Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life [Paperback]

Reading many of the other reviews of this book, it's pretty clear that most had their minds made up before they ever opened it. I don't recognize in many of the hostile reviews the book that I read. This probably shows that both Dawkins and McGrath are inevitably preaching to the choir, to use a religious metaphor - that Dawkins (writing about religion) will persuade many zealous atheists, despite the (sometimes almost unbelievable!) superficiality of his analysis, and that McGrath will persuade many devout Christians, despite the circularity of some of his arguments.
So, having said all that, Dawkins' God is a lucidly written book, which homes in relentlessly on the weaknesses in Dawkins' treatment of religion - it's strength is that it covers a wide range of Dawkins' writings (rather than just book - a number of Amazon reviewers seem to have missed this, terming Dawkins' God a rebuttal of The God Delusion - read the footnotes!). Its weaknesses are threefold, I think.
First is that at times McGrath on Dawkins is guilty of the same sin as Dawkins on religion - he asserts without sufficient evidence. Yes, this is a short book, for general readers, but some more substantiation is needed of claims about the nature of faith. McGrath is doubtless right that many university-based theologians don't treat faith as simplistic, which is one of Dawkins' major arguments, and very annoying to the many Christians who do blend faith and reason. But there are also many religious people who DO have a very simple faith - and in fact many Christians, at any rate, are proud of that, and actively try to promote simple and simplistic faith, rejecting any use of reason or science. McGrath's characterization of the nature of Christian is not substantiated, in effect he says "It's so because I say it's so" - and thus he fails to acknowledge the complexity and nuances of the nature of religious faith is more complex. (Dawkins is, of course, exactly the same!)
The second weakness is that the writing, though lucid and attractive, is sometimes disorganised. The structure and transitions from one section to the next don't always make sense. This is not always the case and even when present it sometimes is only an irritation, but at times it's a serious weakness.
The chapter on the 'battle between science and religion' is an example - McGrath keeps asserting that in fact the idea that science and religion have always been in conflict is wrong - but he doesn't really substantiate that in his text (I'll come back to that in a minute) and just keeps repeating it, writing around and around in a circle. To be fair to McGrath, his notes cite a series of works on the history of the relationship between science and religion which do support his view - but he doesn't summarize their arguments very well, so that there is no evidence in the text - and there really needs to be, it can't all be left to reading a dozen monographs or articles.
Third, at times McGrath descends into petty points scoring. Again, it isn't frequent, but I think it happens more as the book advances, and while Dawkins is actually much nastier, personally, about people of faith than McGrath is about Dawkins, it still isn't to McGrath's credit. When the arguments become ad hominem, too, it is likely to make a reader doubt the argument.
Nevertheless, much of the book is a detailed and insightful dissection of Dawkins' writings, which superbly brings out that Dawkins is a superb writer with a gift for a brilliant turn of phrase, but that he completely loses his detachment when dealing with religion, in response to which tends to assemble a series of weak, even inane, arguments that have been around forever, and advances them as though they are somehow new, brilliant insights. However, the occasional circularity of some of McGrath's own arguments and a slight tendency to assume, rather than demonstrate, the accuracy of some of his assertions, mean that some of Dawkins' criticisms of religion are unanswered. This is insightful, and exposes the superficiality of much of Dawkins' writing on religion - but it is not the comprehensive critique of Dawkins that the book's publicity claims it to be.

In this book, and The Dawkins Delusion, Alister McGrath (AM) frequently refers to 'evidence based thinking' and 'scholarly research'. He also accuse Richard Dawkins (RD) of preaching to the choir, and using turbo-charged rhetoric.
A significant part of this book is devoted to the question of faith.
AM :- "Lets begin by looking at that definition of faith (used by RD) and ask where it comes from. Faith means"blind trust,in the absence of evidence, even in the teeth of evidence" But why should anyone accept this ludicrous definition?.....So what is the evidence that anyone - let alone religious people - defines "faith" in this ludicrous way? The simple fact is that Dawkins offers no defence of this definition, which bears little relation to any religious (or any other) sense of the word.........It is Dawkins own definition, constructed with his own agenda in mind.....This definition is itself a piece of rhetoric, devised to meet the needs of Dawkins' agenda.....His idiosyncratic definition is his own invention, created, it would seem, for purely polemical purposes."

Collins English Dictionary (1998) (most important entries first)

faith 1.strong or unshakeable belief in something, esp. without proof or evidence.
2. a specific system of religious beliefs: the Jewish faith
3. Christianity.trust in God and in his actions and promises.
4. a conviction of the truth of certain doctrines of religion,esp. when this is not based on reason.
5. complete confidence or trust in a person, remedy etc.
6. any set of firmly held principles or beliefs.
7. allegiance or loyalty as to a person or cause...
(I take unshakeable to mean - it does not matter what you tell or show me, I will not change my mind - as close to blind, against the evidence etc. as you could wish.
The other mainstream dictionaries are similar, although not all include evidence in 1.

It is clear, from context etc. that RD was using 1. - he frequently warns against taking someones word for anything, without supporting evidence - as does the motto of the Royal Society.
It is also clear that he did not invent it himself.
There is a response that I have encountered, namely "I know lots of Christians, and none of them would define faith in that way"...but how would they describe the Young Earth creationists who deny all the evidence that the Earth is more than 6000 years old, and explain the Grand Canyon as being carved out by water escaping from Noah's Flood, (it's true, they do) ignoring all the obvious questions, such as, if the flood was world-wide where was the water flowing, from and to, why does the Grand Canyon meander, even incorporating horseshoe bends, why are there so many layers or rock, which must according to them,pre-date the flood.
There is an interview between RD and Wendy Wright,(President of Concerned Women for America), shown on the C4 documentary 'The Genius of Charles Darwin', and written up in The Greatest Show on Earth', where she keeps asking Where is the evidence, where are these fossils, why are the the museums not full of them? and being told that that the museums are full of them does not, as anyone with any intellectual integrity surely would, respond with "Show me", but repeats (and repeats) her denial of their existence, and then eventually goes off in another direction.
How would AM and others describe such beliefs if not as faith?
Would AM and others deny that meaning 1 in the Collins is an accurate description of such a belief, as is Dawkins?
AM has described these as a lunatic fringe - if so almost half of the population of the USA fit this description - some fringe!

AM tried to sidetrack this by going to 3. but even then, he blew it with his references to non-religious people.
The use of ludicrous, absurd etc sounds like overblown rhetoric to me.

It would seem that scholarly research does not extend to consulting dictionaries.

So what is AM's definition of faith? He quotes W H Griffith Thomas "...It commences with conviction of the mind, based on adequate evidence......." AM states that this is consistent with other Christian writers over the years. Well, of course it is - turkeys don't vote for Christmas - but what was that about preaching to the choir?

Just as I cannot find a dictionary that does not agree with RD's ludicrous, made-up, idiosyncratic etc. definition, I cannot find a dictionary that includes evidence as part of faith.
Another example of AM's evidence based thinking occurs when, after praising RD's refutation of Paley's watchmaker he tries to relegate this to a straw man achievement, by pointing out that theologians had rejected Paley by the middle of the 19th century.
There are two problems with this.
1. Watchmaker was rejected, because, in the words of J H Newman, quoted by AM "Nay,more than this,I do not hesitate to say that, taking men as they are, this so-called science tends, if it occupies the mind, to dispose it against Christianity
."
In other words, Paley's watchmaker was rejected not because of any inherent flaws, but because it did not lead to where they wanted to go.
The very antithesis of evidence based thinking.

2. Theologians rejected watchmaker over 160 years ago, but he is alive and well, and is the basis of the I.D. movement.For all the difference theologians have made, they might as well be in an airtight room on a planet in a distant galaxy.

AM cannot resist taking little digs at RD, but as often as not, they rebound on him.
"Now perhaps Dawkins is too busy writing books against religion to allow him time to read works of religion."
RD has written perhaps 10 -20 books, depending how you count editions of the same work.
AM has written perhaps 100 -200, again depending etc. It is true that some are quite short and there is an element of 'cut and paste', but... "Now perhaps.....consult a dictionary."
AM misquotes Ingersoll, who predicted the end of orthodox Christianity (not Christianity itself,as AM pretends) or is AM suggesting that Christianity has not developed since then.

IN view of the above, I cannot take AM's little anecdotes seriously, especially the one where he was told about wave/particle duality in "hushed conspiratorial tones". This is where he is cynically trying to introduce an undue suspicion of science, especially evolution.
It is true that in principle, no scientific theory is regarded as fully proven, but the major ones are so solidly based that it almost certain that future changes will be of the nature of refinement, rather than wholesale abandonment.

I am not going to discuss memes, - anyone who objects to this should remember that AM took the same attitude in TDD.
I am writing a review, not a book, but just as it takes only one piece of evidence to refute a scientific theory, I hope that I've done enough to stop some taking AM simply at his word - or anyone else, including RD.

I cannot resist one cheap shot of my own. Apart from the recent census report, the most worrying thing the Christian community has encountered has been AM's The Twilight of Atheism.(I did say it was cheap)

Alistair McGrath wrote this before Richard Dawkins brought out "The God Delusion", and it will be interesting to see later revisions because Dawkins answers many of his points. However, The God Delusion is, for the most part, a more thorough articulation of points Dawkins has made in various other forums, so McGrath's book remains mostly relevant.

I recommend this book, it is, with momentary exceptions, an enjoyable read, and a good introduction to the wonderful world of modern liberal Protestant theology. The language is accessible except where McGrath is forced to descend into the obscurantist world of theo-babble. McGrath's arguments against Dawkins are about as sophisticated as they get. And therefore it is extremely interesting how totally unsatisfactory, in fact rather pathetic, they are.

McGrath starts with a precis of the mechanism of Darwinian evolution, and of Richard Dawkins' work that is correctly described by Dawkins himself as admirable. He has criticisms of Dawkins' sometimes confrontational approach that is, to some extent, justified. His criticism of Dawkins' idea of 'memes' is understandable. But you may already be seeing where the problem is; while his arguments are without doubt more sophisticated, the actual points being made are just the same as everyone trots out whenever they're criticising Dawkins: he is arrogant, his meme theory is flawed, he is claiming authority beyond his qualifications, and his characterisation of religion is a flimsy strawman. None of these really address the arguments made and are distinctly unsatisfying.

The claim of authority, for instance, presupposes that there is a qualification one must obtain before one can legitimately comment on religion. Dawkins' own response is probably best: "I imagine that McGrath would join me in expressing disbelief in fairies, astrology and Thor's hammer. How would he respond if a fairyologist, astrologer or Viking accused him of ignorance of their respective subjects?" (Science&Theology News). Dawkins doesn't need to study astrology to know that the suggestion that the motion of heavenly bodies millions of miles away affects the details of our lives is absurd.

McGrath continually expresses annoyance at Dawkins' failure to find out what the current status of sophisticated theological belief is. He gets really worked up at Dawkins' clear characterisation of religious faith as 'belief without evidence'. He claims that theologians haven't had that view of faith in over a century, and proceeds to give a definition of faith so obscure and convoluted it is hard to believe that he was able to write it with a straight face. Basically, McGrath thinks that Dawkins should be waging a battle in the lofty halls of theological academia. But he isn't, of course. He is engaged against the beliefs of the average person, and the average person has beliefs that are clearly a world apart from those of McGrath and his colleagues. One is forced to wonder whether McGrath ever asked a typical christian whether they think you need evidence to have faith, before writing this book. It is perfectly obvious to anyone who spends time with real christians unlike, apparently, McGrath, that faith really is, as St Paul said, "the promise of things wished for, the hope of things unseen", and that strong assent to some religious proposition in the absence of evidence is indeed seen as a virtue, which is what Dawkins so objects to.

In actual favour of his own beliefs McGrath presents almost nothing. Basically, nothing Dawkins has said proves god doesn't exist (another mischaracterisation, since Dawkins never claims it does). Dawkins' own response would be to make the same argument about other superstitions, but this isn't the forum for debate. Suffice it to say, McGrath engagingly presents to us the entirety of the vapidity of christian apologetics: "God works in mysterious ways, way too mysterious for you to understand without decades of study so just shut up and take my word for it, ok? Everything is fine, nothing to see here." This is telling stuff and anyone who wants to have their religious beliefs justified should read this book to realise why there's no point.

My only real complaint about this book (in terms of the reading enjoyment) is that McGrath is a bit schizophrenic. Most of the time he is respectful of Dawkins' viewpoint and applauding him for kicking off a robust debate, but occasionally he'll just fly off the wall and start calling Dawkins names. It would appear that this corresponds with the weakest parts of his arguments. So he is positively foaming at the mouth over Dawkins' definition of religious faith; I think he is less upset at Dawkins' definition and more that the common believer really does have the unsophisticated beliefs that McGrath derides. If only they knew what I knew, he seems to be screaming, they would be immune to Dawkins' arguments! This invective is somewhat offputting.

Otherwise I recommend this book, particularly to Dawkins fans who want to see just why Dawkins' religious opinions are so solidly unanswerable.