"The God Delusion" (Commentary)

Yep – here I go again. I can’t get over it – the fact that our wonderful, glorious, freedom loving nation is driven by people who are obsessed in their belief of a God. Obsessed to the degree that they believe God is speaking to them and telling them how to run the country.

"I trust God speaks through me. Without that I couldn't do my job."
---President George W. Bush, July, 2004

Now I’m reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and it is giving me even more grave misgivings about these political/religious leaders. If they are so deluded as to believe God is telling them how to run the country, how do we control their delusions? How can we trust that the God they believe in is the kind, benevolent God of some preachers and not the murderous, evil SOB that Adolph Hitler believed in?

It seems to me that among believers, there is great diversity – people seem to make of God what they wish. Some believe you must live by the Bible (though they pick and choose which parts of the Bible they mean) and some believe God tells them to murder people. Some (Catholics at the least) believe in worshiping lesser Gods, virgins, angels and perhaps dozens of other religious forms, while other religions do not allow it. Some believe the Sabbath is Saturday, others believe the Sabbath is Sunday. Which truth is it? It certainly appears that the nature of God is of our (each individual) own choosing – we see Him as who – or whatever – we want.

If there were a “real” God – if in fact you were He – and You wanted everyone to worship You so that they could gain entry into Your Kingdom – would You not at least let them know what You stood for? Who You were? What Your governing principals were so that all might know together, not each picking out his/her own rules?

In “The God Delusion” Dawkins talks about the fact that there is quite a bit of evidence supporting the theory that those who believe most sincerely in God are also, on average, more poorly educated and learned than those who are atheists. The following paragraph caught my eye and seems to explain a lot – at least to me.

“That scientifically savvy philosopher Daniel Dennett pointed out that evolution counters one of the oldest ideas we have: ‘the idea that it takes a big fancy smart thing to make a lesser thing. I call that the trickle-down theory of creation. You’ll never see a spear making a spear maker. You’ll never see a horseshoe making a blacksmith. You’ll never see a pot making a potter.’ Darwin’s discovery of a workable process that does that very counter-intuitive thing is what makes his contribution to human thought so revolutionary and so loaded with the power to raise consciousness.”

The reluctance of so many Americans to give up their reliance on God, I am sure, is in no small part related to their experiences in life with just such a trickle-down theory. Conservatives, strongly tied to their religious beliefs, also believe in the trickle-down economic theory. That is, they believe that the universe (or the world) needs a big daddy to take care of them. I think I begin to understand, that at least for a significant number of conservatives, they feel small and unworthy. They are looking for a protector, someone of a higher order, be it God or the corporate captain, to watch over them and provide for them. This is their comfort in life and they are unwilling to give it up.

Thanks, Richard, your book is explaining a lot to me.