By Douglas Anele

The book under review ends in chapter 10 entitled “A much needed gap?” In it, the author examines the purported psychological benefits of religion. Sometimes it is argued that there is a God-shaped lacuna in the human brain which has to be filled, that we have a psychological need for an imaginary friend, father, big brother, confessor, and confidant – God.

This need has to be met whether God actually exists or not (p. 389). Dawkins tries to establish the quality of consolation and inspiration that God provides for believers, and determine whether such needs can be satisfied better by science, art, love of nature and of real life in this world etc. On the issue of consolation, Dawkins argues that the power of religion to console believers does not make it true.

He makes a distinction between (1) direct physical consolation which involves, for instance, providing material help and succour directly to those who need it and (2) consolation by discovery of a previously unappreciated fact, or previously undiscovered way of looking at existing facts.

A woman whose spouse was killed in battle may be consoled by learning that she is carrying his baby or that he died a hero. Epicurus, Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson and Bertrand Russell among others, boldly confronted the inevitability of death by looking at it from a perspective different from the supernaturalistic one canvassed by religion (p. 396-397).

Dawkins compares religion to science on the platform of Type 1 consolation. He concedes that it is entirely plausible that belief in the strong arms of God, even if they are purely imaginary, could console a distraught believer in just the same kind of way as the real arms of a friend. However, for the sick scientific medicine provides a more effective relief than mere belief in an imaginary deity.

It appears that religion should be really effective in providing Type 2 consolation. Sincere belief in a divine plan, in the omnipotence, omniscience and infinite goodness of God can be consoling to bereaved persons and survivors of natural disasters. False beliefs, according to Dawkins, can be as consoling as true ones, right up to the moment of disillusionment. But the attitude of religionists to death poses a problem. Believers accept without question that there is life after death.

But Dawkins wonders why Christians and Muslims, if indeed they are really sincere in their acceptance of immortality of the soul, do not feel excited in anticipation of future reunion when they learn that a loved one is dying. Why, he asks, don’t the faithful, on the bedside of the departing, send messages through him or her to those that have died before? Perhaps believers do not really believe all that stuff they pretend to believe about immortality. Or probably they believe it, but are afraid of the process of dying.

In that case, why does the most vociferous opposition to euthanasia and assisted suicide which terminate excruciating pains associated with certain terminal diseases come from religious people? Of course, a believer may argue that all killing is a sin. To that answer, Dawkins poses the question: “…why deem it a sin if you sincerely believe you are accelerating a journey to heaven?” He believes there is something infantile in the presumption that it is the responsibility of God to give meaning to our lives (pp. 403-404).

The truly adult position is that life is as meaningful, as full and as wonderful as we choose to make it – and we can make it wonderful indeed. Regarding the issue of inspiration, Dawkins says that it is a question of taste. Thus, his approach to it is more rhetorical than logical (p. 404).

For Dawkins, science is a consciousness-raiser, bearing in mind that through it we are aware of how precious life is because we have only one life to live, and because we are the privileged ones with the opportunity to live out of the countless trillions of potential human beings that could have emerged from the combinatorial lottery of the DNA but who were never born.

Hence, the atheist view is correspondingly life-affirming and life-enhancing without being marred by self-delusion, wishful thinking or the debasing self-pity of those who feel that life owes them something. Dawkins uses the analogy of the tiny slit in the shapeless, oppressive, black burka worn by fundamentalist Muslim women to represent the size of the unscientific window through which we view the world. Of course, the slit allows us to see only a small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.

This means that, as human beings we usually operate in the Middle World of the intermediate range of phenomena that the narrow slit in our burka, that is, our inherited perceptual and cognitive equipment, permits us to see. What science does for us, he says, “is to widen the window. It opens it up so wide that the imprisoning black garment drops away almost completely, exposing our senses to airy and exhilarating freedom” (p. 406).

The author highlights some of the amazing discoveries in science, especially in physics and biology (pp. 407-411) and concludes in an inspiring note: “Could we, by training and practice, emancipate ourselves from Middle World, tear off our black burka, and achieve some sort of intuitive – as well as mathematical – understanding of the very small, the very large and the very fast? I genuinely don’t know the answer, but I am thrilled to be alive at a time when humanity is pushing against the limits of understanding. Even better, we may discover that there are no limits” (p. 420).

Richard Dawkins book, The God Delusion, is a highly illuminating and engaging book. It reads like a well-informed manifesto for atheism, because it clinically dissects the intellectual and scientific porosity of belief in God and puts in its place a humanitarian appreciation of the wonderful triumphs of modern science.

The biblical assertion that “a fool says in his heart that here is no God” may be true. But after reading Dawkins’ book, it is truer to aver that “a bigger fool says in his heart that, evidence or no evidence there must be a God”. The God Delusion is a must-read for every Nigerian, especially at this perilous time when religious bigotry and fanaticism is experiencing a recrudescence in the country.
Concluded.