Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Delusion II - The Preface

Imagine no religion. As an overview of the theme - "Religion is Bad", he asserts that without people who believe in God, there would be none of a list of crimes that are invariably (and perhaps dangerously) attributed to the religiousness of those that participate in these crimes. Those that believe that the root cause of 9/11 is the Islamic religion, are fuelling the fire that created the retaliatory backlash against islam in the US. This I believe is a wrong and dangerous consequence in believing it is the religion that is bad and not that criminals are bad no matter what they believe. The economist intelligence unit for one, in their report on Suicide terrorism come to the conclusion that suicide terrorism is being embraced for the rewards in this world, not the next. This counters Dawkins' assertion, and therefore I shall not accept it as proven at all. I await with expectation for someone to tell me where in the book he proves that non-God-fearing people are less likely to be organised criminals of similar vein. It is not enough to demonstrate that people are doing bad things in the name of a God - One must show a causal link, and society-wide or world-wide comparative analysis. Most importantly, what is Dawkins' take on good and bad? Is he advocating for moral relativism or do we decide democratically as we go? How are we to argue what is good and bad without a definition that we can agree on?

1 comment:

Dr Clam said...

I know you haven't gotten there yet, but here is another quote to bear in mind when you reach Dawkins' core argument:

"Animism and polytheism were succeeded by monotheism in Israel on moral and political grounds. Baal was not rejected because the orderly character of nature suggested a single governor of the universe, but because the Lord was regarded as a jealous god. The unity of God is rather the sign of man’s attempt to unify his own moral life by following one law, than an explanation of the reign of law in the world."
-JBS Haldane