A Note from Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins is a British atheist who has attempted to find some degree of fame in recent years by defaming the existence of God with the use of some of the most virulent language of which the depraved human tongue or pen is capable. To those who know no better, he seems credible. To those to whom logic is a total stranger, bluff and bluster pass for argument.

In November of 2006, we published an article under the title, Richard Dawkins – God Hater. It was a response to a laudatory article that appeared in a national magazine regarding Dawkins’s book, The God Delusion.

Dawkins is the most arrogant atheist to which this writer has ever had the misfortune to be exposed, and I have in my library some of the most celebrated works of that misguided persuasion. In his Delusion tirade the author is ambitious enough to boast: “If this book works as I intend, religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down.” As Shakespeare has Cassuis say to Julius Caesar: “Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed that he hath grown so great?”

The following year, Inter-Varsity Press published a book under the title, The Dawkins Delusion? – Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine. It was authored by Alister E. McGrath and Joanna Collicut McGrath (the bulk of the volume is attributed to Alister McGrath). Dr. McGrath, who holds a doctorate in molecular biophysics, is now professor of historical theology at Oxford University—and he is a former atheist.

In his academic travels, however, he repudiated his atheistic heritage. His study of the history of Christianity led to his belief in God and the validity of the Christian religion. He writes: “I had originally intended to spend my life in scientific research but found that my discovery of Christianity led me to study its history and ideas in great depth.” He identifies himself as a “Christian,” using the term in its most societal generic sense.

Though his volume is relatively brief, he takes Dawkins to the proverbial woodshed. I recommend this diminutive volume.

Dawkins’s literary “seizure” is highly volatile and loaded with incendiary jargon. It is long on rage and short on logic. Rarely does one encounter an effort that is so utterly void of one of the most fundamental principles of logical thought, namely, the law of rationality—no conclusion may be drawn in the absence of adequate credible evidence.

The evidence for the existence of God is overwhelming; the evidence supporting atheism is a black hole of despair from which no ray of light is apparent. The Dawkins illusion is void of rational conclusion. In Texas, Dawkins’s effort might be described as all hat and no cattle. Referring to Dawkins’s book, Professor McGrath asks: “Is the case for atheism really so weak that it has to be bolstered by such half-baked nonsense?”

I say all of this to make a very brief point. A few days ago I received an e-mail from the celebrated atheist himself. No, it was not an attempt to respond to my article in any intelligent way. It simply was this:

Friday, October 2, 2009
Richard Dawkins
England

Your delusion has been noted.

He could have spared himself four words, and simply said, “Ouch!”