Religion Is Still Evil - Richard Dawkins

Professor Richard Dawkins welcome to the show thank you very much byan hery Ali recently despite you being perhaps the world's most famous atheist described you as one of the most Christian people that she knows why did she say that iore Ian um and I'm I'm a great fan of hers and I I have talked to her about this uh I think the the respect in which we differ is that for me what really matters is the truth claims of Christianity and for her what really matters is the morality uh the politics actually um I think for her Christianity is a Bastion against something worse as Hiller belloc said always keep a hold of nurse for fear of finding something worse and for her I think she she wants a a faith which will help people to stand up against worse faiths and she singles out uh Islam she singles out China I think and Putin and wokeism wokeism yes um and um I'm with her on all those and uh to the extent that I think that a religion might be valuable for political reasons I would go along with her but I think it's the wrong way to approach religion I think that what really matters about a religion is whether it's true and to adopt a religion for uh almost as though is saying well I don't believe this nonsense but it's very good idea if other people do and there's something patronizing about that she doesn't do that she go she she says I believe in it I I am a Christian um and therefore it's not patronizing but I think the fundamental motivation is a political and a moral one I I presume as both an atheist and as a person with an understanding of not just biological but also memetic Evolution having coined the term meme you'll have to think of religion as essentially something which serves some kind of social function that that must be why it exists it's why it evolved given that that's the case is it really so inappropriate to think about religion in terms of how it serves us socially if that from our uh shared worldview must be what religion really is from an academic point of view I think it's very interesting question what religion is all about what does it serve a social function um does it dis does it even have an evolutionary benefit and uh that interests me as as an academic uh to me though it's a huge step to go from even saying it's a good thing even saying that that I I wish there were more Christianity in the world even from to say that is is nothing to do with believing it it's truth claims I mean truth claims like there is a Divine Creator who made the universe and and made the laws of physics their Divine um Creator who who made the world who who listens to our prayers who who forgives our sins um who sent Jesus to be born of a virgin and then and then had him crucified I mean those are all truth claims of course none of that matters as long as it helps us fight Putin as far as well that that's the difference between me and and Ayan I I suspect that that she doesn't really believe any of that and presumably many Christians and I've seen many Christians reacting to this story of ion's conversion issuing a similar skepticism as many atheists have been saying well we care about Christianity as a set of Truth claims we care about it saying something real about the world if somebody can become a Christian just by preferring it as a as a as a more comfortable worldview what does that say about Christianity I mean I said a moment ago that well for us religion just is a social tool essentially and I think that the ability to adopt Christianity just because of its social function is evidence in favor of our case that that's all religion is yeah I think we agree about that I think where we perhaps don't agree no I wouldn't say we disagree I would say um that our fundamental motivation is a bit different because I think that for you well if I ask you what do you think the the worst thing about Christianity is I suspect you say something something moral something about um the of evil something about the uh the the horrific ideas of the of Paul and and the early Christian fathers um that that that that we all born in sin and and and we needed the death of Jesus to save us that's the kind of thing that I suspect drives your atheism whereas for me I that's irrelevant I mean for me I I talk about it but for me what really drives it is the scientific question is is is there a Creator underneath the universe because if there is then it's a profoundly different kind of Universe from a scientific point of view from if there isn't to me that's the big question the problem of evil to me wouldn't shouldn't be a real problem because you just say well there could be an evil God and um that that so that that that's a lesser question for me yes uh I think I actually do broadly agree with you and that when when I explain why I don't believe in God I do make reference to things like the problem of evil but it's difficult for me to frame those as moralistic objections it's more that when considering a particular worldview like Christianity I think what would I expect the world to look like and especially considering how suffering is built into the evolutionary system it makes it very difficult for me to believe that this is being supervised but like you say this could just be an evil God I'm really interested in your characterization of the existence of God and the beginning of the universe as a scientific question and I wanted to probe this a little bit I had a I had a thought that was inspired by something that CS Lewis had said on the relationship between science and religion and I have this image in my head of uh people who are who are really optimistic about the progress of Science and the scientific method and they say something like look you know years ago we used to say so much was down to God we used to not know why the why the planets orbited the Sun and we said it was because Angels was pushing them we used to not know why there was so much complexity in biological life and we said that God did it but look how we're discovering these laws we're discovering the law of natural selection we're discovering the laws of gravity you know and there seems to be this trajectory such that when we say well where did it all come from in the first place one day we'll get there now I don't know if you agree with that as as an optimistic trajectory for for the scientific method clearly there's a trajectory and uh I I would put it that uh the big problem of design as William py put it was life he said something like the physical world is not the best place in which to to um demonstrate the existence of the of of the Creator because it's too simple and I think he was right and um he he was also right when he said that the the really big problem for religion is is is life and both his his whole book is based upon looking at design in the in the Living World Darwin solved that so Darwin solved the big one and um we have some remaining problems the the ark is still hasn't really reached its end we still have some problems with the origin of the laws of physics the origin of the universe but I think that the fact that Darwin solved the big one should gives us give us confidence that was the really difficult one the the the amazing apparent design in the living world I mean that is such an such a a staggeringly overwhelming impression of of design there's no question about that and that was the one that Darwin solved well Darwin solves the problem of complexity within living organisms but I think it might be a SE too far to say he solved the problem of life because of course one of the questions that we have to throw into that bundle of things yet to explain the origin of pH the origin of life and life well that's not part of Darwinism of course that that's a separate question and Darin acknowledge that and that that is an unsolved problem it may never be solved in the sense we may never actually know what the answer is I think the best we can probably hope for is a model which is so elegant that we may say well that's so elegant it's got to be true but that's a bit different from having direct direct evidence at present we don't really have that um we have various possible ideas with some of them more plausible than others and I think we know the kind of question we're trying to answer we're trying to answer how did the first self-replicating entity come into existence and that's a big question it only had to happen once um unlike the unlike the rest of evolution which where it happened over and over and over again the same thing happened over and over again all over the world different continents different species different kinds of animal plant and so on um the origin of life could have been a very very improbable event because it only had to happen once uh and therefore we are potentially allowed to postulate something very unlikely something very implausible I find that quite an interesting point actually that that um yes that that I mean if you take it to an extreme so suppose we are the only planet in the universe which has life which is we can't rule that out I think it's highly unlikely but we can't rule it out if that's true then that means that the origin of Life on this planet was a a stupendously improbable event and therefore when chemists try to postulate a possible scenario for the origin of Life they're not looking for a plausible argument they're looking for a very implausible argument that's fascinating yeah I don't believe that because I think that probably it was not that improbable an event and therefore therefore the likelihood is that there's lots of Life all over the universe uh but um even to say say a million different life forms all over the universe since the number of possible places where there could be life is so large yes a million is actually very small number that's fascinating I mean there there are many things in the universe that that have a tiny tiny chance of happening but could like uh you know I've I've I've heard physicists say that because atoms are just vibrating and and they're all sort of vibrating against each other and hence we get Stillness there's there's a very small unimaginably small possibility but a real one that this this glass could just sort of spontaneously move across the table if all the atoms you know happen to VI in that direction now the universe like you say I mean everybody talks about the universe being vast I read I think this morning that if the sun were the size of a white blood cell then the Milky Way would be the size of the continental United States now terrifying we might need to fact check that exact example but it's and that's just the Milky Way and when you consider that okay oh are you saying that you know in a materialistic universe life can just sort of pop into existence well I understand the suspicion that that might be something unimaginably uh unlikely but we're in an unimaginable universe so that's that's a wonderful way of thinking I wouldn't want to resort to that I think we don't we don't need to um by the way the the possibility of the glass moving across the table it's there but I once asked a physicist what the likely what the probability is and he said if you started writing zeros the at the origin of the universe you still be writing zeros at this um right so um we probably don't have to go that far in in our we could have a sort of spectrum of improbabilities and and I can already see you know a theist cutting this up and saying atheists admit that their world unimaginably unlikely we don't want to go there I mean my my gut feelings Carl San said but I try not to think with my gut but if if I'm forced my my gut feeling would be that there there are there is lots of life around the universe but still it could be so rare that um we don't uh have much chance of ever meeting any of these other life um that's fascinating but let's push the the question even further back still because I wanted to ask you you mentioned about the the origin of the laws of physics for example yes now the story that we tell is something like we discover all of these laws and so this gives us an idea that science is moving in a direction and that eventually we we may well discover the origin of the laws themselves but that seems to me like a separate question and the way I want to explain this is by sort of borrowing and adapting as I say something CS Lewis said um Lewis talks about the relationship between Hamlet and Shakespeare a fair bit or the character in a book and and his author I mean I can ask you know why did uh why did Sherlock Holmes move into Baker Street and you can either say well it's because uh you know he he was looking for a roommate or or something like that or you could say because Arthur con and Doyle wanted him to and both of those seem to be true in a different resolution of thought now what I'm imagining here is US discovering Hamlet by Shakespeare on the table in front of us and immediately crudely you look at it and say well that must have been designed you know that must have an author and I don't just do the William paly thing you know it's complex what I say is well look Professor Dawkins I I've I've done some research onto this little book and I've discovered that it obeys certain laws yeah I've noticed that at the end of certain sentences there are these little dots and if there's a big dot it you it usually means that it's the end of a sentence and there are two different kinds of each letter it's a big a and a little a and if it's the beginning of a sentence it's a new one also we've discovered this thing called I Amic pentameter you know it seems that the way these sentences are constructed seem to follow this law this law of literacy and I said to you now where did this book come from and you say I still think there was an author of this book I still think someone created it and I said but look at all the progress that we've made just by describing it in terms of these things that we're calling laws of literature I've discovered all of these laws of literature I Amic pentameter and sentence construction and gramar and all of this stuff surely one day these laws of literacy Will Will Go On To Explain the origin of the laws of the literacy or or the origin of the text itself surely that would surely that would be where this is going of course I'm making a category error if I do that and is there not a a fear that we're doing that when we say that science will one day Explain the origin of the very thing that science is about I take Confidence from as I said before from Darwin success because everything that you said about full stops in capital letter at the beginning of the the sentence and I have pentameters and things you could have said that about life and people did say that about life and we we notice that living things are remarkably well designed that birds are beautifully designed to fly and and fish are beautifully designed to to swim and and so on um and the complexity is all there the the detail of the of of of the design is is incredibly impressive and would have seemed absolutely I me I suspect this is why it took so long for a Darwin to come on the scene actually because it just seemed so obvious that it had to it had had an author sure uh but but behind it Darwin solved that there isn't an author I mean it's it's natural selection does the trick so where is the where is the analogy with Hamlet or Sherlock Holmes left I suppose the analogy would be that um what Darwin did was was Clos the question on the complexity of life but he didn't close the question on where life came from as we've already that's right and I I suppose what I'm putting forward is that maybe laws of physics laws of biology laws of science are not the kind of thing that can explain the origin of the laws of physics the origin of the laws of biology that kind of stuff where maybe it's sort of operating on a on a well it could be we haven't got there yet but but what all all all I said was that that Darwin success should give us confidence um and and that there will come a time when we understand the laws of physics I think we're not far off not we I mean the physicists aren't far off that now in fact Richard Dawkins is about to tell us views on Jordan Peterson but first if you want a healthy mind you need a healthy diet that's where ag1 formerly athletic greens can help I've been drinking ag1 first thing in the morning for a while and was really happy that they wanted to sponsor this episode because it's wonderful it's a comprehensive daily nutrition supplement a blend of over 70 highquality ingredients with vitamins minerals Whole Food Source nutrients and more you take a single scoop mix it with water and drink it that's it it's the first thing I do after waking up every day takes me about a minute in total and supports brain heart and immune system Health as well as aiding with Focus energy levels skin hair and nails stress and mood balance and healthy aging if you want to take ownership of your health try ag1 here's what you get with your first purchase a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free ag1 travel packs so you can keep supplementing on the road you also get a Shaker a scoop and a storage canister and just for peace of mind there's even a 90-day money back guarantee go to drink a1.com within reason that's drink a1.com within reason and try it for yourself now back to the show now we uh we we were talking about aan H Ali and and it's an interesting detour but I did want to ask you about this vision of of religion uh for two reasons this this idea that religion we don't really care about the question of whether it's true that Jesus was born of a virgin or whether he actually died on the cross in fact maybe I'm just going to refuse to answer it Al together and say that this is a is a cultural thing it's a it's a way of life it's a it's a motivating reason behind your behaviors I think that this has got a lot to do with uh its popularization through people like Jordan Peterson aan her Ali seems to have been spending some time with Jordan Peterson and and and getting on with him uh at least in this regard and I want to ask you about it for two reasons firstly I want to know I mean you had a conversation with Jordan uh it was for about an hour and a half where you talked about um well you talked about some culture stuff but he's very well known at the moment he's writing a book at the moment for talking about religion and he comes at it from this completely different perspective to I imagine the perspective that most of your previous Christian opponents not that Jordan Peterson is strictly a Christian have come at it from and I wonder what you make of him and his approach I enormously respect his courage in standing up to the Canadian laws about free speech I want to just get that out of the way first I hugely respect that and and and value him for that reason um when he talks about religion I think it's I think I think that he's he doesn't make any sense at all I think I think he's he's impressing people by using language they don't understand rather like deepack chera um where where people think oh it must be terribly profound because I can't understand it which is which is um not something I can respect um Michael Shermer told me that um he tried to pin him down and said do do you actually believe that Jesus was born of a virgin and Jordan Peter says it would take me at least two days to answer that so Michael said more or less well how about one sentence or one word no um and that's how I feel about about that um all the stuff about yungan archetypes and not that I not would be skeptical about that but but but constantly dragging them in I mean um I think the most egregious example of that is where he to he looks at works of primitive art works of tribal art where he shows things like two snakes coiling around each other and says well they must have had some primitive um primeval knowledge of DNA perhaps they looked into their own cells some sense and saw the DNA perhaps the DNA is the double helix is a Yi archetyp and that is sheer and I told him so do you think that you can have a productive conversation with him about religion if this is the approach he's taking do you think there's any room for Progress here talking to someone like Peterson well I hesitate to say no to to about that to anybody but but but I I have so far I'm not given any confidence and I and I want to once again say how much I respect his his courage and standing up to to the the woke nonsense yes we sandwich the the in between the between the respect um Peterson's approach here has seems to have unlocked a new interest in particularly the Bible and as he calls it the biblical Corpus um my my friend Chris Williamson asked him recently on a podcast because he kept talking about the biblical Corpus he said when you say the biblical Corpus do you mean the Bible he says yes and I'm thinking well you know why not just call it the Bible then but he he has a inspired this this renewed interest in in the biblical Corpus um because of that because now when you see people debating religion it tends to be less does God exist and more about the utility of religion and the yian archetypes and stuff The God Delusion which was the atheist book do you think it still survives as a sufficient treatment of God and religion in modern culture if you were to write it again would you be taking the same approach of talking about it as a scientific issue or would you feel the need to to change the way that you're talking about I would certainly still talk about it as a scientific issue because I think that's that's the most important thing I probably might add a chapter on uh the idea of uh what Dan dennit calls belief in belief um where the the idea that that that whether you believe it or not it's a good idea that some people do and and and I think that's patronizing I think that's condescending it's sort of saying well we intellectuals don't need don't need this crutch but other people may do and if they do then it's a good thing because it helps in the battle against Putin well not the Putin himself I think voler said uh I don't believe in God but I hope that my maid does well that's I didn't know that quote it's a very good example um and that is so patronizing yes and indeed it also so you know when you're debating the moral argument with people when they say without God there could be no morality and sometimes an atheist says well how dare you say that I can't be moral without God and they say I'm not saying you can't be moral without God I'm just saying you can't ground your morality and yet on the other hand they say but we need you to believe in God otherwise Society falls apart maybe you are actually saying that people can't be moral without God more than just their ability to ground it if you're saying that without this religious belief Society will fall apart well I wouldn't say that but I'm I recognize that some people may think that I mean I I think that to ground your Morality In certainly in the Bible would be an appalling thing to do if you actually look at the Bible actually look at look at any of the moral almost any of the moral lessons you can take from it and some of the things Jesus said are very nice but but you have to pick and choose your way through and and and um setting aside Jesus's um emphasis on loving your neighbor which is very nice um The Sermon on the Mount is is very nice the the fundamental doctrine of uh well the Old Testament of course is appalling but even yeah putting the Old Testament aside the new even the New Testament um the the idea that we're born in sin is a hideous idea the idea that that the only way to be saved from sin and the wages of sin is is Jesus's death um is a hideous idea and I don't think it's one that Jesus himself ever put forward is it I think he probably would would would be rather shocked at that that thought well I imagine that Jesus would have to be aware of himself as the Salvation And if that's the case he'll need to be aware of what he's saving people from which can only be something like slavery to sin I wonder whether you're reading something in there I mean salvation um I mean he said things like if you have seen me you've seen the father he said that kind of thing but but did did he actually say that he was salvation well I suppose I am the way the truth and the life no one comes the father I am a guide for a good a good life something like that it doesn't mean that that surely never said that my death is necessary in order for you to be saved from sin quite possibly um I mean I think about the the idea of the Eucharist and the last supper and and literally breaking up you my body for you it does seem to be uh some indication that Jesus knew what he was doing if the if the Christians are correct about his mission on Earth a moment ago you said it's an appalling idea that we're all born in sin and I understand this intuition but do you not think there's some wisdom in this idea or or some sort of necessary humility in in recognizing that you know we all do seem to fall short of the standards that we set for ourselves that is we're not going to make sense of a concept like sin because we don't believe in God you know we're atheists sin doesn't make sense but even just in terms of our own moral standards whatever standards we set for ourselves we seem to fall short of these every single day and it is it not just that idea that's being captured when somebody says look even even by your own standards you're you're falling short of where you should be and maybe that's what even a newborn baby born in sin well I would probably respond by saying that not all Christians will say that a newborn baby is born in sin in the sense that they're responsible for it more like born with a propensity towards sinning which I imagine you would even agree with that that newborn babies although they haven't you know committed immoral acts yet they're born with this sort of human nature which has a a predisposition towards doing things that fall short of our moral standards maybe I was sorry for you having to do a degree in this kind of thing it's not a real subject is it it's we you know we talked about this before um on on our previous podcast and and I I think it's something that you wanted to ask ask me about today isn't it I mean we well yes um it's obviously something that still interests you certainly talking about you know sin and things like that um I I cannot imagine spending three years how did you stand it I'll answer it in two ways the first is to say that the theology faculty was actually Theology and religion so I was able to study religion as anthropology religion as history you know you can do papers and okay that science and religion this this kind of and I imagine you would be you'd be very interested in that kind of thing theology itself I found useful for for a few reasons one of them and you know of course there's like a crude sense in which by studying theology it helps me to debate it it helps me to argue with people uh get that definitely but it's it's also an interesting window into human psychology for example you know clearly the the question does interest you why is it that people can can can believe so strongly and so easily in this idea that everybody's born in sin that is that horrible that's a psychological question and if if you I don't know what sort of essays you had to write but if you were allowed to write an essay on that that would have been interesting if you were allowed to ask a question uh how can anyone believe this stuff um but I imagine you had to actually write a serious essay on the concept of sin itself and the idea Redemption and the idea of atonement well suppose you wanted to to write that that essay which which you just said was an interesting question why would anybody believe this well in order to answer that you have to get to grips with the reasons people have believing it yes and I suppose that's what I'm do doing here with you and saying when when because you bring up the point when you look at the New Testament you you bring up this this uh exeresis this interpretation this is an evil text because because it tells people that they're born in sin and I suppose the question implicitly in what you're saying there is how can you believe this and I'm doing that Devil's Advocate thing again of of trying to I suppose explain why it is that somebody might believe this and say that even an atheist might recognize that there's a sense in which that's at least poetically true we're all born in a state where we are unable to fulfill the standard that we want to fill you know what I mean um poetically yes I suppose it suppose you could see it at a poetic level um interestingly I don't know I've told you this before but but um when the selfish Gene was published both the chaplain of my college came up to me and said they they' read it and they they thought it had Echoes of original sin um and it was a poetic was a poetic resonance with original sin and I supp I mean that's quite interesting why why would the selfish Gene have a resonance with orinal um well uh they they were thinking of it in terms of the uh the selfish Gene um uh having um a sort of primitive rationale for selfishness so that's not what the book was really intended to be about but that's how they interpreted it and so that that that that resonated with their idea of original scene and what do you make of the criticism in the opposite direction somebody says you know I've spent my life uh studying turistic metaphysics I'm I'm a I'm a classical Theologian I've got a PhD and I looked in The God Delusion and I wanted to see what Richard Dawkins had to say about Thomas aquinas's five proofs of the existence his five ways to to establish the existence of God and they find two pages and this this sort of Pinnacle of religious philosophy as they see it has a treatment in two pages and and when when they question you and say well what about all of the the important theological nuances you respond to them well why would I do theology theology is uninteresting I think I would say to that why privilege Christian theology when there are thousands of gods all around the world they all have their own Theology and these uh toist theologians are equally ignorant of Aboriginal uh Theology and and banto Theology and and Papu and New Guinea theology that's true um and they think that their theology is somehow High flown and intellectually important but it has no greater status than any of those the thing about science is that it's Universal it it it it is not local it's not it's not tied to any particular tribe or group of people or or um time in history it's what you discover in science is universal and Timeless I think that's fair enough but then I also think that if one of these turistic metaphysican s wrote a book called the aborigin delusion or or they they tried to sort of write a chapter where they said I'm I'm going to debunk this idea and then they spent two pages on it the delusion that I'm interested in is the very existence of a supernatural Creator it's not particularly Christianity in so far as I talked about Christianity that's because I I'm brought up in in in a in a Christian culture um but what really interests me is the existence of a Divine Creator at all and I suppose you you're allowed to say that in a different way and where you say well I'm talking about Christianity because I was brought up in that culture and people will say fair enough that's what you chose to write in whereas a Christian if they say well I I focus on Christianity because I was brought up in a Christian culture that seems to slightly undermine their position I mean but but if if they use that as as a reason for why they believe that's a very different thing I using it as a reason why I chose to talk about it as an example quite right do you still do debates well I don't like the sort of debate format where you have 10 minutes for the proposition 10 minutes for the opposition and things like that because I I don't think that's the way we decide things um I mean the debate I attended at the Oxford Union a few weeks ago that you were in um I think your side lost well yeah I mean you know the they don't make that bit obvious on the YouTube video but I suppose everybody knows now yes yeah we and it's in a way I'm sure it was for all the wrong reasons and and um well um I I read recently an account of the famous this house will not vote for king and country debate in the 1930s in in Oxford and um that caused a great Scandal because because of the way the debate went at the time and it seems to be what I gather from the history is that the reason the the debate was carried was the amusing wit and eloquence of one of the speakers and that's not the way that's not the way win arguments by wit and eloquence it shouldn't it shouldn't be do you attribute some of the success of the new atheist movement which anybody would struggle to say that the new atheists were not sort of going on these marathons of of winning debates how much of that do you think just had to do with the fact that you had Christopher Hitchens in Your Arsenal who could recite some poetry on stage and make people laugh uh I I asked for that I supp but when I mentioned the CM jod um thing um well he was of course superbly witty and um aidite and could pull a quotation whenever he needed it and and um I would like to think that such such a success as we had um was due to having good arguments rather than to the eloquence of of any one particular individual I I I don't I I I'd be sorry if if people changed their minds on on the basis of the well somebody say the wrong the wrong reasons not not not really taking the argument seriously but but um but the because one of the speakers gave them a good laugh or or something you you you do quite like doing debates uh sometimes yes it kind of it depends I I my understanding of debates is that a lot of the time they are just theater and I think that as long as you recog recogniz that's what you're doing there there's no strict problem with with doing that it's a good way to get people to get excited about a subject it's a good way to introduce them to some of the arguments that they might want to go and study at home but the idea that it's a a place for exhaustive you know presentation of a worldview while you're doing it in front of a person whose entire job is to make you essentially or at least your arguments look bad and look flawed and an audience with a proness to to you know fidgeting and getting bored and preferring to be a bit entertained or to laugh you know that's the arena that you're walking into that's something in other words that I've learned about doing debates as as I've done them in the past I've gone in thinking I'm not even going to really research the person that I'm about to debate because I want to sort of you know really engage on the spot and I I had this idea that I'm going in with a with a with a real desire to get to the truth whereas as time goes on you begin to realize that actually it's something of a performance in many ways yes um I think the Oxford Union has especially descended into a time when there's a lot what wasn't quite so bad the debate that you were in a few weeks ago but I've seen it in the past where people are constantly popping up with so-called points of information yes or points of order they are never either points of information or very very seldom points of information they're points of opinion um and uh I I think um it's probably right the points of information is right on on a point of information Mr President uh the speaker's got his figures wrong the number of people yes you know killed in the Holocaust was so and so and so and so rather than what he said that's a point of information yeah it's fascinating I mean people might not be aware in these in these formal debates you it's it's in the rule book you're allowed to interrupt a speaker if you're ever watching a a a debate speech at the oxid union and someone from the audience just sort of stands up and starts talking it's because you're allowed to do that and you say point of information and as you say the idea is that it's supposed to be exactly that a point of information but somebody ends up just sort of giving a mini speech themselves yes well the the president no doubt when it was first started the president would have would have been on on on onto that but but the customers grown up the points of information are just ways of interrupting somebody's speech with your own speech and now that you know you can get away with it like that's that's what people do that and why not do that if everybody's just getting away with I think I I POI the uh the Cardinal at one point CU he was talking about cardinal turkson um a man who I'm told is in the running to become the next Pope yes was giving a speech and and was talking about the vatican's contribution to science and how they set up the first scientific Academy with members including Galileo yes and my point of information was to Simply ask what then happened to that Galileo and it was funny because it seemed like he didn't understand that I was trying to sort of make a point CU he just answered it just just completely flatly just said oh well he was um he was not a member anymore afterwards and then he became a member again just answered it very up and I feel like the point might have been lost but that's what the point of information is supposed to be for these debates they they they leave too much room for for rhetoric they leave too much room for um you're so aware that you're on display that that I know it's not very conducive to open conversation of the kind that we're having now I I used to attend the union every week when I was an undergraduate and and I I enjoyed it very much I say I enjoyed the rhetoric and and and I enjoy the to of things that I know not not a ke on um and I I I I suppose I am actually a life member but I'm not I think I've lost my card I'm not sure they let me in I'm sure they'll they'll let you in um I I wonder uh if you were invited I mean there there are some wonderful classic debates that you've done with people like John Lennox um I I wonder if you were invited to do something like that today is it something you'd still be interested in doing I'm talking about the the formal debate audience 10-minute opening statement cross- examination does God exist yeah no I I I don't think so I mean uh um I I would like to have a discussion with as I have with the Archbishop of Canterbury for example um and uh I I I find I've had actually I think two or three discussions with him and they've been very civilized and uh enjoyable and I think an honest attempt at dialogue um I don't think I'd like to do it in the debate format um I I did agree to do a debate in the Cambridge Union in which the arch Rowan Williams was one of the speakers and um uh that that was sort of not too bad um but but no I I I wouldn't have I wouldn't be falling myself to have a debate on that subject who's the most formidable debate opponent that you have had in your career that you can think of now uh on this question of God's existence I don't think there are any um not not that not that I'm formidable myself but but but I I I don't think there there are any very good arguments um no point in a debate where where you're sat there getting ready to get up and give you a 10-minute rebuttal while they're speaking runting your notes and thinking oh gosh uh what am I going to say to that that that's that's a that's a fair point I don't think so um I don't want to sound arrogant it's not that I've got great great points it's just that I don't think there are any good points to be made yeah maybe it's something about the debate format as well you know everybody's so prepared that you you're rarely caught off guard yes um I mean the sort of professional Debaters on on behalf of religion uh people like William Craig um I I have no time for him I mean he's he he got this sort of loud rather pompous voice and and and he say as a premise one deduction two and things like that and and the audience I suppose is supposed to be impressed I I've had I've had uh William Lan Craig twice on on my podcast and I always had a good experience with him having said that I didn't debate him I don't know what that would be like something you're not interested in doing debating William Lane Craig or having conversation perhaps with William Lane CRA I have done um I I've vowed not to I I I I feel such contempt for him because of his I don't know whether you've seen his what he says about the something Israelites Slaughter ing the midianites and and and instead of saying what any decent Theologian would say well it never happened um and this is just in Old Testament story um he says um well the midianites had it coming uh because they were so sinful and then um uh if you worry about the midianite children who had their brains beaten out of them um that's okay CU they went straight to heaven and and that that finished him him off as far as I was concerned for me I actually wrote a a piece in the in the guardian saying why I will I will never have anything to do with him I can see why you you might sort of look at something like that and say that's that's an evil thing to think that's an evil thing to say I don't want to debate this person a few moments ago you told me that the idea of the New Testament in general about you know being born in sin and needing salvation is an evil idea yes and yet that's an idea that many of the opponents that you have spoken to will have believed they believe evil things too so so why with it's a fair point um I I think the thing is that um the Christian theologians who who take this seriously um is are honestly well-meaning I mean they they they believe in the god of love they believe they believe in Jesus as the as the as the Son of God of love and so on um I think the the sheer well they they they would never have defended the slaughter of the midianites and the jebusites and things in the Book of Joshua um as somehow Justified because because the midianites were were sinful um um I think it's an order of magnitude worse there perhaps you would disagree with that maybe I mean I think there's a sense in which a a Christian who believes in the historicity of the Old Testament I mean the midianites might be it's I'm sometimes told It's Complicated by the fact that it's Moses who instructs the slaughter of the midianites but it seems clear to me that this is sanctioned by God I think that a a a Christian who believes in the histor of the Old Testament just has to believe that whatever happened there was somehow okay with God was somehow moral now I agree that that that that to me is a criticism I make all the time how could this be moral but I also say how could it Beal moral that God allows children to get cancer how could it be moral that you know and and I suppose the thing that I would say is that if if you pressed a Christian well if there's a good God why do children get cancer they just have to say something like there must be some reason for this there must be some explanation I suppos that if if they really do have to if they really do believe the literal word of the Bible but then that that brings us back to fundamentalist creationists I mean well uh even in just just in terms of why God would allow evil at all uh what I'm what I'm imagining in other words is suppose we had this other Christian philosopher debater and uh somebody had said to them well why do children get cancer if there's a good God and they said look if I believe in a good God I have to believe that the the children who die of cancer are going to heaven I have to believe that there's some reason for the suffering that they're undergoing now you could say this person said that you know kids who have cancer oh they should be grateful cuz they're going straight to heaven and are there some reason to give children cancer that's despicable I want nothing to do with this person I'll never debate them however I would suppose that basically everybody that you've debated on the topic of Christianity would say something like that about children and so I wonder why with William lra it's a particular problem you you you make a good point I suppose um no none of these sophisticated theologians take the literal word of the Old Testament seriously I mean they don't they don't believe in Adam and Eve for example um they don't they don't believe in um the the therefore why why would you believe that the the story of the midianites is is is is history why not just sort of say well this is some kind of tribal myth and all sorts of tribes have these horrible well I can keep up this um God's Advocate if you like I would say in other words I would answer that question with a Christian hat on by saying that the Bible is a collection of books rather than a book and that that book contains different genres and that the genre Genesis is something like poetry exactly the genre of numbers seems much more to be at least intended to be history in a way that the the genre of Paul is is letters it's Epistles whether or not you think he actually even existed you know I mean I think Paul existed just to be clear but you know it doesn't really matter it's still clear that what that if you think that it's true the kind of thing that Paul's doing is writing letters the kind of thing that acts is doing is essentially you know biography or history is attempting to do that it seems to me that where numbers is very obviously trying to just recount historical events Genesis seems a lot more allegorical to me and so it doesn't seem inconsistent to me to say well of course I don't believe in Adam and Eve I believe in the seven-day creation but I do believe that there was a real Slaughter of the midianites by Moses and his armies well yes and and and and then um I mean you I don't think you should then go ahead to justify it but by they were sinful I mean I I should have thought that the the the the right and proper thing for a Christian to say is uh the the slaughter of the midianites is no more factual history than the story of Jupiter or Apollo um me Thor with with his hammer and things these These are these are tribal myths um which um which we can study as as as mythology but why why go out of your way to make it sound much more evil than it really is um by saying well the midianites were sinful and their children were going to heaven anyway it's somehow I I just find it more appalling perhaps I'm wrong but I I find it sort of appalling that you that you take it so seriously that you that you actually well you take the belief in those in the historicity of it so seriously that you even defend it rather than just say as any decent Bishop would say would say well this never happened and I think that um as particularly at the height of the the new atheism and and religion debates that were happening in in the in the sort of late 2000s I think a lot of people were disappointed that the Forerunner of the atheist side Richard Dawkins and arguably the Forerunner of the Christian Side William Lan Craig never came together to have that debate because even if you do think that what he believes there is particularly and and and specifically evil I suppose everything you've just said to me people would probably just like to see you say that to William Lan Craig I wrote an article in the guardian saying it um and um I did in fact have a debate with him in Mexico I forget when um with with the boxing ring yeah yes um and um I just no desire to to I don't respect him I find his man pompous and and I just don't don't want to be in the same room with him really well in the interest of diplomacy I will offer no further comment except that that's that's certainly not my experience with the man but um okay I I I imagine that we've uh we've had very different uh interactions with him in the past let's put it that way well on this topic of debate and Arguments for God's existence anyway I I the I suppose what I wanted to do was ask you about two arguments that I've been thinking about uh related to God's existence but specifically related to Evolution and naturalism as well because I I think that these are uh questions which I'm sure you've commented on before somewhere but um i' i' I guess I'd like to probe again yeah um one of these is Lewis's argument from desire which sounds like a very silly argument on the face of it he essentially says something along the lines of look everybody seems to have an innate desire for something a bit beyond the natural something a bit Supernatural something you know Beauty purpose this kind of intangible stuff and he said I I actually wrote down the the way he puts it in Mere Christianity he says most people if they had really learned to look into their own Hearts would know that they do want and want acutely something that cannot be had in this world there are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to them that offer to give it to you but never quite keep their promise and then later if I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world and like I say on the face of it that sounds maybe a little bit silly but there is a ious question in here that most of the time when we evolve a desire for something you know we evolve a desire for food for warmth this kind of thing the reason for that is because this desire uh gives us reason to seek out those things in the real world if there were no food and digestion if there were no temperature it would make no sense for us to to to evolve a desire for food for temperature for for for warmth you know that wouldn't make any sense why would that even evolve in the first place if it doesn't act latch on to anything in the real world and although I'm not sure if Lewis was aware of this we we know anthropologically that almost everywhere we look in the world we find people with religious sensibilities they have some kind of either desire or uh apprehension of something Beyond themselves something Divine and I suppose the question Lewis asks is from an evolutionary perspective why would it be that we would universally evolve that desire if that desire doesn't actually latch onto anything in in reality I find a very odd argument um because we have uh a desire to survive and live which makes perfect perfect evolutionary sense it's a natural projection of that desire that we might desire to go on living after we die we a desire for eternal life you know um you could you could easily see that as just as just an extension of the um of the perfectly um darwinian desire to to go on to go on living to go on living um I think it's just another example of that uh um that particular part of it is I suppose um what else did he say the the the desire for something Beyond um he says want acutely is something that cannot be had in this world um I mean he says he says a lot more uh about it in Mere Christianity but he says if there's if I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world yes I mean the idea that because you want something therefore it must be true I find that the most extraordinary idea it does seem strange to want something that doesn't exist why because if we're trying to give an account of where this desire comes from it seems to have to latch on to something and it seems like what you're suggesting is that what it's latching on to is just the general desire to stay alive as long as possible well that that I was thinking specifically of the desire for eternal life but I think you can do a kind of version of that for whatever else CS leis was was was saying um some people may have a a sexual desire for for a film star that they're never going to meet and wouldn't look at them if they did and that doesn't mean that there's anything realistic about it it's it's it's a natural extension of sexual desire of course the film star exists well it doesn't exist as in any realistic sense as far as this this wretched person is concerned who um I mean you could you could talk about a desire for 72 virgins in the Islamic Heaven um uh that doesn't exist um um but but it's easy to see it as as a projection of of an ordinary biological desire yeah I I mean I I tend to agree with you maybe if not in the detail with with that with the suggestion that the desire can be for something real and that the image of God or afterlife or eternality are just sort of warped or extended versions of a real thing that is you know the art life is an extension of the desire to be alive a physicist might desire solution to the theory of everything and the and the and the unity unification of gravity and Quantum theor that's what CS says they desire God you you desire a solution to a to a physical problem which may be insoluble I'm pulling your leg it it's it's it's it may be out of this world in the sense that it's beyond uh Beyond solution um I se better come up with a better argument than that well CS Le has another argument for you which is the argument from reason and I I actually want to give you a version of it that that I'm you you have talked isin planting evolutionary naturalism I want to know what you think about this because um you know I'm sat with one of the most preeminent evolutionary biologists in living memory and I would I would love to know what you think about this now plantinga points out that if we're a materialist if we don't believe in the existence of a mind governing all of this and everything evolves according to Natural Selection well what does natural selection select for survivability therefore everything which evolves evolves because it helps us to survive including our minds including our rationality and so why is it that we believe that Evolution occurred by natural selection because we look at the evidence and we use our rationality to come to the conclusion that natural selection is the best explanation but what we're doing in a sting to the truth of natural selection is saying that the mechanism we use to believe in natural selection doesn't actually select for truth it selects for survivability we can't know that 2+ 2 equals 4 is true or if it's just that believing 2 plus 2 equals 4 is beneficial for our survival if the latter is the case then we run into a lot of trouble and it seems that when we say evolution is true therefore our brain evolve for for survivability we've just undermined the truth aptness of the very process that we've used to believe in yeah I've never understood why people all prefered by this um if we went through if we any animal went through life particularly humans went went through life believing the equivalent of 2 plus2 doesn't equal four we would survive I mean you you if you base your life upon evidence if you base your life upon upon rationality you're more likely to survive than if you base your life upon nonsense and and um it just seems to me to be so easy to say um that rationality and the search for truth the search for for evidence is a good way to live even from a a mundane darwinian point of view when you say a moment ago um if we were to live as if 2 plus 2 didn't equal four I I suppose what what I'm saying is we have no way to ascertain whether it's actually true I mean you can you can I saying something like if the thing that we thought was true was not actually true we just wouldn't be able to survive or or something like that yes is it not conceivable that there could be things that we believe that are not true but by believing them to be true actually make us more likely oh yes that that's that I mean there is some evidence for that uh there's some evidence that um uh having a somewhat inflated belief in your own ability is beneficial uh and um so uh there there's there is evidence that that people in general think they're better looking than they are I think they're clever than they are I think they're better drivers than they are Etc and that could be a certain what well at least could make an interesting case that uh self-deception of this kind um Robert Trier one of the great figures in my field um even wrote a book called The Folly of fools about self-deception uh and the and the um the the the darwinian advantage of self-deception I think it's got to be pretty limited I mean um it it would it would be a little bit of a an iing a little bit of a gloss on top of um a fundamentally rational well I think that's the that's the point that someone like plantinga might wish to push back on which is to say how can we know that in some instances sure believing something that's actually false is beneficial for our survival and so we've evolved like a mechanism to just naturally think that it's true but that definitely doesn't happen when we do math so that definitely doesn't happen when we're sort of doing empirical observation about you know the shape and size of things we know that that doesn't happen well how how do we know that well we know that science works I mean we know we we know that if you follow uh scientific principles you can you can hit you can get to Pluto um and and it works over and over and over again you you kill small poox you you um you you slingshot Rockets around Venus and Earth and and get to Jupiter um all all this all this works and and scientific predictions come out right you can predict when eclipses will occur it it it works I suppose the analogy there would be somebody would ask well then how do you know that 2 plus 2al 4 in the abstract mathematical realm is just true rather than it being the case that thinking or acting as if 2 plus 2al 4 helps us get to the moon I think 2 plus 2al 4 is a different matter from getting to the Moon I mean that that's just logic well I suppose you know mathematical truth and and logic in general I'm using two deduc pro representative of that yeah yes um I don't see the problem with that I mean um well maybe there is n maybe there is I I just wanted to get your thoughts and I suppose um I'll be interested to see what people make of your reply um one of the biggest reasons why people are religious arguably at least from a sort of cynical atheist perspective is to escape the fear of death Sigman Freud said that there will be religion as long as we're afraid of death Are You Afraid Of Death I'm afraid of dying um I I I I don't look forward to I don't know getting cancer or something of that that sort um I suppose I'm afraid of Eternity um I it it is a a daunting thought that that that the Universe goes on and on and on and on and on and on for billions for trillions of years um and uh so I've said this often enough before that that that the the escape from eternity would be the escape from any kind of pain would be a general anesthetic uh and and which I think is what death is so um it it's a it's a it's a it's a nothingness just like a general anesthetic um I like life and I like to go on living I enjoy life and I and I'm curious to know how the future will unfold so I would like to go on um so I wouldn't mind living for 200 years um but I wouldn't like to live for eternity no what consolation might you offer to say somebody's read The God Delusion and they become convinced that God doesn't exist and there is no afterlife and they feel pretty fine about that except for this one thing that they've now had to give up the idea that they're going to be able to escape death and they they they say well I'm really happy for you Professor Dawkins that you're not afraid of death but I still am I'm afraid of the unknown what advice would you give to them it's very hard to say I I I'm under no obligation to give to give any consolation of course well that's true um and um uh uh I I I certainly think that that the the fact that a belief gives you consolation is no reason to think it's true and what I care about is what's true um I uh if they're not consoled by what I've just said about General anesthetics um I have to scratch my head and try to think of something else but I I find it a hard hard job to do that um I I think that uh enjoy your life to the full while while you've got it um you won't regret it when you're dead because you won't be there um so don't spoil your life by fretting about about the fact that it's got to come to an end um fill it with not not selfish Pleasures but fill it with with um pleasure and pleasure in other with for other people as well and perhaps its eternity would actually diminish its value in the sense that having a billion dollars in the bank account makes $1 notth worth very much but if you've only got 10 then a dollar sort of becomes everything you yes um yes well um Professor Richard Dawkins thank you for your time if you enjoyed that conversation you can watch more episodes of the within reason podcast by clicking just here but remember the show is also on streaming platforms like apple podcasts and Spotify don't forget to subscribe thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next one

Channel: Alex O'Connor

Views: 759,055

Keywords: Alex O'Connor, cosmic, skeptic, cosmicskeptic, atheism, within reason, podcast, within reason podcast, religion, debate, Alex J O'Connor

Id: gaRVzooavRI

Length: 64min 45sec (3885 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 14 2024