, 2017, etc.) sounds well-tested themes against the existence of supreme beings.

In the author’s view, religion is a species of “pigeon-like superstition,” something that parents tell children because their parents told them things were how they were because—well, because some god or gods made them so. In times past, we might have believed in pixies, sprites, or Olympian gods; now monotheistic strains of religion are the order of the day. Once a person learns about natural selection, writes Dawkins, things change. When it becomes clear that human DNA is, among other things, “a set of instructions for how to build a baby,” then some of the old mystery wears off and the thinking adult finds no need for belief in invisible deities. Dawkins scores some good points, observing, for instance, monotheism as practiced by Christianity and Islam is “rather suspect,” since its belief in an almost equal but opposite devil is ipso facto polytheistic, and the whole trinity thing of Christianity “sounds like a formula for squeezing polytheism into monotheism.” The author’s dismissal of religion, to say nothing of religious impulses, may well strike some readers as cavalier. And in some ways, his reasoning has not evolved substantially since he, as a former Church of England lad, decided that if he had been born to Vikings, he would be worshipping Odin, and if to Jewish parents, he would still be awaiting the messiah. In the end, Dawkins characterizes religion as fake news, the kind of thing that the internet proves daily—namely, that “people simply make stuff up.” A little Dawkins-ian snark—believers believe because ”they aren’t well educated in science”—goes a long way, but there’s plenty of food for thought here.

Dawkins sings to the choir, though like-minded unbelievers will find ample support for their beliefs—or lack thereof.