There's Science, and Then There's the Real World, Part 2

Madeleine Bunting, in a commentary in The Guardian, discusses an 'anti-religious polemic' television program by famed atheist and scientist Richard Dawkins. The writer may be pro-religious, but her commentary mainly critiques Dawkins' methods as indicated by her subtitle, 'Richard Dawkins's latest attack on religion is an intellectually lazy polemic not worthy of a great scientist'. She makes some very interesting comments.

..."By all means, let's have a serious debate about religious belief, one of the most complex and fascinating phenomena on the planet, but the suspicion is that it's not what this chorus wants. Behind unsubstantiated assertions, sweeping generalisations and random anecdotal evidence, there's the unmistakable whiff of panic; they fear religion is on the march again."...

..."There's an aggrieved frustration that they've been short-changed by history; we were supposed to be all atheist rationalists by now. Even more grating, what secularisation there has been is accompanied by the growth of weird irrationalities from crystals to ley lines. As GK Chesterton pointed out, the problem when people don't believe in God is not that they believe nothing, it is that they believe anything."

"There's an underlying anxiety that atheist humanism has failed. Over the 20th century, atheist political regimes racked up an appalling (and unmatched) record for violence. Atheist humanism hasn't generated a compelling popular narrative and ethic of what it is to be human and our place in the cosmos; where religion has retreated, the gap has been filled with consumerism, football, Strictly Come Dancing and a mindless absorption in passing desires. Not knowing how to answer the big questions of life, we shelve them - we certainly don't develop the awe towards and reverence for the natural world that Dawkins would want. So the atheist humanists have been betrayed by the irrational, credulous nature of human beings; a misanthropy is increasingly evident in Dawkins's anti-religious polemic and among his many admirers."...

..."He uses his authority as a scientist to claim certainty where he himself knows, all too well, that there is none; for example, our sense of morality cannot simply be explained as a product of our genetic struggle for evolutionary advantage."...

..."His conclusion is that no children should be exposed to religion until they are old enough to make a choice; anything else is indoctrination."...

..."That lack of empathy also lies behind Dawkins's reference to a "process of non-thinking called faith". For thousands of years, religious belief has been accompanied by thought and intellectual discovery, whether Islamic astronomy or the Renaissance."...

"...but at the same time, science has to concede that despite its huge advances it still cannot answer questions about the nature of the universe - such as whether we are freak chances of evolution in an indifferent cosmos (Dawkins does finally acknowledge this point in the programmes)."

"Dawkins seems to want to magic religion away."...

When ideologues press to impact culture under the authority of 'science' it demeans both science and culture. When they usurp and use the power of government, it becomes dangerous.