On Reading "The God Delusion" by Dawkins - Chapter 5

In this chapter Dawkins attempts to answer the question of why religion exists from a Darwinian mindset.  That is, why people came to believe in god and how that belief might be beneficial from a survival of the species standpoint.  He then begins by asserting Darwin’s viewpoint, “…natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, as the improvement of each organic being.” 

He then postulates that religion exists because we are genetically dispositioned to believe what our elders tell us.  That’s an interesting theory, but it does not explain several important facts:

1)      Adults can and do decide to have faith (and that, both before and after having raised children).

2)      A belief in Christ can and does result in positive internal change for the individual believer.  If it did not, people simply would not continue to follow Him.

3)      Each new generation makes up their own mind about Jesus and the claims of Scripture.  You might train a child to believe something, but that does not automatically mean they obey that through adulthood.   This is evident in everything from piano lessons to food tastes, and certainly includes religious training.

Yet in spite of the above facts, and in spite of his observation that, “Religion can endanger the life of the pious individual, as well as the lives of others.”, Christianity still spreads.  That goes against everything natural selection teaches.  In fact, in places where opposition is greatest (such as communist China) it seems to spread even more and result in even greater degrees  of certitude.  This flies in the face of Dawkin’s suggestion that religion is a byproduct of evolutionary practice.   

Dawkins then suggests that religion is akin to biological changes in our brains produced by being in love.  He says, “From a Darwinian point of view it is, no doubt, important to choose a good partner, for all sorts of reasons.  But, once having made a choice – even a poor one – and conceived a child, it is more important to stick with that one choice through thick and thin, at least until the child is weaned.”  Well that’s great from a Darwinian point of view, but the Christian point of view says that marriage is for life.  How would that help the Darwinian drive to procreate as many children as possible by as many different mates as possible?  It doesn’t.  The whole of Christianity stands against the Darwinian viewpoint, and it is impossible to argue that Christianity is the result of a Darwinian evolutionary process. 

Faced with such difficulty, Dawkins then says, “The general theory of religion as an accidental by-product – a misfiring of something useful – is the one I wish to advocate.”  In other words, religion in general (which almost the whole world holds to) is a genetic error.  That again seems counter to his argument that natural selection is weeding out the ‘bad’.  How is it then that the genetically defective lot are the majority?  He concludes that we are infected with the virus of religion.  Later he clarifies that this virus has evolved totally randomly yet maintains some common characteristics.  Such is the logic of memetics.

In a brief aside, Dawkins can’t help himself but to take a series of Martin Luther’s comments completely out of context in his effort to prove that Christians think reason is our enemy.  Perhaps Richard didn’t bother to look up Martin Luther in Wikipedia (let alone actually study the man and his writing).  If he had, he’d have learned that it was Martin’s post-doctorate reasoning that was the catalyst for the Great Reformation.

Getting back to his chapter’s point, Dawkins asserts that religion operates more along the rules of memetics (unwritten cultural ideas) than the rules of genetics.  He proceeds to say that just as genes work together (for a carnivore must have meat digesting genes as well as genes for canine teeth, etc), so also memes must work together.  The environment of compatible ideas he coins ‘the memplex’.  You should realize that Richard Dawkins is the founder of the ‘science’ of memetics. 

All of this is quite complex and perhaps ironically interesting, but it misses the point.  A meme is just a human idea that circulates for a while and then dies.  A gene is just a bit of matter that lives for a time and then dies.  From a Christian point of view, an understanding of God - who was, and is, and is to come - has more in common with an understanding of the laws of physics than it does with understanding the seemingly random propagation of a human idea.  Likewise, his discussion of the cargo cult of John Frum is an interesting side-study into cult development, but doesn’t prove or disprove anything as it relates to God Most High.  Comparing a cult to a religion is like comparing feng shui to architecture.  I would counter that religion exists because people are dispositioned to worship.  Religion teaches us that God was before mankind and created mankind to worship, so man must worship.  The question of who we worship is the central point of Christianity.  I would wish Dawkins would question why he is so opposed to worship (of God) or perhaps even question what he does worship (because to say ‘nothing’ is really to say ‘myself and my own thinking’) instead of mocking others.

On Reading "The God Delusion" by Dawkins - Chapter 4

It is telling that Dawkins starts off this chapter with the assumption that God came from somewhere.  It is certainly true that we think along the lines of linear time, and it is impossible for us to think of how God could be, apart from time.  In spite of what we might initially think, is not that hard a concept to grasp – a character in a novel cannot possibly conceive of how the author existed prior to the very first page, but we (being authors ourselves) see it as obvious.  If you wish, consider yourself a living character, the result of God's multidimensional speaking.   Such thinking is helpful only from the viewpoint that it brings us to face our own limitations.  We, being created, cannot fully understand God, our creator.  Dawkins is really saying God doesn't exist because we cannot comprehend Him.  I keep seeing this as a running theme throughout this book - Dawkins perceives himself to be the authority, and God needs to just show up personally and prove His existence to him (Dawkins), or he won't believe  - and by his logic, you shouldn’t either.  Personally, I find it sad that Dawkins is determined to live and die apart from God.  I am hopeful that people would carefully consider where they stand on that matter, rather than merely take up the thinking of any one particular human being. 

For his part, Dawkins almost worships Darwin.  I think that's ironic, because I rather think that if Richard had met Darwin in the flesh I would fully expect Richard to have snubbed the younger man for lack of education. 

Now if you choose to believe that nothing was doing nothing and then for no reason whatsoever nothing exploded, creating everything, and little bits of matter magically assembled themselves into self-replicating bits that turned into dinosaurs....well then, I don't think that 'natural selection' would seem so ridiculous.  For myself, I see 'natural selection' as 'unnatural conclusion'.  It simply doesn't make any sense (to me at least) to believe that a microbe gave birth to a plankton, and then a plankton gave birth to a fish, etc.  A microbe can certainly adapt and become a better microbe (just as a dog can be bred to be bigger or faster), but it can never become more than a microbe.  Same with a fish.  You can breed bigger, faster fish, or fish with bigger mouths, but they will never get small legs and then slightly larger legs, and then lungs.  Types cannot change types, and species cannot change species.  Inserting several hundred million years between species on a long evolutionary scale only makes sense if you suspend the principle of entropy, magically erase the innumerable variations between steps and also ensure that each step gets to keep the exceedingly vast majority of its result w/o moving to the next step (for it is self-evident that not all fish grew legs, and not all lizards became monkeys, and not all monkeys became men).  If natural selection really worked, there would be almost no lesser beings, because the ones that 'win' would keep on winning - overcoming the ones that 'lose'.  Or else there would be innumerable 'almost winners' of every type and permutation living around us.  But where the people group with better eyesight?  Where are the fossils of the three-legged men, or the eight-legged dogs?   Surely 'natural selection' would have had to try those permutations too.  Forgive my sarcasm, but hey, we could all use eyes in the back of our heads - where is the people group with half an eye in the back of their heads, on their way to take over the world in just another thirty or forty million years? 

Dawkins then makes the ridiculous claim that it is a virtue in religion for to be us satisfied with the status quo, and lazy in thought about how to advance.  Here he again shows a tremendous ignorance of Scripture and of history.  The whole point of knowing Christ is to discover God in a deeper and more significant way.  Indeed the more you do, the richer, more fuller and more satisfying your life becomes.  The beauty of the Christian life is that we know we are saved for a purpose (to know and enjoy God) – a purpose that must include continued learning and continued growth because the purpose itself is continued depth of relationship.

Speaking of not being lazy in thought, you should know that Western Europe's first schools were not started by well educated atheists.  Rather, they were started by Benedictine monks desiring to teach young men how to read and write.  They began centers of learning nearby their monasteries for this purpose.  In 1079, Pope Gregory the 7th issued a decree requiring the creation of cathedral schools for educating the clergy.  It was this development the led directly to the establishment of the University of Bologna in 1084, Oxford (1170) and the University of Paris in 1200.  So from a western mindset at least, know that it was Christiandom that sought higher learning, not secularists. 

Dawkins errs to declare that the gaps in the fossil record do not deserve greater scrutiny.  It is not that creationists 'love gaps' (and so want to stare so long at them that we come to the wrong conclusions), but that the gaps represent real problems for the evolutionary 'slow climb'.   As I've already stated, if there really was a slow climb, we would see all kinds of almost-made-it-but-not-quite creatures in the fossilized record, and we would also see many different and competing permutations on the present world.  We do not see them, but instead see creatures that represent distinct species.  Evolutionists claim these are 'links'.  I think that is a great and erroneous leap of faith (faith in yourself and human thought instead of in God).  Creationists see in the fossil record exactly what we see today in the real world, a great number of distinct, created species.

On the matter of irreducible complexity, Richard writes to discredit Michael Behe, declaring that he is simply not using his imagination.  According to Dawkins, if he was using his imagination he could find a way of discrediting creationism and he would conclude evolution.  OK, then why doesn't Dawkins use his imagination to discredit evolution?  After all, if the shoe fits....but clearly he has chosen to believe in evolution (putting his faith in himself) and he doesn't like that others have chosen to believe in God (putting their faith in Him).  I thank God that He has not only made it clear that He is creator, but also revealed to us that this very conflict (of choice between God and other) is the foundation of the fall of mankind – which in turn is the reason we are by nature so blind to Him and His work.

Dawkins misapplies Augustine just as he misapplies nature around him.  It is not that creationists want to stay ignorant (as I've already said), but that Christians are more concerned with what ultimately matters more than on zeroing in on minutiae that has no practical application.  Dawkins and Darwinians are the ones telling us to spend hundreds of billions of dollars and as much of our precious limited time as possible (and we only have 24hours a day and about 30000 days each) on the endless search to find what can never be found (a creator apart from God).  That is what Augustine was saying in the quote Richard uses, BTW.

Toward the end of this chapter Richard starts to show his true colours a bit more clearly in his treatment of anthropic principle.  LIsten to what he says, "We can deal with the unique origin of life by postulating a very large number of planetary opportunities.  Once that initial stroke of luck has been granted - and the anthropic principle most decisively grants it to us - natural selection takes over; and natural selection is empathically not a matter of luck." 

Is that atheist logic?   I do not want to be overtly sarcastic, but what hear Dawkins really saying is, "We can counter the theist view of God's creation by using our imaginations to conceive of a uncountable quantity, within which we only have to have luck just one time.  Once we have that luck (and our imaginations can give the luck to us because the math is so far out of normal experience), we can depend on abandoning the principle of entropy, ignoring the fossil records and pretending - none of which is more luck!  Thus, we win and there is clearly no God."  

Lest you think I am making Dawkins appear more foolish than he actually is, try reading his own words as he explains the why God is a bad idea compared to the alternative atheist idea that our universe is actually the product of an evolutionary cycle in a multiverse consisting of zillions of universes;  

“The key difference between the genuinely extravagant God hypothesis and the apparently extravagant multiverse hypothesis is one of statistical improbability.  The multiverse, for all it is extravagant, is simple.  God, or any intelligent, decision-taking, calculating agent, would have to be highly improbable in the very same statistical sense as the entities he is supposed to explain.  The multiverse may seem extravagant in sheer number of universes.  But if each one of those universes is simple in its fundamental laws, we are still not postulating anything highly improbable.  The very opposite has to be said of any kind of intelligence.”

The problem with his logic (from my perspective) is the sheer number.  Not of the universes, but of the assumptions he makes:

1)             An assumption that there are other universes at all (something we cannot prove or disprove)

2)             An assumption that there are a huge number of them (something we cannot prove or disprove)

3)             An assumption that they are all ‘simple’ (something we cannot prove or disprove)

4)             An assumption that human statistics can even be applied as relevant to other universes  (something we cannot prove or disprove)

5)             An assumption that one of these universes spontaneously gives rise to life by itself.

6)             An assumption that the life that spontaneously rose manages to evolve to our present state.

That seems to me, living in what Dawkins would call the exceptional universe, to be a rather large amount of exceptional circumstances, all lining up in a rather exceptional way.  Yet in Dawkin’s math, the abovementioned series of assumptions makes more sense than the theists’ list:

1)             God is.

I always thought that science taught us that the simplest solution is probably the right one?   Of course, Dawkins goes on to (rightly) point out that God cannot be simple.  I agree.  It is true that God is not simple, but the IDEA (that God is our creator) IS simple.  In fact, it is so simple that everyone can understand it.  Except (apparently) radical atheists.   

On Reading "The God Delusion" by Dawkins - Chapter 3

If you read any of his work, I think you will likewise conclude that Thomas Aquinas was one of the most brilliant people to ever walk the earth.  A Dominican monk by very deliberate and adult choice, he devoted his life to study, learning and writing.  A more educated man would be difficult to find.  It is surprising that Dawkins takes such a dim view of Thomas, especially as Thomas held Aristotle is high esteem.  Actually, Thomas spent the best years of his life reconciling Aristotelianism (classic Greek thinking, which Dawkins so epitomizes) with Augustinian (classic Christian) theology.  All of us do well to study his life and works.

Thomas Aquinas wrote five proofs:

1; Everything changes and every change is produced by a cause, ipso facto there is an ultimate cause, which is God. 

2; Behind all causes producing effects their must lie an ultimate first efficient cause, which is God. 

3; God is the ultimate necessary cause, for there must be one cause that lacks the possibility of not being. 

4; There exists a gradation in things, so there must be an ultimate degree of all things and thus the cause of gradation. 

5; The governing and operating of the universe points to an intelligent force guiding it to its ultimate end.

Dawkins takes delight in dismissing the first three of these proofs as regress, but they seem no more unbelievable than evolution, which is just regress in reverse.  If one is prone to believe evolution then one must seriously consider Aquinas's concept of regress, because to embrace evolution and not likewise hold to is to call yourself a scientist with selective (one-way) conclusions and so loose all credibility.

Dawkins believes that God cannot be both ominipresent and omnipotent, and appeals to Karen Owens’ poem to mock such.  Here he reveals the limitations of applying human reason and human language to divine character.  God can be and is omnipresent and also omnipotent, and yet also has a personality - that is why we have personality, for we were made in God's image (Gen 1:26). 

Consider this: We know that matter is made up of atoms, and atoms are made up of subatomic particles.  Each of those particles spins in a certain direction.  We also know that we are on the verge of making computers that use atoms as storage devices - an electron spinning one way is a zero and an electron spinning the other way is a one.  Further, we've found that quantum physics allows some kind of communication between subatomic particles that we do not understand, but we can use it to manipulate the spin of particles.  This is the basis for quantum computing, which is cutting edge human technology.  Yet if we know this, is it really so far of a reach to consider that all particles may already be 'ones and zeros'?  Taken to it's conclusion, this line of thinking realizes that a lump of coal or a cubic meter of air has more computing power in it than every computer mankind has ever made put together.  What then of the whole universe?  If you want to only consider the physical world, consider this as the mind of God.  To think that we haven't even touched on the matter we cannot see, or energy in all it's forms!  Such a mind would be capable of all things, capable of manipulating matter and energy in all their forms.  Indeed, we could be said to live and move and have our being within it.  Read Acts 17:28, or better yet, Acts 17:24-32 to catch the context.   I am not saying that this is the mind of God, because I believe the Scriptural record that God made all this matter to start with.  I am merely saying that if we an conceive of  how to do ‘impossible things’, then how much more can God do them!

Dawkins again appeals to evolution, this time as the solution to the creationists argument from design.  Evolution is such a ridiculous theory that it hardly deserves my time in refuting it.  Nevertheless if you are prone to consider it, then consider this: 

1)    Given enough time and generations, you can breed a smaller dog from a larger dog.  You can breed a dog with a longer nose from a dog with a shorter nose.  But you cannot breed a cat from a dog.  Nor can you breed a monkey from a fish, or a man from a chimp.  Give a fish a zillion generations and you will have a lot of fish, but not so much as a salamander.  Consider the 'eternal' jellyfish (look it up on Wikipedia).  Still a jellyfish after countless generations!  Even bacteria do not 'evolve' into multi-celled animals, though mankind has been breeding them by the trillions for hundreds of years and is now probably on billions of generations since we started studying them.

2)    Evolution flies in the face of entropy.  If there is anything learned by applying a lot of time to it, it is that 'it' degrades, not improves.  Such is the way of a fallen world.

3)    Darwin's logic was just as flawed, and flawed on the same principle (of pride), as Dawkins.

The ontological argument that Richard trots out is (in my opinion) a meaningless word game and is even less deserving of my time than evolution.  Worse, the three hundred 'proofs' that Dawkins takes such delight in ridiculing are some of the most juvenile dribble I've seen apart from some stuff on Reddit.  I would've thought a serious book would not resort to such.  I can find a lot of stuff on the web worth mocking, but doing so will not further our discussion.

One of the more serious allegations Dawkins makes is that those who hear the voice of God are mad.  No doubt that those who do not know Him cannot understand His voice, and it is clear from daily life and the newspaper that many people hear voices they mistake for God.  God speaks in many ways.  Firstly through His Word (the Scripture).   Also through circumstance (but this must be checked against His Word).  Also through people who have been reading His Word and listening to Him (again, this must be checked against His Word).   And also, to those who know Him and have been made spiritually alive by Christ, through His voice speaking to our souls, Spirit talking to spirit.  Even that must be checked against His Word.  Those who err (thinking God is speaking when He is not, such as Dawkin's examples in this chapter) do so because they do not check what they are hearing against His Word.

But if you do not know God, you are (as I said earlier) spiritually dead and cannot hear His voice beyond His command to rise up and live (to be saved).  I would bluntly say that unsaved people who claim to hear God give them specific directions that contradict Scripture are actually listening to demons.

Dawkins makes the assertion that people who meet God are foolishly imputing meaning into their random experience.  But then, a deaf person could just as well say that people who hear music are simply assigning unintended melody to vibrations in the air. 

All who hear music know it is music, and all who know God know when He is speaking to them.  As Jesus said, “My sheep know My voice”.

In this chapter Dawkins does a short pass at the Scriptural evidence.  Here I am sorry to say that he makes some outright stupid comments.  To debate the Scriptural evidence for God by saying that Jesus didn't really claim to be God (or that the number of times He did are inconsequential) is totally foolish.  Seven times in the Gospel of John, Jesus clearly stated that He was, and the Jews of His day understood full well what He was saying.  It was for this claim that they sought to charge Him before Pilate.

Actually this whole section I will not comment on, because it is just stupidity for Richard Dawkins to claim that his obviously unresearched commentary on the Scripture has more validity than the millennia of Biblical scholars who devoted their lives to it.  It is not unlike me writing a half-hearted diatribe against the collected works of Shakespeare and quoting some unlearned individuals off the web to support my cause.  But if you want a response to each of his outlandish claims ask me later and I will. 

Dawkins goes on to appeal to the number of learned scientists that claim Christianity, and finding few, uses it as another argument against God.  I rather think that those who get much education are in danger of greater pride, and it is their pride that causes them to consider their own thought to be greater than faith.  Only the few who exercise humility avoid this trap.  Recall my comments from the preface.  In the end you have to determine if you want to follow the smartest man in the world (be that Dawkins, or Darwin, or even Thomas Aquinas), or the God who made the world and every man in it.  I categorically reject Dawkins' thinking on this line of thought.  Being so full of yourself that you consider most everyone else less intelligent, and therefore having opinions that are less worthwhile, is the life philosophy of Hitler.  I hardly think that should be admired.

Dawkins mocks belief in God as the determining criteria for salvation.  Indeed, belief in itself is not enough.  James writes, "Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder."  Belief w/o faith is nothing more than an opinion, for it is a belief un-acted upon.  It is like saying you are a conservative, but never voting. Does that matter?  No.  Even the demons believe in God.  Yet they do not act on their belief, but on their own wants and desires.  A man who says he has faith but does not change any of his decisions as a result of that faith is not being honest with himself.  Faith that saves is faith that changes your decisions.  At the very least, faith must result in repentance.  Faith leading to repentance is enough to save.  Not enough to reward, but enough to save. 

I will not honor Unwin with any consideration of his attempt to quantify the probability of God. 

I will say this; The greatest proof for God, for those who will not look at creation or the Word of God or the individual testimony of those who have met Him, is the resurrection of Christ.  As the book of Act declares, "Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has  appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”

On the resurrection of Christ hangs the faith of Christians because apart from the resurrection there is no hope of salvation.  And what use would belief in God be if He was coming back to damn you anyway?  But because of the overwhelming proof of the resurrection, all born again Christians place their hope confidently in Jesus, and so look forward to His appearing. 

After the crucifixion and prior to the resurrection, the apostles were scared, disillusioned men, cowering together in a room for fear of the same authorities who just killed their leader.  After the resurrection they are powerful witnesses of Christ, refusing these same authorities to their faces.   It is because of the resurrection that they testify to men on pain on death, and in fact all except John are eventually martyred for their faith. This is remarkable, because a man will die for a truth he believes in strongly, but no one will die for what they know is a lie.  It is because of the resurrection that Saul - a highly learned Pharisee of the Jews who is running around imprisoning and killing Christians - is converted.  After studying the matter for 3 years he changes his name to Paul.  Before his own consequent martyrdom he travels the world explaining the Gospel and starting up churches.  It is because of the resurrection that the church of Jesus Christ is started.  It is because of the church that we have hospitals, universities and all manner of ministries for the poor and disenfranchised.  Prior to the resurrection none of these institutions existed.  It is because of the resurrection that people all over the world for two millennia have put their hope in Christ and been changed forever as a result.  It is because of the resurrection that Jesus Christ can and will return in power and glory.  It is because of the resurrection that I testify to you.  It is also because of the resurrection that Richard Dawkins writes against Jesus and religion in general, for the resurrection is the ultimate humiliation of all the spiritual forces arrayed against God Most High.

On Reading "The God Delusion" by Dawkins - Chapter 2

It is impossible to read Dawkins unbelievably arrogant view of God without acknowledging the irony of his (Richard's) pride.  He claims God is full of all kinds of evil and then pronounces that he knows this because God does not appear to him the way he (Dawkins) thinks is appropriate.  He writes, "any creative intelligence...comes into existence only...), as if he (Dawkins) is the universe's authority on creation!  For a simple created man to pass judgment on creator and uncreated God is the ultimate in conceit, and that is a huge understatement.  As pointed out in my response to his preamble, this error is the underpinning of all Dawkins writes.

RIchard states that what he calls the God delusion is founded on local traditions of private revelation.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The Christian faith teaches that a simple consideration of the world around us shows that someone has been at work- there is a design inherent in everything from microbes to insects to humans.  And not merely biological, but everything from sub-atomic units to the movement of galaxies.  

As Bonaventure wrote in the 1200's, "The beauty of things in the variety of light, shape and color, in simple, mixed and even organic bodies - such as heavenly bodies - and minerals like stones and metals, and plants and animals, clearly proclaims the divine power that producers all things from nothing, the divine wisdom that clearly distinguishes all things, and the divine goodness that lavishly adorns all things."

Richard testifies to this himself when he earlier commented on Darwin's wonder at the order of things around him.  This is what Biblical scholars call "the general revelation of God".  The creator-nature of God is thus at the very beginning of the Bible (the written revelation of God), because such is the basic starting point of all who would seek Him.   The fundamental error of mankind is that instead of searching for WHO, we instead look in to ourselves and determine that we shall discover by our own means and by our own devices HOW things came to be apart from God.

So the error of Man in Genesis 3 is that instead of considering first God, they (Eve and Adam) considered first their own wants and desires, listening to the lie of Satan.  What Dawkins purports is exactly the same lie - that the answers to our needs and desires are up to us to discover because we are capable of discovering them and have the right to do so - apart from God. 

It was for that reason that when mankind first fell, God immediately came to them and asked, "Where are you?"   He didn't ask that because He didn't know where they were, He asked that because He wanted them to realize they were lost - that God was now apart from them, but if they now chose to follow His voice they could find their way back to Him.  They had taken it upon themselves to choose wrongly, and it was now up to them to choose rightly.  To make a different decision – a new decision that is the opposite of the old decision – what we call, ‘to repent’.

Dawkins assumes that there is a progression in religion, from animist beliefs to polytheism to monotheism.  Actually the Bible clearly lays out that there is, has always been and always will be ONE God, and that everything else mankind chooses to worship instead of Creator God is a lie.   Now if I tell you that X is (one thing) but you choose to say that for you, X is something else, you are then free to make up anything you want as the definition of X.  The Scripture (God's revealed words) clearly argues against false gods, whatever form those false gods take.  So you read (in the Scripture) God's detest and judgment on all the many forms that man makes up his mind to worship apart from Him.  Not because He is vindictive and egocentric, but because He cares about his created children and is jealous for their wellbeing – in the same way as a father is jealous for the wellbeing of his own children.  Idolatry always leads away from God - be that the idolatry of many gods (see how Paul spoke to that issue in the book of Acts) or the idolatry of a different 'god' (see how the prophets all spoke against Baal) or the idolatry of created things (like ‘idols’ of silver and gold and cash).

He then brings up the Trinity and makes it clear that this is a very confusing concept.  It is hardly unreasonable to know that Dawkins struggles with the Trinity.  The most learned and gifted of men who have studied this matter for most of their lives will freely admit that they barely scratch the surface.  Even Thomas Aquinas (a much brighter and more learned man that Dawkins), who wrote very well and very deeply of the Trinity, admitted as much.  Is it unreasonable for us to understand that we (created and fallen mankind) cannot fully understand the nature of God Most High?  If we could completely understand Him, He would not be beyond us.  It seems as though Dawkins would be happier if his god were small enough for him to understand.  Perhaps he (Dawkin's god) is, because dare I say it sounds to me like he only worships himself. 

That a mature Christian can claim to know part of the unknowable (in claiming to know God is Triune in nature) and yet simultaneously also admit that they do not grasp that fully is hardly (of itself) a difficult thing to understand.  Does a child not know who it's father is?  Yet the child does not understand genetics, has not performed any DNA testing and cannot even explain how this 'other' came to be his father.  Yet the child 'knows' who his dad is!  If a child who does not yet speak fluently can grasp that, why can Dawkins not grasp that a child of God knows who God is?   Better yet, why can he not grasp that he does not know God because he has no relationship with Him? 

Dawkins goes on to ridicule the Catholic Church for their veneration of saints.   I cannot defend that practice, for the Bible clearly lays out that we are all equal in Christ.  There is no 'saint' that is to be prayed to - to do this anyway is to engage in idolatry.  God alone heals, God alone delivers.  The Catholic Church has many good qualities – they honor Jesus Christ, they revere the Scripture.  But Catholicism as it is most often practiced is rife with error - from calling priests, "Father", (which the Scriptures specifically forbid – see Matthew 23:9), to the deification of Mary (the Scriptures specifically forbid the worship of created beings, see Ex 20:3, Rev 22:9), the use of penance (we are saved by faith, see Eph 2:8-9), etc.  This is why most evangelical Protestants see the vast majority of Catholics to be still in need of a right relationship with God.

I find it interesting that Dawkins admits he is attacking all 'gods' and finds this fitting and useful, but he does not seek to so much as think critically about his own thinking!  This error is immediately obvious in his treatment of Judaism, Islam and Christianity as three branches of the same thing.   A more foolish thing to say would be hard to find apart from some of his earlier comments in this book.  It is like saying that a truth is just like a lie because they are both spoken.  Even a cursory reading of the Koran will plainly reveal that the god of Islam is not the God of the Scriptures.

On his treatment of American history I cannot say much, for I am not an American scholar by any means.  Yet even I know that America was of course not founded on Christianity.  But it was founded by (largely) Christians.  To deny the history of the USA on the basis of a paragraph taken out of context is...well, it is consistent with Dawkins' writing so far, but it certainly is a distortion of the truth.  I encourage you to do a bit of research for yourself on that matter.  And remember that Jefferson was not the be all and end all of American thought.  Dawkins' fascination with Jefferson is only because Thomas Jefferson was one of the more outspoken atheists of his day - at the time an anomaly.   His persistence that atheists make up a persecuted majority is, frankly, not believable.  That he found one example of an atheist being 'threatened' means little - not to belittle the fellow who felt threatened, but honestly - that the best Dawkins can do is pull a single example out of Bible Belt America!  Really, out of 360 million people, tens of thousands who die violently every year and you can only find one example, and that of someone being threatened?   Untold millions of Christians have been killed for their faith, and hundreds more every single day. I was hosted in Columbia in 1995 by a brother in Christ who was killed for his faith later that same year, so I can honestly say I have even personal met (at least one) of them.  Consider the "Prayer for the Persecuted Church" movement - they have much evidence of this kind of thing happening all over the world (especially in Muslim and communist (officially atheist) countries).  Read Foxes book of Martyrs – there is no small list of names of those tortured to death for their faith.

Dawkins goes on to state that atheists must be dishonest to be elected to power.  Am I supposed to believe that this is a testimony about how persecuted the atheists are?  Am I to take his word that they lie - as proof in place of lack of evidence?  That is not only a weak argument, it's just...well actually it’s just sad. What kind of argument is it to say that you lie because of what we should understand as obvious truth?  If you are willing to lie about something to get power for yourself, then it obviously isn’t something that is helping you gain courage, or integrity, or honesty, or really anything else useful for governing others.

Further into the chapter Dawkins is devoted to trying to line God Most High up to a celestial teapot and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.  This is again failed logic, because no one has ever had their lives completely changed by a teapot or a spaghetti monster.  Yet millions and millions of people world over and through millennia have had their lives forever changed through an encounter with God.  Has anyone ever been healed by a Spaghetti Monster?  Has anyone had an addiction removed, or a ruined marriage reconciled by a celestial teapot?  No.  Yet such is the normal experience of those who meet God Most High. 

On his point of the value of Theology, I will concede that a person who refuses belief in God cannot perceive any value from theologians or their work.  Of course, if Dawkins were physically blind he might just as well argue against the value of photography, painting or ophthalmology.  Does his insistence that God is not real discount theology?  No, no it does not.  Like the blind complaining that too much money is spent on cameras and eye health, Dawkins complains that the rest of society is preoccupied with something he cannot understand.  All that does is illustrate to everyone who can see, just how totally blind the complainer is.

He writes that all enlightened modernists reject Deuteronomy and Leviticus. I guess that's another display of his pride (thinking that only unenlightened people could accept these two books of Scripture).  Such a comment can only come from someone who does not understand the Bible.  Dawkins would be so much wiser if he would instead ask why he does not understand these books instead of dismissing them off-hand.

He (Dawkins) spends quite a bit of time trying to establish that the question of God's existence is a scientific question and not exclusively a theological question.  I would only point out that every field of human scientific study is equally unable to define God and yet equally able to find Him (if in fact you are looking for Him).  If on the other hand you are trying to prove that He is not there, you will no doubt not find Him. He is always present to those He knows, always found by those who seek, and always impossible to those who disbelieve.  With faith you can find Him everywhere, but without faith you can never find Him, no matter how advanced your science is, "...for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him." 

The "instrument" by which God is found is faith, as surely as the instrument galaxies are found with is a telescope and the instrument microbes are found with is a microscope.   You cannot find galaxies without a telescope, nor microbes without a microscope - so too you cannot find God without faith.  The interesting thing is, galaxies and microbes are physical things and so you use a physical instrument.  God is Spirit, and you must use a spiritual instrument.  To get a physical instrument you must have technology and money.  But you can have faith by belief.  In fact, everyone has 'faith' of one kind or another, because you either believe God or you believe something else (like the lie that there is no God). To make my point that science can 'prove' the Bible with faith and certainly not without faith, just consider....well, consider the galaxies.  You look out with the most powerful telescopes mankind can build and what do you find?  You find that you are lost!  You cannot see the edge of the universe no matter which way you look.  You find yourself unconnected with everything else beyond earth except by things you cannot see.   Alone in all the universe, except for the dogged persistence that somewhere, somehow there must be life that we can recognize.   Do you know what that dogged persistence in such a belief is?   It is faith.  So...chose wisely what kind of faith you will have!

Dawkins goes on to cite the one scientific study that was done on the effects of healing prayer.  To try to 'prove' the spiritual on the basis of a scientific study is an interesting concept, but in practice I think not an overtly wise thing to do.  Is omnipotent God, who has chosen and does choose to reveal Himself to those who seek Him, suddenly wanting to perform miracles on demand for the benefit of those who doubt?  I think not - in Luke 23:8-9, Jesus refused to act like a divine Santa Claus for unbelieving Herod, and He is the same yesterday, today and forever.  So I think God will never yield to the idea that we can demand certain results from Him at specific times just to prove Him as God - to do so is to yield to mankind's innate and fallen desire to rule over Him.  Worse, to demand such is the same demand Satan put on Christ in the desert (see Matthew 4:1-7).  And consider that the whole point of Missio Dei (the mission of God - what we might call God's modus operandi) is to reconcile fallen mankind to Himself, not to stun us into submission by impressive miracles.  Actually, if you study the nature of miracles in the Scripture, you find that they never produce faith in those who did not have faith already - instead, they harden the hearts of those who do not believe.  Read again the story of the 10 commandments, or the story of the resurrection, or even the story of the Jewish people themselves, who witnessed hundreds of fulfilled prophesies and the answer to untold numbers of prayers over millennia in the appearing of their Messiah, and still did not believe!

Dawkins touches again on the issue of creationism.  Creationism, like the resurrection of Jesus, is one of those issues that atheists must try so very hard to debunk, because the truth of the matter definitively proves them wrong (by their own logic).  Again Dawkins majors on the minors in his thinking.  Mankind, fallen and apart from God, is unable to find Him without listening to His voice.  The fall from relationship with God - our spiritual death - is so complete that we cannot even hear that (His voice) unless He has mercy on us and opens our ears to hear Him.  This in itself is a miracle, a miracle you have experienced yourself.  For you are (spiritually) dead in your sins, and yet God gives life to your ears to hear His call in the Gospel.  You deny His call - that tug in your heart - at great personal peril, because He does not sustain a miracle forever, but only for a time (after all, that’s why it’s a miracle and not a ‘law of nature’).  That is why the Scriptures say, "Today is the day of salvation, today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart."  If you respond to his call with acceptance, salvation comes - you are given new (spiritual) life - life that does not die a physical death.  You are literally 'born again', spiritually.  Then the Spirit of God can led you into truth, and you will have a similar conviction to mine.