During his academic career, Richard Dawkins, a prominent evolutionary biologist, popularized science and sharply criticized religion, considering it dangerous and unnecessary for modern society. He contributed to debates on religion with his book The God Delusion. This text is unwelcomed by the theological community for its superficial arguments and fallacious view of religion. This essay argues that Dawkins did not realize the scope of religion’s sociological and psychological values.
One of the most definitive critique texts on Dawkins’s position is written by Terry Eagleton. The major assumption of Eagleton (2006) is that Dawkins considers religion as a blind and unquestionable faith in the existence of God. In this sense, God is assumed to be a divine UFO, the belief that determines religion’s meaning (Eagleton, 2006). In addition, Dawkins’ rhetoric is based on the view that religion and fundamentalism are interchangeable (Eagleton, 2006).
It is hard to agree with Dawkins’ reasoning because it succumbs to a one-sided view that does not consider special psychological and sociological meanings. In fact, psychologically, religion interacts with personal shifting states of consciousness by painting one in the right direction. It seems that the main problem is that Dawkins’s framing is highly rationalistic and inspired by Enlightenment thought. From another standpoint, religion serves an important sociological role in connecting people in communities. The important aspect is that true religion is not about killing homosexuals and abortionists, as Dawkins might think (Eagleton, 2006). In contrast, there is an apparent softening of religion with a greater role given to social commitments.
To conclude, Dawkins, as a natural science researcher, is heavily preoccupied with the type of reasoning prevalent in his discipline. The problem is that religion is not about hypothesis testing and experiments. Besides, the arguments will be limited without acquaintance with major theological texts. That resulted from Dawkins’s book The God Delusion, the main topic of which is criticism of religion. It did not properly uncover religious faith’s very important sociological and psychological meaning.
References
Eagleton, T. (2006). Lunging, flailing, mispunching. London Review of Books, 19(6), 1-6.