Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins (b. 1941) is a British biologist also famous as one of the "New Atheists" who lead the attack on religious fundamentalism and creationism. He has published a number of books popularising evolutionary biology, but is most famous for The God Delusion (2006), which sets out his reasons why "God probably does not exist". Dawkins is a combative debater with a stinging wit. He has an army of online admirers but an equal number of religious opponents, especially among fundamentalist Christians. Some critics claim that Dawkins is just as much a fundamentalist as his opponents.
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Richard Dawkins has, through his writings, helped us understand that the universe is far more beautiful and awe-inspiring than any religion has imagined - Rohan Pett
Challenges to the Design Argument
The problem for the Design Argument is that evolution has weakened a key premise, that design is always the product of an intelligent agent. Evolution shows this doesn't have to be true. Sometimes, the appearance of design comes about by chance. Maybe we will one day discover a new scientific theory, like evolution, which explains the appearance of design in chemistry and physics as well as biology. Evolution sows "seeds of doubt" about the Design Argument, making it less persuasive.
To explain [something] by invoking a supernatural Designer is to explain precisely nothing, for it leaves unexplained the origin of the Designer - Richard Dawkins
Dawkins describes naturalistic explanations of complexity (like evolutionary theory) as "cranes" the lift things up "from below" and contrasts them with supernatural explanations (like God) which he calls "skyhooks" because they come down to do the work "from above". This is Dawkins' way of restating Occam's Razor: "cranes" are good explanations because they are simple but "skyhooks" are bad explanations because they are complex.
For Dawkins, it's simply self-evident that God must be at least as complex as the universe he is supposed to have designed and is therefore a very bad explanation.
For Dawkins, it's simply self-evident that God must be at least as complex as the universe he is supposed to have designed and is therefore a very bad explanation.
A god who is capable of sending intelligible signals to millions of people simultaneously, and of receiving messages from all of them simultaneously, cannot be, whatever else he might be, simple - Richard DAwkins
Dawkins has been in many debates with theologians and bishops and still refuses to accept that God can be simple. It seems to him that believers are simply defining God as simple in order to win the argument.
God may be almighty, all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving, but the one thing He cannot be, if He’s even minimally to meet His job description, is “all-simple” - Richard Dawkins
The Anthropic Principle
With the Aesthetic Principle, F.R. Tennant points out that we have the ability to perceive beauty. He claims there is no reason for the universe to be beautiful and no need (as far as evolution is concerned) for human beings to appreciate it - it doesn't help us survive. But beauty is there and we perceive it and this suggests a Designer who has arranged the universe to be, not just habitable, but beautiful too.
However, this confuses cause with effect. We would probably find the universe beautiful whatever it looked like: even if grass was purple and water was bright red and everything tasted of chalk, if it was what we had evolved around we would find it pleasant.
Richard Dawkins finds the Aesthetic Principle "vacuous and wholly unconvincing". He says:
However, this confuses cause with effect. We would probably find the universe beautiful whatever it looked like: even if grass was purple and water was bright red and everything tasted of chalk, if it was what we had evolved around we would find it pleasant.
Richard Dawkins finds the Aesthetic Principle "vacuous and wholly unconvincing". He says:
Beethoven's late quartets are sublime. So are Shakespeare's sonnets. They are sublime if God is there and they are sublime if he isn't. They do not prove the existence of God; they prove the existence of Beethoven and of Shakespeare - Richard Dawkins