I disagree with the views of Richard Dawkins on spiritual reality and religion. I also disagree with his own interpretation of his own views. He claims to be an atheist, and yet he takes certain spiritual views as self-evident. He does practice a religion, but he doesn’t seem to recognize that he does so. In particular, he believes that anything that can’t be measured isn’t real. If anything is “self evident”, ! it is that this claim is incorrect. I talk about Dawkins and his religious beliefs in my book Now—The Physics of Time. Here are some extended excerpts:
——-beginning of excerpt from Now—The Physics of Time——
Richard Dawkins, the author of The God Delusion, is the “primary atheist of the world,” according to astrophysicist–author–Cosmos star Neil deGrasse Tyson. I love Dawkins’s books on science, and he properly and effectively attacks many of the counterfactual claims of religious sects. His criticisms of organized religions are often valid, but because nonphysics knowledge is responsible for much evil, he seems to think that it is all balderdash. Dawkins makes a fundamental error in his unstated but implicit postulate that logic requires us to ignore nonphysics reality. A corollary of this is the mistaken belief that mastery of physics is incompatible with worshipping God. I give some counterexamples in Appendix 6, deeply religious statements made by some of the greatest physicists of all time.
In his 2006 book, The God Delusion, Dawkins says, “I am thrilled to be alive at a time when humanity is pushing against the limits of understanding. Even better, we may eventually discover that there are no limits.” Dawkins hopes that there are, indeed, no limits to the capability of science, but it seems to me it is more than a hope and has become his belief. It is the foundation of his religion. It is based on the success of science in explaining so much, and his belief that therefore it will explain everything. His optimism reminds me of that of the ancient Greeks, who expected that all numbers could be written as ratios of integers. He will be disappointed. The limits of physical knowledge are severe and obvious. Several examples that I’ve already given make it clear to me that physics is incomplete, incapable of describing all of reality.
Moreover, Dawkins’s faith in the supremacy of logic neglects the stark limitations discovered by Kurt Gödel. As noted earlier, Gödel showed that all mathematical systems have unprovable truths, truths that cannot be addressed or tested through the use of logic. So Dawkins’s approach to reality, accepting only truths that are logically demonstrable, is patently wrong even within the simple and clean realm of mathematics….
All our ethical goals can be interpreted as having Darwinian survival value, if not for the individual, then for the gene. Dawkins wrote eloquently about this theory in his fascinating book The Selfish Gene. Even altruism, Dawkins argues, is based on Darwinian evolution. We will readily sacrifice ourselves if it means that our genes, shared with our family and close relatives, our clan or cohort, will better survive. But although this theory is fascinating, is it right? That is much harder to determine.
Empathy does have positive survival value for the gene, but it also has negative survival value. Which one dominates? You don’t want your soldiers to have too much empathy for the enemy that you wish them to kill. Empathy for outsiders is not obviously the result of a selfish gene. Dawkins would argue that the positive survival value dominates, but would he say that out of analysis or because it leads to his conclusion? Physicalists need to be careful about making an arbitrary assumption that the virtues are a result of evolution. [[Note added: physicalism, as I describe elsewhere in the book, is defined by philosophers as the belief that physics encompasses all of reality.]] That is not obvious, and it may not be true. It fits neatly into the belief that science can explain everything, but we know that science can’t….
An alternative “explanation” for the origin of virtue is that it comes from our real, true, but unmeasurable nonphysics information. Compassion and empathy arise from the knowledge (belief? perception? guess?) that other people have deep inner essences, souls, just as you know you have yourself. It might be considered a religious revelation when you recognize (believe?) that other people are just as real as you are. The origin of love is empathy, not sex—although you may be influenced in your choice of sexual partners by your selfish genes. With empathy, you are led to feel (believe? know?) that the proper way to behave is to treat others exactly as you would have them treat you. Then most of the virtues can derive from that simple Golden Rule.
Richard Dawkins proudly proclaims himself to be an atheist—that is, not a theist. He claims to base his atheism on logic, but reasoning that ignores observation is not logical. His religion is physicalism.
Many atheists say they hold to no religion, and for some of them that might be right. But anyone who claims, “If it can’t be measured, if it can’t be quantified, it isn’t real” is not without religion. Such people often (in my experience) believe that their approach is obvious, and therefore they call it logical. They hold their truths to be self-evident. It is worthwhile to recognize that not long ago, the fundamental tenets of Christianity were held to be self-evident, at least among most Europeans. Isaac Newton wrote religious tracts in which he described his literal belief in the Christian Bible.
As for understanding reality, it is time to recognize that physics is incomplete. Physicalism has been a powerful religion, very effective in advancing civilization by the focus it has given to physics, but not something that should be used to exclude truths that can’t be quantified. There is reality beyond physics, beyond math, and ethicists and moralists should not abandon approaches solely because they have no scientific basis. Other disciplines need to pull back on their exaggerated physics envy and recognize that not all truths are founded in mathematical models.
——-end of excerpt from Now—The Physics of Time——
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