Review of ‘The Dawkins Delusion?’

Tobe38 over at A Load of Bright has an interesting review of Alister McGrath’s The Dawkins Delusion?, the second of his Dawkins-titled tirades.

Tobe38’s writes:

Leaving aside the ridiculous claim to “inner consistency”, this doesn’t really say anything at all. Far from claiming that the Aquinas proofs are still heavily defended, Dawkins states in the God Delusion “the argument from design is the only one still in regular use today” (The God Delusion, p79). So, what point exactly is McGrath arguing against here, if not one that was never actually made? The chapter in The God Delusion this is taken from is called “Arguments for God’s existence”. No such chapter would be complete without referring and responding to Aquinas famous proofs, and its omission would have provoked criticism from many, including, I’m sure, McGrath.

If ‘delusion’ is the major theme of The God Delusion, ‘illusion’ is the major them of The Dawkins Delusion. One such example, is that McGrath constantly tries to give the impression that religious beliefs are founded upon the same principles as science, as if they were contemporaries. He compares religious belief systems to scientific theories, as if they were tentatively held beliefs.

This sure looks like fun. I’ve not read this book yet as I have other books that I’m more interested in reading to assimilate first, and from this review I get the impression that I really shouldn’t bother. When considering some of McGrath’s previous output, I find myself agreeing.

Perhaps Terry Eagleton would take the time to deconstruct McGrath’s work as he attempted to do with Dawkins’. If he does, let’s hope that he doesn’t again suffer with the same bias that was so obviously expressed previously.

No other posts are likely to be like this.

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