Please permit me to disassociate with the official monetary slogan of he United States. But the line comes to mind. I am currently reading Richard Dawkins‘ “The God Delusion“. In his book, Dawkins states his case claiming the non-existence of God. Which is all well and good, it’s a free country. He and I see eye to eye on one thing which is tangential to the God question, but is nevertheless interesting. That belief in belief is not good.
Let’s unpack all that. Dawkins’ central question is of the existence of God. Some people say people are better off believing in God regardless of his reality, or society is better off because of religious adhearents. And Dawkins and I agree that is not so. In that opinion we are in good company. The Apostle Paul wrote:
If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.
If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.
Dawkins has his own substantial reasons. The abuses of the Church, the holy wars (historic and current), and suppressive arbitrary moral codes. He claims that no matter how constructive the results would be, that is no reason to believe a lie. That is, of coarse, from the persuasion that all religion of all times is a lie.
So this is where I’m at, I am reading a persuasive book about the non-existence of God. I will have more to say about Dawkins’ writing style, style of persuasion, and subjective assumptions (which is a sin for scientists). The introduction to the book promised that a thinking person would become an atheist by the end of the book.
I hope to write more on this as I feel like it.
