Preliminary thoughts on Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion…

To be honest, this post has the word preliminary in it because I am only about half way through the book when I am writing this. I don’t usually write down my thoughts about a book unless I have finished it from cover to cover. But this one, I really need to get several issues off my chest.

Bismillah, Assalatu wassalamu ala rasulillah.

One thought kept recurring in my mind every time I flip through the individual pages of The God Delusion, and that is about the Tahlil given by Rasulullah s.a.w. to Sidi Ahmad ibn Idris r.a.

لاَاِلَهَ اِلاّ اللهُ مُحَمَّدٌ رَسُولُ اللهِ فِي كُلِّ لَمْحَةٍ وَنَفَسٍ عَدَدَمَا وَسِعَهُ عِلْمُ اللهِ

There is no god except Allah, Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, in every blink of the eye and in every breath, to the number that only Allah’s knowledge can encompass.

I pray that my last blink of the eye and my last breath are all accompanied by “Laa ilaha illa Allah, Muhammadur Rasulullah”

It is said that Rasulullah s.a.w. told Sidi Ahmad ibn Idris that whosoever practices the Idrisi Aurad, is free from fitnah of the End Times, insyaAllah.

I can’t help but to acknowledge that one of the greatest, if not the single greatest threat to Iman in today’s modern age would be from those who call themselves ‘enlightened’, western, secular, modern scientists; using modern science and empirical evidence as their all too powerful weapons.

The God Delusion is a serious book; it is over and beyond all those simple trivial arguments of old, presented by the less scientific/critical atheists, which believers can counter quite easily using the familiar, common, convenient arguments. I suppose it really has the potential to make people disbelieve.

I am well aware that I may be dipping myself in hot oil, to be toiling around with such danger. But, Richard Dawkins has his ways to hook up serious believers, with the intention of putting down any arguments from the believers’ side. Dawkins said something like this: Bigoted believers are expected to have read only a few pages of this book, and then throwing it away, burning, forbid others from reading it, ban it from publication etc.

I am also aware that not all non-sense deserves attention.

But I am of the opinion, and I am quite certain that my stand in this opinion is warranted, valid, true. That if it is the Truth, then it will prevail.

Quran 17:81 And say: "Truth has (now) arrived, and Falsehood perished: for Falsehood is (by its nature) bound to perish."

But of course, what is defined at Truth is a different matter lah; and perhaps I am fortunate to have several people explicating this concept of Truth as how it is explained by Prof Syed Naquib ;)
The idea of Islamic Worldview, with its understanding of key Islamic concepts, such as wahyu, agama Tanzil, among others, really made a good bolster against Dawkin’s The God Delusion.

To begin proper, I guess I should highlight one point characteristically emphasized in Prof Syed Naquib’s works: That Muslims ought NOT to adopt problems that are not theirs…do not end up dealing with pseudo-problems.

What this means is that Islam is rich and way up there in terms of its standing; so what atheists have to put forth against say for example, Christianity, may not have anything to do with Islam at all. For it may be that Christianity deserves to be treated that way for all the many frauds that it has in its very own theology. And I say this with no means of contempt whatsoever to Christians.

I am particularly thankful to Akhi Abdul Halim for clarifying the ‘God is Dead’ statement made by Nietzsche ;)

At the outset of the book, Dawkin’s made an honest statement, that he has assumed and lumped together Judaism, Christianity and Islam as the three most popular Abrahamic Faiths today. And he made yet another honest statement, that he is not as familiar with Islam as he is with Christian thought, and that his book The God Delusion, mostly deals with Christian thought, and that by extension, deals with Islamic Thought. Now as Muslims, we have much to object to this.

Although Dawkins admitted not being familiar with Islam, the way he put it in his The God Delusion seems to send out a tone that he is confident in debunking Islam should he be more familiar with it.

But besides that, that does not mean Dawkins has no arguments whatsoever against Islam; certain things like his denial plus his ‘proof’ of the impossibility of the world having a Creator can also affect the Islamic creed.

I have read about half the book up till now, and by and large, most of Dawkins’ arguments are against Christianity, at least thus far. He seems to like have made Christianity a punching bag and that he is a master boxer. Dawkins’ even quoted Dr. Bart D Erhman’s book “Misquoting Jesus” in his arguments against Christianity.

I have read Misquoting Jesus and Dawkins mentions the same thing like how the many gospels try to put a paternal geneology to Jesus who is supposed to be fatherless. Not only that, the genealogy of Jesus offered by Mark differs A LOT form the one offered by Luke. This is just one instance of historical, scriptural inaccuracies in the Bible, not to mention the many other books collectively called Apocrypha that really did not make it into the popular Bibles. The late Ahmad Deedat put forward a dramatic explanation of this point, I can still recall the video clip of his prepared scrolls of the genealogy of Jesus, as recorded in Mark vs that in Luke, what a contrast!!!

Dawkins’ appeal is mostly from science. Himself an evolutionary biologist, and a Professor at Oxford University (suddenly it reminds me that most Singaporeans going to Oxford are on either the PSC or SAFOS scholarships, or some other prestigious scholarships).

One thing I admire about Dawkins, (well perhaps admire really is not a correct word, why would I want to admire such a person?) is that he is well aware of the common arguments from the theists side, which makes The God Delusion even more convincing to some people. For example, if you have only read Harun Yahya, and perhaps not encounter specific rebuttals against Dawkins’ ideas, then perhaps you will find Dawkins’ ideas very powerful.



As Muslims perhaps we say, well, atheists are human beings also, we must give them the due respect that Dawkins may be guided to faith, even if it is on his deathbed….for all this while he has been saying La ilaha, There is no God; he only needs two additional words: Illa Allah, except Allah.

You know Dawkins actually made that a laughing matter? He said something like this, in quoting Ibn Warraq who wrote “Why I am not a muslim” and the secular theory of existence of religion; that Man ‘progressed’ from a primitive understanding of many gods, to just one god, and now, no god altogether!
So Dawkins is saying something like ‘what makes you think I am going back one step from no god to one god?!’

Again, I am thankful to Bro Halim for having contrasted the Islamic Theory of Revelation to the West’s view of religion ;)

Cynical, you may say that of Dawkins. But then again, some fitnah just have to be cynical right?

And yes, quite a huge part is dealt on politics and ‘unfounded’ governmental support for Christianity, but that is actually not our problem.

Dawkins mentioned Non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA), the idea that science is about HOW the universe works, religion is about WHY. And that religion and science do not overlap and exist separately.
Dawkins is so anti-religion that he would not let such an idea sit by idly when even he himself noted that other atheistic scientists have let religions deal with their own realm of expertise. Of course Islam is not for the separatist dichotomy of science and religion. You can’t help but notice Dawkins’ hostility to religion. He even said religions should be given its own space only so that it can waste time pondering about everything useless and false.

When an experiment fails to support a particular belief, say prayer helps in healing, then all religious figures will jump to attack such experiments as bogus, kangaroo-court kind of standard, true to their belief in NOMA.

But if ever any hints towards favoring belief are produced, then all religious figures start to jump the wagon and skyrocket the experiment into stardom, hailing it as evidence, at the expanse of their initial belief in NOMA.

Another issue is that Dawkins engages the ideas of Thomas Aquinas. This one made me feel regret for the sheer emptiness of Christian Theology as opposed to Islamic Theology. Dawkins mentioned the cosmological argument from Aquinas, which really is borrowed from Imam Ghazali’s Kalam cosmological argument. But the cosmological argument in The God Delusion is really substandard to the one by Imam Ghazali, I do not know whether Dawkins did not understand well or whether the Christian Theologist Aquinas really failed to do justice to Imam Ghazali’s Kalam Cosmological Argument.

Imam Ghazali made emphasis on BEGIN to exist, as opposed to merely Exist. It makes all the difference.
Dawkins reject Aquinas’ ideas, dismissing it as it will lead to an infinite regress of who created this one, and who created the one who created that and on and on ad infinitum.

Now at this juncture, it serves useful to note that Dawkins is also aware of the need to fix a plug at the otherwise infinite regress. This is what I mean when I say Dawkins is familiar with the common convenient arguments.

Dawkins says, even so, even if we need to fix a plug, why does it have to be by default, God? And even if he is God, then why do we have to ascribe the so many qualities ascribed to him? Especially like the listens to human’s prayers, interested in our affairs, judges sins and good deeds, wrathful, vengeful, bloodthirsty, jealousy-driven God of the Old Testament?

Subhanallah, perhaps we may say that that is not the Muslim’s problem, since the Old Testament has been subject to many alterations, intentional or otherwise. But Dawkins will really keep on arguing, even against Islam.

The argument from admired religious scientists. This is a classic. What then, about the multitude of geniuses, polymaths who are all too well known for being religious? People like Isaac Newton, Da Vinci, Copernicus, Galileo, Gregory Mendel, Louis Pasteur, Blaise Pascal, Michael Faraday, Maxwell etc, Lord Kelvin etc?

Dawkins reply; if you look carefully, these religious scientists are mostly of old, pre 19th century people, during whose time, Darwinian ideas are not popular, or not even heard of. Hence most of them have no other alternatives to belief, and that the dominant atmosphere is faith in a god. Perhaps some of them even hid their internal atheism, for fear of execution, or to use church funds which is very much like today’s research grants. Scientists may had to feign belief to be granted money from wealthy church to fund their research works, as in the case of Mendel.

I find it convenient on Dawkins part to dismiss belief simply because these eminent scientist have not come across Darwinian ideas, there is no real causal relationship here…
In fact, Louis Pasteur, a celebrated figure in biology, was aware of Darwinian ideas and was fervently against it.

Now even so, Dawkins contend that Darwinian ideas are mostly misunderstood, more so in the past, and even so today. He says: Too many theists have taken the issue as a jackpot or nothing kind of situation when discrediting chance as the cause of the complexities in life and in universe. Dawkins said: Of course it is highly improbable, next to impossible, that chance can create a complex being all in one step… but the game is not about Design vs Chance, of which, surely chance will lose.

The game is about Design vs Natural Selection…Natural Selection involves breaking it down into smaller parts, and involves the power of accumulation of probable events, regardless how small the probability. Over time, we see a series of many not-so improbable events manifested in one being, and this, we should not overrate it as a one-step alakazam magic…

From here, Dawkins goes on to attack Irreducible Complexity, and offers the ‘simplistic’ eyes of primitive flatworms as examples of a less-complete eye in the midst of evolving into a better functioning eye.

In this chapter, I am quite disappointed that Dawkins would actually resort to using an argument that would only decrease his worth as an atheist competitor: that if Irreducible Complexity is true, then there is a Designer who must be even more so Irreducibly Complex! Such arguments along the lines of who created God are long settled in Islam, and Dawkins is not familiar with it. Dawkins knows Aquinas, but not al-Ghazali.

Pascal’s Wager:
It is said that Blaise Pascal, the celebrated mathematician, said: You either believe or do not believe.

Suppose you believe, and there turns out to be a God, you are saved.
Suppose you believe, and there turns out to be no god, you lose nothing substantial
Suppose you do not believe, and there is no god, you neither gain nor lose anything
Suppose you do not believe, and there is a god, you suffer eternal damnation.

Hence, the decision is a no-brainer: Believe in God.

Dawkins dismissed this as a cowardly attempt to FEIGN belief, and that, perhaps Dawkins is right, even if that God exists, and that being omniscient, He comes to be aware of your pathetic wager in calculations, He would not be pleased at your cowardice!

Dawkins said, such a God would admire more the honest skepticism of the evidence-seeker, who found no evidence for God whatsoever.

Subhanallah, if he doesn’t get on your nerves…

In Islam, alam is defined as maa siwallah, everything other than Allah; even material existence is made to define in terms of ‘other than Allah’! how can there not be a God is really unacceptable to the Muslim.

Again I thank bro Halim for this.

Plenty more to talk about, I guess I stop here…to be continued insyaAllah.

I hope that you know, we can have a serious dissecting of such atheist literature, not all atheist literature deserves our time and attention, but something like this, the most vocal and ‘educated’ atheist voice out there today needs to be properly addressed…

Wallahu ‘alam.

This entry may have been controversial, I really do welcome constructive feedbacks, in fact, I look forward to people’s support in dissecting and addressing Dawkins’ points relevant to Islam, for once that is settled, I guess nothing more on the intellectual platform can ever shake the Iman. I am not saying that Iman is solely the product of intellectual knowing, but at least, we would be less influenced by people who present themselves appealingly as modern, ‘educated’, ‘scientific’…

Remember, Dawkins said that in the modern times (20th and 21st Century) Religiosity and IQ have a negative relationship…The more IQ one has, one ought to be less religious, and vice versa. He also presents statistics: that among Americans, only the general public, assumed less educated than the elites, believe more in religion as opposed to the very few believers in the community of the elite in science today.

Very pedas di hati….InsyaAllah, as Muslims, we must not feel threatened by such works, surely we have our responses, even more true and valid!

May Allah guide us all!