I recently listened to a discourse given by Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and professor at Cambridge University, as well as the author of The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion. Professor Dawkins has been at the forefront of evolutionary science, helping to steer it into the 21st century, and in recent years has become an outspoken critic of religion, Intelligent Design or Creationism, and a leading figure in the New Atheism.
The discourse was intended to encourage all atheists to become more vocal, outspoken, and adopt a form of “militant atheism” as he put it, in order to fight the incursion of religion, and Theism in general, into politics and science. Throughout the discourse Professor Dawkins mixed theories, hypothesis, and accepted facts of the scientific, in particular the evolutionary science, communities with blanket statements of religion and nuclear examples of religious individuals in an attempt to mock, discredit, and trivialize not only faith, but any who have it. At one point Professor Dawkins poses the question, “Is religion correlated with IQ?” and theorizes that individuals of higher intelligence, meaning, higher IQ's and levels of education, are less likely to be religious. His not so subtle take on the matter is that the higher one's IQ, the less likely they are to believe in the tooth-fairy, unicorns, and God. The more subtle inference to this conclusion would be that those of lower intelligence and levels of education are more likely to believe in supernatural things such as revelation and faith rather than “evidence”.
Now, to be fair, the majority of those who have spoken out against theories such as evolution and in favor of theories of Creationism or Natural Design, have done so in a manner similar to how Professor Dawkins attacks religion. The bases of the Creationist's reasoning for the existence of a Creator is in the statistical improbability of human evolution from primordial ooze to man, that is, that the probability is so small, the only other explanation is that man was created by God. This reasoning however is not only offensive to the logical mind of a scientist, but should be offensive to the believer in a god. The fact of the matter is that no matter how improbable a situation, if there is even the smallest of chances it could happen, with enough time, it will happen. What are the odds of winning the lottery? Pretty slim, right? Yet there are winners, every year! In the theory of evolution, scientists simply contest that it took hundreds of billions of years for everything to fall into place. As for a believer in God or a Creator goes, to reason that because evolution is statistically improbable, God must be real, is like reasoning that because I can't find my car, it must have been taken by aliens. The exclusion of the one doesn't necessarily make the other true. Any true believer in God should understand and accept that such a belief must be based on faith. If you can reason your way in to God, you can reason your way out of God.
Professor Dawkins chose to respond to the issue of statistical improbability of evolution in this way, “Any designer capable of designing something really complex, has to be even more complex himself. And that's before we even start on the other things he's expected to do, like forgive sins, bless marriages, listen to prayers, favor our side in a war, disapprove of our sex lives, and so on. Complexity is the problem that any theory of biology has to solve, and you can't solve it by postulating an agent that is even more complex, thereby simply compounding the problem.”
With the exception of Professor Dawkins' first sentence, I believe this conclusion to be not only inherently flawed, but extraordinarily arrogant. Since the birth of science, if there is one thing that has been universal, it is that there is more to be discovered. Theories held as facts just fifty years ago have been proven today to have been wrong! A thousand years ago we knew that the sun was the center of the universe; six hundred years ago we knew that the earth was flat; roughly one hundred years ago we knew that atoms were the smallest forms of molecules possible; and today we know that human evolution is fact and that there is no being who could possibly be greater, or more complex, than us. Ultimately, science is in search of truth; of things as they are. Isn't that what religion is? Alright, maybe that isn't what religion has become, but isn't that what religion was meant to be? An explanation or set of doctrines and teachings to instruct us on things as they are? And if science and religion are both in search of discovering things as they are, shouldn't they be coming to the same conclusions?
I do, however, agree with Professor Dawkins' first sentence. “Any designer capable of designing something really complex, has to be even more complex himself.” It's too bad that rather than expounding on the meaning of this sentence, Professor Dawkins chooses to turn back to mocking and making light of religious beliefs and teachings. If I may, what Professor Dawkins should have said is this:
If there were a being with the intelligence, power, and ability to create not only beings as complex and diverse as humans, but all manner of life upon the earth from animal life, to insects, to plant and vegetation, and if such a being were knowledgeable and capable enough to create a sphere upon which such creatures could reside with the proper levels of breathable air, food and water, and the ability to multiply within their own species, and if such a being were further able to create an entire system wherein such a sphere, along with other spheres, would rotate and travel not only on its own axis but also by way of gravitational pull and centrifugal force around a massive source of light and warmth thus providing life to the aforementioned inhabited sphere, without getting too close to the source of warmth and light to burn up nor too far away to freeze, and if there were such a being who could further duplicate this process of creating planetary systems over and over and over, that such a being would have no concern whatsoever for a race of creatures, let alone one individual creature, of such inferior intelligence, power, and abilities, regardless of whether or not they are the creation of his own hands. Think of the amount of care we humans have for nanobes, nanoarchaeums, and eukaryotes (a few of the smallest microorganisms discovered on earth). The majority of the world doesn't even know they exist, let alone care about what they are, what they do, or what happens to them. The reason being isn't because they are small, we know about viruses and bacteria and they are small, the reason we don't care or know about these microorganisms is because they don't effect us in any way, our level of intelligence is so much superior to theirs, and our own abilities surpass theirs to such an extent, that they are to us, completely and totally insignificant. Finally, such a being both powerful and intelligent enough to have created everything that is, would not need constant reminders and reassurances, or praise and worship, from such inferior beings as us. He would know that He is God, and what not need us to acknowledge it.
This is what Professor Dawkins meant by “Any designer capable of designing something really complex, has to be even more complex himself.” And to be perfectly honest, I agree with the statement. I see no reason such a being would even know about us...unless, He, despite all His power and intelligence, abilities and grandeur, has a vested interest in us. Unless we are more than another creation among billions. Unless He created us for a specific purpose which He desires that we achieve. And, unless He still has the ability to care, to love, and to mourn. There must be, still, an attachment between such a Deity, and us. Such a bond must be stronger than Maker to creation, and more profound than merely God to man. And the end result must be greater and more purposeful than an eternity of giving praise and adoration, even if it is in paradise! For such a being as God to care about us, we must be meant for more than what we currently are, and there must be a reason, no doubt tied to this destiny, for why we are here. It is in our nature as humans to believe in something greater than us, to hope that there is a purpose to our lives, and somehow, I believe, not even the atheists believe this life is the end. It is at this juncture that science must leave us, for it is both unable and unwilling to search in this realm any further. To faith we must turn, and to religion, it being the other great seeker of truth.
And so, let the various religions of the world stand and be counted. Can any provide doctrine and teachings necessary to answer the God problem? Are there any which see beyond the limited view of this world alone? Is there one that can answer the age old questions, and ultimately reveal our true nature, as well as God's; where did we come from? why are we here? and where are we going? Any religion that cannot satisfactorily answer these questions does not have a leg to stand on! Any religion that denies either the power and intelligence or mercy and love a being such as God would of necessity possess cannot be the one that teaches truth! Any religion or doctrine that has imagined to itself a God without body parts or passions has created a being without the ability to move, to act, to love, or to care and therefore does not have the ability to save itself, let alone anyone else!
I see no other explanation to the God problem than this, that God is a physical being fully possessive of emotion, that He has attained to a level of intelligence and power far greater than anything we can at this time imagine, that we are tied to Him, not merely as Creator to man, but as Parent to child, and that it is this relationship that not only explains his attention to us but the possibilities of our existence. And further, that God is not concerned with only our planet and the inhabitants thereof, but of all His creations in what, because of the magnitude of his knowledge and power, must be literally worlds without number.
In all of my studies, and they have been many, from the Jewish to the Judea o-Christian, from Hindu to Muslim, and from Buddhist to Atheist, I have found no religion which can not only resolve the God problem, but expound on every aspect of it, other than The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is on this conclusion that I rest, and where the world must investigate and judge for itself. Science cannot prove it, reason cannot justify it, there is only faith which can confirm it. I invite everyone to visit www.mormon.org and decide for themselves.
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