Secure Dawkins God: From The Selfish Gene To The God Delusion Written By Alister E. McGrath Rendered As Manuscript

is among my favorite authors, sitelinkThe Blind Watchmaker is one of my favorite books, So I was excited to see McGrath engage Dawkins on the book, Unfortunately, other than on the question of "Does evolution eliminate God" there wasn't much of an engagement, McGrath accepts most of the science in Blind Watchmaker as do I,

McGrath does pick apart sitelinkThe Selfish Gene quite rigorously, Unfortunately, I did not read The Selfish Gene, because I thought "Memes" are unscientific woowoo, The chapterlength critique of Memes was, to me very boring,

As others here are mentioned before, this is a great introduction on Science and religion: the arguments and the history.
A fully updated new edition of a critically acclaimed examination of the theories and writings of Richard Dawkins by a worldrenowned expert on the relation of science and religion

Includes indepth analysis of Dawkins landmark treatise The God Delusion, as well as coverage of his later popular works The Magic of Realityand The Greatest Show on Earth,and a new chapter on Dawkins as a popularizer of science Tackles Dawkins hostile and controversial views on religion, and examine the religious implications of his scientific ideas including a comprehensive investigation of the selfish gene Written in an accessible and engaging style that will appeal to anyone interested in better understanding the interplay between science and religion Comment démolir l'idée que le meme est scientifique.
Good review

This book reviews the totalist orientation of Dawkins in his hatred of religion.
The book identifies the logical flaws in Dawkins' arguments, Richard Dawkins is a compelling author with serious chops, Any book claiming to take on Dawkins must be similarly compelling amp from an author with similar chops.
Alister McGrath has written, and is, one,

McGrath adopts the right approach here, IMO, He does three things skillfully:
Accepts science, By endorsing the core of evolution and showing his excellent scientific depth in other domains, McGrath creates credibility for himself and avoids dismissal of his rebuttal.

Puts Dawkins in context, Science and people exist, and should be interpreted within a context, McGrath provides the context for Dawkins' science, and more importantly, the context for Dawkins himself, McGrath provides credible assertions that the latter is what drives Dawkins to his antireligious assertions, and that it is lessso his science.
Simultaneously, he lauds Dawkins as being an important, credible, and welcome voice in the human dialog about religion.

Identifies Dawkins logical amp scientific missteps He gracefully shows how the pretty veneer of Dawkins' narrative uses common logical slight of hand tricks to make a point, and how Dawkins has allowed his antireligious views to become a religion of his own.


No matter your religious beliefs, McGrath is worth reading,

Footnote: I have two reasons for giving thisinstead of:
Formatting, The kindle version of this book is formatted with all footnotes at the end of each chapter.
Because this is HEAVILY footnoted, Kindle readers must flip through dozens of footnote pages at the end of each chapter to keep reading.
For the Kindle version, all footnotes should be grouped at the end of the book,
Lacks a contrary world view, While McGrath does a handy job of describing and posing challenges to Dawkins' world view, he doesn't go far enough to provide his own concise, competing world view his philosophy of God, philosophy on the relationship between God amp science, etc.
I guess I'll need to go buy other books by him to discover it, Alister McGrath gives with this book a good inside into Darwinism and the thinking of Dawkins, McGrath is filleting the thinking from Dawkins, The book is easy to read and shows that there is no war between sciences and believe, McGrath shows us that meems are not scientific at all and that cultural evolution does need the faith and believe like believers have in a God.


For everybody who like the debate about science, evolution, faith etc, the little book from Alister McGrath is a must to read,

I loved it,

Dawkins and McGrath had a debate about this, For the full version see sitelink youtube. com/watchvlEmrZb

I wanted to like this book, But McGrath compares Dawkins' arguments to the "best" theologians, in the sense of the most reasonable, sciencefriendly Christian philosophers of the past and present, back to Augustine and his ifitconflictswithreality thing.
Dawkins' strawmen

are not representative of "modern theology," that sort of thing,

Would that it were so simple, The problem is that most believers, Christian or otherwise, do not buy into the topshelf theology that McGrath invokes.
Most believers will doubt any science geology, cosmology, chemistry, climate science, biology, to say nothing of evolutionary biology that conflicts with their faith.
They do not wrestle with how to resolve faith with objective reality and are truly not interested in knowing what a deeply reflective theologian says about it they reject reality.
My mother turned toyo me one morning in church to say "the head elder thinks God put the dinosaurs in the ground to test our faith.
" Trust me, there is less of a question in this statement than may appear, On this topic a favourite theologian of McGrath's might construct an edifying message drawing upon the extinction of such monsters as a lesson for an unstable world, never raising a doubt of their age or that they walked the earth.
But, the numbers of the faithful are more likely to be on the side of rejecting its reality, on the side of "tests of faith" rather than on the marvels of evolutionary biology and the capriciousness of fate.


It is strictly true but unimaginative that science itself cannot disprove the existence of a higher being, so that the most consistent stance based on what the evidence can provide is to be an agnostic.
And it is common to argue as McGrath does that atheism is built on its own type of faith, and I'll accept that is true.
But that's not some slamdunk: the holy books speak of miracles of a wholly different character than any that could be claimed to occur today, while an atheist makes no such claims, and a higher being has infinite leeway to present others just as stunning at any moment.
And yet. The two slopes away from the agnostic argument are simply not equivalent, however philosophically entailed it might be that there are two.
While it might not be arguing the same thing, we also mustn't forget that yes, science is culturally seated as is religious faith, yet it is not historically contingent to anywhere near the degree that religious faiths are.
To a satisfying degree, sciences originating in different places find the same things the surrounding religions do not.


Which brings me to a rather silly section contrasting Gould's and Dawkins' styles of argument, summarising and expanding upon work of T Shanahan.
Gould was an effective rhetorician and was a great populariser, but far more admired outside biology than within.
Gould may have used inductive argument, and Dawkins primarily deductive, and McGrath wishes to argue that Gould's are superior because of that fact.
In truth either works. What's more important to know is that Gould was excellent at constructing and then picking fights with strawmen, Dawkins' ideas included.
Nonbiologists have trouble seeing his strawmen, but for the working biologist, Gould's arguments on such topics are weak and silly e.
g. , sitelink nybooks. com/articles/ . Gould made his contributions, but they are not of the magnitude nonbiologists or Gould believed them to be.


The last think I want to mention that comes up several times is that Dawkins mischaracterises faith as being "blind" and free of evidence.
McGrath states this is never how faith is thought of by an actual Christian, and presents a nuanced statement of faith.
McGrath does not follow this up by walking us through the strength and support of each clause in the statement does not show us how faith is actually approached in its mechanics that make it neither blind nor evidencefree.
I understand that this is a personal thing, but it would have been nice to see McGrath approach this in a way that counters Dawkins' characterisation.


I don't think the real argument here is between Dawkins and McGrath, Rather, both have arguments with the same set of believers, those that reject reality and the science that studies it.
These believers can, do and will create much, much more trouble for a civil, democratic, just and peaceful society than could any differences Dawkins and McGrath might care to argue over.
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