A Quick Dawkins Note

Richard Dawkins wrote in The God Delusion, on pages 167-168,

"In George Bernard Shaw's words, 'The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.'"

Ah, but "these are not drunk as you suppose."

Shaw was a prominent skeptic in his day as Dawkins is in ours. Would he have said the same knowing the large amount of research showing that spiritually-oriented persons, unlike drunks, are (on the whole) quite emotionally healthy?

(If the point is that the truth of a religion is not proven by the attitudes of its adherents, what about the fact that it amounts to a hypothesis demonstrated?)

Later on that page:

"The American comic Cathy Ladman observes that 'all religions are the same: religion is basically guilt, with different holidays.'"

Nice quip. Same question. Religion is about forgiveness, anyway--Christian religion, that is. One of the great discoveries I experienced in Christ was freedom, freedom in relationship with Christian friends, freedom before God. It's a religion of truth, which says sin is indeed real. Is there anybody who doesn't regret some of what they do? But the solution is freely offered in Christ.

Posted: Sat - February 3, 2007 at 08:28 PM |

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson getCategoryName("<$CategoryUUID$>");

A Quick Dawkins Note

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson