Time Immortal

was noted for having published a number of papers, starting (if memory serves) in about the 1950s, advancing an atheistic philosophy based on his studies in biology. Then, in the early years of this century, he changed his mind, and ‘converted’ to deism. In November of 2007, he released a book entitled There Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, detailing the process of his conversion and the reasoning behind it.

And now, Professor Flew has taken Richard Dawkins to task with a scathing review of The God Delusion.

The God Delusion by the atheist writer Richard Dawkins, is remarkable in the first place for having achieved some sort of record by selling over a million copies. But what is much more remarkable than that economic achievement is that the contents – or rather lack of contents – of this book show Dawkins himself to have become what he and his fellow secularists typically believe to be an impossibility: namely, a secularist bigot. (Helpfully, my copy of The Oxford Dictionary defines a bigot as ‘an obstinate or intolerant adherent of a point of view’).

The fault of Dawkins as an academic (which he still was during the period in which he composed this book although he has since announced his intention to retire) was his scandalous and apparently deliberate refusal to present the doctrine which he appears to think he has refuted in its strongest form.

…an academic attacking some ideological position which s/he believes to be mistaken must of course attack that position in its strongest form. This Dawkins does not do in the case of Einstein and his failure is the crucial index of his insincerity of academic purpose and therefore warrants me in charging him with having become, what he has probably believed to be an impossibility, a secularist bigot.

…

On page 82 of The God Delusion is a remarkable note. It reads ‘We might be seeing something similar today in the over-publicised tergiversation of the philosopher Antony Flew, who announced in his old age that he had been converted to belief in some sort of deity (triggering a frenzy of eager repetition all around the internet).’

What is important about this passage is not what Dawkins is saying about Flew but what he is showing here about Dawkins. For if he had had any interest in the truth of the matter of which he was making so much he would surely have brought himself to write me a letter of enquiry. (When I received a torrent of enquiries after an account of my conversion to Deism had been published in the quarterly of the Royal Institute of Philosophy I managed — I believe — eventually to reply to every letter.)

This whole business makes all too clear that Dawkins is not interested in the truth as such but is primarily concerned to discredit an ideological opponent by any available means.

Not that it should come as any surprise that someone like Dawkins would end up being little more than a dyed-in-the-wool bigot; after a man goes his disciples, of course, and the average Dawkins disciple is not what one might term a paragon of compassion and understanding.

And Flew has it exactly right. Vox Day, in his book The Irrational Atheist, noted as much, pointing out that much of Dawkins’ bestseller is devoted to denigrating opponents more than to actually presenting a coherent philosophy supported by evidence (indeed, Day noted that the evidence itself was rather sorely lacking, in addition to the incoherency of the philosophy being presented). The God Delusion is not a work of science (or philosophy, for that matter) as much as it is a series of one-sided (and two-sided) vendettas finding their expression in print.