Between Realities

Dawkins vs. Voegelin (Coestier)By: Meins M.S. Coetsier

Richard Dawkinsevolutionary biologist

1. Evolution can explain the world around us

2. Rejects the watchmaker theory, that God created the universe because the universe is way too complicated to come about accidentally (big bang).

3. God just offers a convenient, but false, stop to the question of how the world came about.

Eric Voegelinpolitical philosopher

1. Individualistic idea of a religious utopia is dangerous and has led to the spread of totalitarian movements.

2. Religion is not a self discovery, but is bestowed upon you– you need to follow the rules set down.

3. Truth becomes trust in the absolute goodness of these rules. Understanding is not needed.

Summary

• The word G-o-d has been– Deformed and Bent– Confused and Changed– Stripped Down and

softened• For any thing to be strong

and defensible it has to have limited, fixed meaning.

Main Point

Dawkins does have a point in The God Delusion concerning the disastrous effect of religion, but seems unaware that he is fighting his battle for atheism over deformed ‘God symbols,’ which does not say anything about the actual ‘God-reality itself.’

Intro & God Confusion

• Culture today is messy• Individualized

• G-O-D as a word Is also messy• Individualized

• Flow of presences• True objective

meaning of things

On Dawkin’s God Delusion• All Gods are false beliefs– Invented Supernatural beings

• Likens religion with insanity• Religion = Revolt of man– God is unpleasant and unjust– Bad thing are done to man

• True Freedom = Atheism– Atheistic Pride

On Dawkin’s Reality• Religion is taught as a threat– Scientific point of view

superior– Evolution gives order to life– Leads to atheistic pride

• Eclipse of Reality– Things not understood are

misrepresented – We project an alternate reality– The self we are and the self we

think we are• When the later overtakes us

Response to Reality• Cannot eclipse reality• Knowledge is a process of

connections– Known - Object– Knower – Person– Cannot break this connection

• The pole of the known– If Humans (knower) have an idea

(knowledge) of God (known) than he has to be true and real.

• Where else does the idea come from of God?

On Dawkin’s EvolutionGod is just a projection of an idea from the mind of man

• Evolution explains the world better than religion– Man is a function of

evolution – Chain of being

• Dawkins has faith in science

Response to evolution– Man is the highest on the

chain of being– Where on the chain of

being does man start?– Regression argument?

That is, one does not have beginning of man; one cannot explain man by arbitrarily putting a beginning somewhere within that chain.

God vs. Superman– F. Nietzsche & K. Marx• God is just a projection of the

human mind. It is just the function of the human mind• Psychological creation• When a person pulls their idea

of God back into themselves they become Superman.• In other words, when we

become the characteristics of the ones we project as God we become more than human, we become super human, and we become God.

Response to God in Phycology

Man loses all “ground” & All reference points to good are gone

Man cannot and does not live without accounting for himself in terms of a ground. When the ground, which is the transcendent ground, has been imaginatively eclipsed…there is no real direction towards the transcendent because he cuts himself off…

Deformed LanguageIt is not religion, but the use of religion Dawkins is attacking

Admits horrendous things have been done in the name of religion• The true meaning of God must

remain pure, otherwise we start to cloud the importance

• Start to lose connection between word and its meaning

• Subjective meaning overtakes objective meaning

This type of meaning makes it easy to attack any word.

Intellectual cul-de-sac• If we allow for subjective

meaning of God• Circular meaning of God– God creates all– religion– Religion defines God– Usually, this definition

includes God creating all• Leads to the degradation of

symbols and a deformed basis of God