Transcription
Does God exist? Is religion a force for good or evil? Can religion and science go hand in hand to find some answers?
I've come to Oxford, home to the oldest university in the English-speaking world, a place where I studied as an undergraduate. Well as in jewels in the city's crown is the Oxford Union, the debating chamber that's witnessed such legendary orators as Winston Churchill, Benazir Bhutto, and of course, Kermit the Frog.
I've come back to the Union today to sit down with the world's most famous atheist, Professor Richard Dawkins, to put faith on trial and to ask: is religion evil? Muslims riot in protest against a truly awful film demonizing Islam. Dozens are killed. Christians pastor in Florida tries to burn a copy of the Quran and unites global tandem. And even Buddhists are at it, attacking the Muslim minority Rohingya in western Burma. And of course, it's a conflict plaguing the modern Middle East, are often blamed on ancient hatreds. Through the children of Abel, remember 9/11? Was this religiously inspired terrorism? Thousands died.
Yet here's the thing: societies without faith. Communism banned all religions, as Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong systematically slaughtered millions of their own country. Is science any better? Since Galileo and Darwin, scientists have sought to stamp out ignorance and unravel the mysteries of the universe. But science has also poisoned the environment, unleashed killing on an industrial scale, and now threatens our entire planet.
My guest today, however, stands firmly on the side of science and has provoked controversy with his attacks on religion. Ladies and gentlemen, Professor Richard Dawkins, one of the most prolific thinkers of his generation. He's shot to fame in the 1970s with his research into genetics, and his book *The Selfish Gene* transformed evolutionary biology. His most famous work, *The God Delusion*, sold millions of copies and has been translated into more than 30 languages. Richard, thanks so much for joining us here on Al Jazeera.
Before we go any further, I just want to check something: are you an atheist for all practical purposes?
Yes. Nobody can actually say for certain that anything doesn't exist. But I'm an atheist in the same way as I'm an a leprechaun standard, nay, various, and an a big unicorn 'us.
So you're not 100% sure God doesn't exist, but you're sure enough to make it practically?
I'm as sure as you are sure that fairies and leprechauns don't exist.
And do you see an equivalence between the idea of God and the idea of a fairy and a leprechaun?
The evidence for both is equally poor.
You say in *The God Delusion*, "One of my favorite sentences jumps out of the page: 'That the God of the Old Testament is a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak, a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser, a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, Phyllis, idol, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capricious, malevolent bully.'" As a piece of rhetoric, superb. But do you really believe that?
Congratulations on getting megalomaniacal right, by the way. Most people, most people fumble on that. Yes, if you've actually read the Old Testament, I think you would have to agree. It is, it's hideous. It's an anti-the God of the Old Testament who is a monster. But also the God of the Koran, the New Testament, the Hindu scripture?
Well, the God of the Quran, I don't know so much about. The God of the New Testament is widely advertised as being a bit, a bit more gentle. And certainly, on the whole, he is. There are things about the New Testament that I find, in a way, almost more objectionable than the Old Testament. But the sheer horror of the character. I said he was the most unpleasant character in all fiction because I regarded as fiction, of course. And yes, he is. I mean, he's jealous, he's vindictive, he's callous, he's cruel. And this is a God that is worshipped by, loved by, adored by, followed by millions, billions?
Of I hope not. I hope that the God that is adored by millions of people is a grown-up kind of God who is no longer. I hope that most people, who the kind of people I would like to know, who worship and admire him, regard those stories as not literally true. Now, there are some who do regard them as literally true, and I suspect they either haven't read the Old Testament, or they're not the kind of people I would wish to know. Because because you don't, you do not win what want to worship a character like that. By all means, worship some kind of great spirit of the universe, some kind of creative intelligence who created the universe. But don't worship this vile, vindictive monster.
They throw, what, why throw around these sweeping statements about religion, not the God of the Old Testament, but religion itself being evil? I mean, do you believe religion is evil?
No. But you say plenty of times in this book, "The religion is evil." You said in a speech famously that, "I think a case can be made that faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus, virus, but harder to eradicate."
I do think that, yes. Because what I'm talking about there is faith, where faith means belief in something without evidence. Because if you believe something without evidence, then that justifies anything. You, you're no longer vulnerable to somebody coming back at you and saying, "Hang on a minute, let me argue the case." If you believe it without evidence, which is what faith is, then you don't argue the case. You say, "No, I'm not arguing that case. This is my faith. It's mine. It's private. I don't, I don't dissent from it. I don't recruit from it. You're just going to have to accept it." Now, that is evil.
And yet, you spend so much of your time debating people or faith. So clearly, people of faith are interested in having discussions. They're not just all blind believers insisting on their way of?
Nobody said anything about all of them. I mean, the vast majority of religious people are perfectly good, nice people. As you are. There's no suggestion I've ever made that all religious people are evil. Of course not. There is a logical progression that goes from believing in faith, having faith that you, that your God tells you to do something, and doing terrible deeds like suicide bombing, like flying planes into into skyscrapers. The vast majority of people of faith don't do such terrible things. But those people who do terrible things, do it believing that they are righteous and good, and they think that they're doing the will of their gods. As they are. They're not evil people. Actually, good people by their own lights. They believe they're doing good things. And that's why religion is evil, because it can make you do evil things, believing that they are good.
Do you really believe that people who go out and carry out suicide bombings, it is faith, religion is to blame? Not geopolitics? Not the world? Not their lives? Not what's going on around us? It's religion, plain and simple?
Not always. It's not in the case of the Tamil Tigers, for example. But I think in a great majority of cases, it is. And I think it certainly makes it a hell of a lot easier. The evidence is plain that that in many Islamic suicide bombers, you talk to them, those who fail, you talk to them afterwards. They've got paradise on the brain. They, they're desperate to go to a martyr's heaven. And that's what they think about.
Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago studied every known case of suicide terrorism, 315 cases, and he came to the conclusion that there's "quote, little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism or any of the world's religions. The taproot of suicide terrorism," he says, "is nationalism. It's about land. It's about power. It's about politics. It's not about faith. Faith is just a cover."
What do you know that he doesn't know?
Well, I've seen other, other evidence. There are different people say to say different things. I've seen plenty of of testimonies of suicide bombers who have said precisely that they do it because they want a martyr's paradise. Shooting through the 7/7 bombers in that case as well?
Yes, I believe so.
Have you watched their suicide videos?
I'm not sure that I have.
Now, they talk about Afghanistan, they talk about Iraq, they talk about Crusades, they talk about war between the West and the Muslim world. They talk about invading armies. I mean, there's a lot of, there's a lot of real-world stuff in there. I'm not saying, of course, not the faith hasn't, doesn't play a role. But I'm just interested in this idea that you think faith is, is the issue. You say, you said in a very famous column you wrote four days after 9/11, that this came from religion.
There are enormously good reasons for people to take political action. And this, we see in Northern Ireland, we see it in Afghanistan, we see it in in Sri Lanka, where the Tamil Tigers operated. So yes, there are political reasons. But the promise of other martyrs' heaven, which is, we cannot deny that this is part of Islamic doctrine. Martyrs go straight to paradise. Yes.
They're not terrorists, not murderers, not criminals?
Well, they believe that because they're told it by their Imams. But then what about the majority of the world's Muslim clerics and Ulama who came out and condemned 9/11, strongly, and delighted? They did. But they were pretty quiet about it.
What about the argument that says human beings are prone to violence? They're prone to carrying out crimes against their fellow man. You can blame religion, you can blame politics, to blame economics, lots of factors, lots of excuses. Why don't, what I don't get, why do you only focus on religion? For fairness, why don't you also isolate the other factors?
There are lots of other factors. And I'm quite happy to say that, yes, there are, there are lots of rain. If you look at the wars of history, some of them have been about religion. Plenty of them have not been about religion. I never said religion is the, the sole cause of wars and violence.
You, you may not have said that, but you would accept that the New Atheists, people like Sam Harris, the late Christopher Hitchens, have blamed a lot of history's wars on God and religion. And you make a similar suggestion to *The God Delusion*.
Yeah, I would blame a lot of history's wars. But the most terrible wars in history, the two major wars of the set of this 20th century are nothing to do with religion. Listen, when the Cold War and Vietnam?
Yes, I would have caught, of course, yes.
So when you have a situation where some of the world's worst crimes were carried out not by believers, how then does that square with your idea that it's religion that causes good people to do bad things, religion that's driving violence?
Your original statement against religion at the start of this dogmatic belief in something like religion, or something like Marxism, or something like Nazism, these are all indeed patriotism. "My country, right or wrong." These are all pernicious beliefs which can drive people to do to do terrible things. And in the Second World War, Hitlerism was driven by, by, by racism, by a sort of Wagnerian pagan religion which Hitler revived. Stalin's atrocities were, were motivated by a dogmatic belief in Marxism and atheism. Stalin happened to be an atheist, but he was never motivated. The Soviet Union was not based on scientific rationalism, on the elimination of religion and God. Stalin persecuted the church. Stalin persecuted just about everybody.
Are you saying that the Soviet Union, the leaders of the Soviet Union, were not driven by a hatred of religion and a belief that science and human progress and materialism was the way forward?
They believed that materialism, science, human progress. There was a kind of marker, there was a Marxist slant on those, on those words. And they were hideously miss. Mao Zedong, when he invaded Tibet, told the Dalai Lama that religion is poison. The subtext to the late Christopher Hitchens' book was, "Religion poisons everything." Can you blame people a religion for saying, "Hold on, we've heard these ideas before. That religion poisons everything, and it leads in one direction." It's an incidental fact that Mao Zedong and Stalin happened to be atheist. Thing. It wasn't, you want caught too communism?
It I think it was not caught a communism. No.
So when Karl Marx was talking about religion, "the opiate of the masses," that was just a throwaway line?
Yeah, I mean, that was, that was an out-of-context statement. I mean, what on earth you think I've got to do with atheism?
I don't know. Let me put a statement in context to you. Albania, one of the world's worst dictatorships, tyrannies that we've seen in the last hundred years. Article 37 of Albania's communist constitution declared, "The state recognizes no religion and supports atheistic propaganda in order to implant a scientific materialistic world outlook in people." What do you think you're saying?
I mean, that's an appalling thing to say.
Of course it is. Why is that an appalling thing to say? What do you disagree with in that statement?
Why would I want to support atheistic propaganda? I support science and truths.
But you don't support spreading atheism?
I support spreading science and truth. If that happens to be atheism as well, I support it. I'm not going to start bullying people into tube into being atheist. I'm not going to start trying to compel people to be to be atheist. That was what the Albanians were doing. It's nothing to do whatever you liked.
Of course. But you'd like to persuade them not to be believers?
I'm coming. I'd like to raise consciousness in a gentle, civilized way, using argument, rational argument from evidence.
In your book, you cite lots of evidence for the bad things religions and what I wonder is, if you were being fair, wouldn't you've also included some of the good things that religions done?
My passion is for scientific truths. I don't much care about what's good and evil, actually. I care about what's true.
I mean, do you actually believe in your Muslim faith? You believe that Mohammed split the moon in two? Do you believe that Mohammed flew to heaven on a winged horse, for example?
I pay you the compliment of assuming that dude, that you don't know. I do. I believe in murder.
You believe that? Yes. You believe that Muhammad went to heaven on a winged horse?
Yes. I believe in God. I believe in miracles. I believe in revelation.
I mean, the point here is that, let's assume I'm wrong, Richard. I'm wrong. That's look, let's just see. My wrong. I'm wrong. All religions are wrong. God does not exist. We're all mad. The issue is, we exist. We've existed for a while. I think even Christopher Chan said, and you said in your writings, we're not going anywhere. So my question to you is, why not acknowledge, for example, the good things that Williams done? Do you accept that religion has done good things, despite all of our mad beliefs in our miracle?
I accept that individual religious people have done an enormous number of good things, not driven by religion. Somebody like Martin Luther King, for example? Reverend Martin Luther King? Yes, obviously he was up here, he was a cleric, so so I imagine that that fed into the good things that he did. Plenty of other things did. He was a great admirer of Gandhi, and he was a great admirer of non-violence. He was a brilliant, a wonderful, great man.
Would you disconnect MLK's non-violence and Gandhi's non-violence from their very strongly held religious beliefs? They didn't?
Well, I think that's, it's not a thing that I really care about, actually. I mean, I think they will care about it. Rich people carry out violence in the name of God. And I cite to an example of very famous people who have done good and non-violence in the name of God. And you say, "I'm not interested." If God doesn't exist, then doing something good in his name, it's great that something good gets done. But there's no evidence at all that believing in God makes you more likely to do good things. I can't see any noble logical connection between being religious and doing good things.
Let's concede that God does not exist. Let's concede that religion is false. My problem here is trying to understand why some of the New Atheists are so anti-religion when religious people clearly are doing lots of good things, and they're doing it in the name of God.
I've never denied that religious people are doing good things, and non-religious people are doing good things. I care about what's true. I'm an educator. I'm a scientist. And I want people to understand the truth about the universe which they live. That's what I care about. And I regard religion as a distraction, and in some cases, a pernicious distraction from true education, which I, which I love and value.
Of the way you value and love your God? Can you not do both?
Well, so long as they don't contradict each other. But but if you, if you, if you actually believe Muhammad flew to heaven on a winged horse, that's an anti-scientific belief. And that could be wrong.
But the devil is wrong. But that doesn't change. That doesn't change.
How do you know it's wrong?
Oh, come on. You're a man of the 21st century.
I'm just asking. Those comes back to my original question. The rational position is the agnostic position. Way out there. What I mean, I didn't say out that. I didn't pick a place. Why would a wormed horse be that neither way to get to heaven if it's not up there? I asked, I asked a question about, you asked about proof. I'm all for saying I can't prove it. But can you prove he didn't do? I mean, flight of heaven. I'm just asking on your criteria. I'm just asking.
Or no, I can't prove it. And I can't prove it wasn't a golden unicorn. Fascinated that you'd rather I've fascinated the a rather talk about what animals the Prophet may or may not have used 1400 years ago rather than talk about what Muslims or Islam is doing in the world today, good or bad.
Well, that seems to be the distraction. If anyone's distracted, seems to be you.
Well, that that's your, that's your view. I'm fascinated by how somebody, a respected, sophisticated journalist in the 21st century, could believe that a prophet flew to heaven on a winged horse. Let me ask you this: are all people who hold beliefs in God and in miracles and the supernatural, do you regard them all as intellectually inferior to you?
I regard those beliefs as intellectual nonsense. I don't regard the individuals as intellectually inferior to me, because many of them palpably are not. If you go back in history, then all bets are off. Because before, before Darwin, for example, it's not at all surprising that before Darwin, people believed in all kinds of things which they wouldn't believe in now. There are many people, many scientists today, who say they're religious. And if you actually ask them what they believe in, many cases, it turns out what they believe is in some sort of theistic God, some sort of intellectual spirit, some sort of creative intelligence that lay at the root of the universe, perhaps invented the laws of physics, something like that. I don't agree with this book, but it's an excellent, but very well-argued. You're very passionate, clearly.
There's one section in the book where you talk about bringing up children. Yes. And you've talked about education. You talk about a story when you, you tell a story about being in Ireland and talking about the Catholic child abuse scandal. And there's one quote on page 356, which I will read out to you: "Horrible as sexual abuse, no doubt was, the damage was arguably less than the long-term psychological damage inflicted by bringing the child up Catholic in the first place." You believe that being brought up as a Catholic is worse than being abused by a priest?
There are shades of being abused by a priest. And I quoted the, I, I quoted the example of a woman in America who wrote to me, saying that when she was seven years old, she was sexually abused by a priest in his car. And at the same time, a friend of hers, who also seven, who was Protestant, or was of Protestant family, I should say, died. And she was told that because her friend was Protestant, she had gone to hell and would be roasting in hell forever. And she told me that of those two abuses, she got over the physical abuse. It was the yucky, which she got over it. But the mental abuse of being told about hell, she took years to get over.
And I respect. Richard, you're an empiricist. You're a rationalist. One letter from one woman in America isn't really bad the basis to extrapolate and make suppose?
We think includes, of course, true. And I'm not basing it on that. It seems to me that that telling children such that they really, really believe that people who sin are going to go to hell and roast forever, forever, that your skin grows again when it when it peels off with with with burning. It seems to me to be intuitively entirely reasonable that that is a worse form of child abuse, that will give more nightmares, that will give more genuine distress, because they really believe. If they don't believe, it's not a problem.
Of course. You also say, let me just mean, I've been put on the spot about this. Health farthing. I, we have really been put on this.
In what sense have you been put on the spot?
Well, I, I sense that you think it's somehow obvious that that having a priest, if you're a small girl, having a priest would be very interested in asking the audience whether being told about heaven and hell as a child, I mean, brought up as Catholic, is worse than that was worse than being abused by a priest. Okay, let's have a show of hands. Is it worse to be abused by a priest? And if you believe it's worse for a priest to abuse a child than to bring up your child Catholic, raise your hands. Are they both as bad as each other? Raise your hands. So we have a three-way split in the audience.
Let's finish this section with one last related subject on this question, a personal question from me. You talked about how to teach children that there is one God or that God created the world in six days. That is child abuse to even teach your children religion. So I have a daughter. I teach her about Islam. And the horse. Am I guilty of child abuse?
Do you teach her the world was created in six days?
Because Islam doesn't teach that. I'm delighted to hear that.
I ask again: am I guilty of child abuse for teaching my child stories from the Quran?
Yes.
Or not? Good to know. We are going to talk more about science. And we're going to go back to the audience to ask some questions to Professor Dawkins in part two. We'll be back after the break.
[Applause] [Music]
Welcome back. We're talking about religion and its impact on the world, good, bad, evil. We're joined here by our guest, evolutionary biologist, Professor Richard Dawkins. Richard, science is your great passion, and you a great believer in science. You're an evangelist for science, a promoter and defender of science. But what would you say to those people who say there are some quite important questions, genuine questions, that science cannot answer? Why are we here? What's the meaning of life? Where does morality come from? And that if religion wants to have a crack at answering those, what's science's objection?
I'm not sure I'd accept that science can't answer those particular questions. I think there are other questions so it's probably shouldn't try to answer, like what is, what is right and what is wrong. Those are the questions that are not the immediate concern of science. But what's the meaning of life? Why is there it? Why is there anything? How did it all start? That there seemed to me to be scientific questions, or potentially scientific questions. If there are some questions of that sort that science can never answer, then we should at least keep trying to answer them. And if science can't answer them, religion having a crack at answering them. If there's no reason to think that religion has any, any, any basis for an answer, then why would religion have a crack? Why we do bother to listen to religion having a crack at answering them? I mean, one thing I would say is, there may be questions that science can't answer, like the origin of everything. But if science can't answer them, then religion certainly can't, and nothing else can either.
Why, why is it scientist, either science or nothing?
Yes. Because, because science is, is, is the method of getting at what's true. I mean, if you take something like, how did the universe begin? Which is a very baffling, deep question. How did life begin? Another baffling, deep question. Both those questions are, are unanswered. The best methods we have of approaching those are the methods of science, because these are the methods that, that look at evidence, that, that evaluate evidence in all sorts of sophisticated ways. What has religion got to do with that, other than just looking at the writings of somebody who wrote a few centuries ago? I mean, what, why would you bother to read, to read those writings?
So the great philosophers and theologians in history will grapple with these big questions and thought about spiritual issues, moral issues, the transcendent. They were all wasting their time?
Yes, they're wasting their time.
What about, why does my life have meaning? What's its worth?
Well, yours, my dignity come from. Your your meaning and your dignity are up to you, and mine are up to me. And, and these are not questions that science would attempt to answer. Each person finds their own meaning in their, in their life. And, and good luck to them.
And what's, what's wrong with religion offering moral certainties? If, as you say, science can't answer moral questions, science can't offer moral certainty, but I don't see that religion can either.
You don't think that the religious values we have, to say the moral codes we live by today, a route were originally derived from Judeo-Christian values, Islamic values, Hindu values?
Not really, no. I mean, we have things like the Golden Rule, things like, "Treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself." These are ancient values which are, which crop up all over the world. They've been adopted by many religions. You can find justifications for them in moral philosophy, and find justifications for them in evolutionary biology, which is my own, my own subject. I don't seriously think you're going to base your morality on, on religion, because if you do, then you've got to say, "Well, do I base it on scripture?" I hope you don't base it on scripture, because if you do, then you're going to have some pretty horrible values, unless you deliberately cut out those parts of scripture which, which, which are unacceptable to modern morality.
Do you believe science is omnipotent? That it can answer any questions?
I've already said no. I've already said it can't answer moral questions. But questions about the real world, questions about reality, questions about the origins of things, why life is the way it is, why the world is the way it is, why the universe of the way it is, yes, science is that, is the way to answer that.
Some of your critics have argued that you are willing to hold religion up to a very, it put it under the microscope, hold it to account, scrutinize it, criticize it. You don't do the same to science or scientists, or some of the bad things that have come out of science?
Well, bad things that come out of science, if by that you mean horrible weapons, nuclear weapons, yes, chambers, nucleogenic, yeah. These are, these are terrible things, which are technology that arises out of science. And it's certainly true, but if you want to do terrible things with technology, but terrible weapons, for example, science is the best way to do it. Because science is the best way to do anything. Even bad things. Even bad things. I mean, that, that's right. If you, if you want to develop a terrible weapon, you're not going to do it in any other way than by science. The trick is not to want to develop a terrible weapon. And, and that's a political decision.
And you do not, you do not see science and religion as occupying two different compartments that can live side by side? They are in conflict with one other, insofar as religion attempts to talk about reality and has an alternative vision of reality. I think they are incompatible. Yes.
Despite the fact, as we discussed earlier, many of our leading scientists are believers?
I think it's baffling. I mean, what the impact practice do is they leave their, their religion at the door when they go into the lab. And so they get on with their side.
You say they don't?
Well, I know they do. But well, okay.
Isn't it because religion arms as all sorts of human needs, spiritual urges, which science never can? Isn't not the real issue that you can't get away from religion? May answer human needs? I mean, for example, if you're terrified of dying, religion may answer the need for comfort and consolation. Or if you, if you miss a loved one who's died, and you hope to see them one day in heaven, then religion answers a need. It doesn't make it true.
And one last thing, and then we'll go to the audience. Deep, what do you say to those people who say, you talk a great deal about the power of science, the truth of science. You have people like Sam Harris, who say morality can be determined by science. You have quite charismatic, forceful people going around the world, Priscilla tizing on behalf of science, that science is actually the new religion that you guys are pitching?
I wouldn't say it's a new religion. I mean, it certainly does some of the things that religion traditionally has tried to do, like to answer the deep questions of existence. And, and it does that. And it does it successfully, in a way that religion never has. But it isn't a religion, because it's not based upon any holy books. It's not based upon faith. It's not based upon revelation. It's not based upon tradition. It's based upon evidence. And there's a huge difference.
And anything that we do not have evidence for, that's not scientifically testable, you would dismiss?
Well, scientifically testable is, is putting the bar rather highly. But I do think that that evidence is the only good reason to believe anything. Yes. So love, beauty, analytics, many. I mean, there's obviously important questions. And, and if you asked that some question like, um, how do you know that your wife loves you? It's from evidence. I mean, it's not scientifically testable evidence, but it's evidence. It's little looks in the eyes, little catches in the voice. It's, it's, um, that is evidence. That's not that's not just internal revelation.
Okay, let's open up to the audience. We've been talking about God, evil, war, terrorism, bringing up your children, living a good life, religion and happiness, science versus religion. Who would like to answer the first question? Yes, you. If Almighty God appears suddenly on the cloud, or on the airs, or part of universe, what is your reaction? Are you going to believe, or are you going to go against him? What'd it take?
If you believe in God, not just me. Yeah, that'd mean, not fingers head through the clouds. Yeah, that's the thing I've worried about a lot, obviously. Do wonders for the book. The reason I worry about it is that is that obviously, as a scientist, I'm committed to the view that I would change my mind if evidence came along. And so it's a very important question. What would that evidence look like? And I've talked about it with my colleagues a great deal. I used to think, yes, if there was a great, deep Paul Robeson voice coming out of the cloud saying, "Oh, I list and think," then then yes, obviously I would. I would believe it. But have you ever seen a really, really good conjuring trick? There are things that I've seen done that it seems to me to be God, that's got to be a miracle. And yet, you know, it's not. And so that there is a real problem there, that that we are easily fooled.
Let's take another question from gentleman here. Very interesting, gun. I was extremely amused when you described faith as sort of Brooking no, no argument. This university, of course, began with the study of theology. Most of the people here would have been studying theology at the beginning of the university. And indeed, the way in which it was taught was not professorial. You didn't have lectures, mostly, mostly you had discussions, debates. People didn't write monographs, they collected discussions, notes of discussions. People disagreed about their faith, absolutely. Everybody had a belief, different opinion, and everybody expressed it, and everybody was heard. What's the idea that? So the question is, um, do you really think that your, your view of faith, Brooking no argument, that measures up to really any experience of how people think about their faith? You talked about the evidence that your wife loves you. I think for most religious people, the evidence that there's a God is rather like that.
Well, obviously, I would be mad to suggest that that theologians don't argue. They argue all the time, and always have. They fight wars over their arguments. So clearly, they argue. I'd say when I say "Brooking no argument," don't mean that they don't argue. When you say that theologians have had disputes and interesting discussions, I take it that from your garb, you take what a position one way or the other on whether the transubstantiation, whether the bread and wine really is the body and blood of a first-century Jew, or is merely symbolic. But what evidence you bring to bear on such an argument? I cannot imagine it would not be a real argument at all. It would be a false argument, would not, not be an argument which could be settled by, by real evidence.
Just deal with the point about the evidence level. When you remember, when you have a real wife, when you say that your, that your wife loves you, and you do, you do getting evidence from looks and the vote, looks in the eye and catches in the voice was the phrase that I actually used. And the questioner said, "That's the way religious people feel about God." Yes, they feel that about God. But there's no evidence that they're getting any cues at all. I mean, they're there, God is an imaginary God inside themselves. They feel that they're getting little looks from the eyes of God and sounds from the voice of God. But why should we believe them, since we can't see or hear any evidence to that effect?
Let's take another question, gentlemen here in the second row. With regards to to religion, you've given an example where the, the Islamic faith and the crit Muslims basically they wrapped themselves up in bombs because that's what they believe is an Islamic faith. But I disagree with you because there are more than a billion Muslims living in the world today who actually believe in the Quran, in the scripture, which you said if everybody started believing in the scripture, then that would be horrible. But I disagree with you because more than a billion people, billion Muslims believe that if you kill one innocent person, it's as if you've killed the entire humanity. So today, humanity is about 7 billion people. So more than a billion Muslims do not strap themselves up and actually go and you know, coming to sites.
The problem with many scriptures, and I think the Quran is no exception, is that you can find a verse that says so, so. When you find another verse that says the opposite, and so you have to pick and choose. I mean, is it not the case, for example, with Jews?
Bad ones. Well, no. I mean, I, I'm suggesting that you shouldn't be in a position of having to choose. I mean, you shouldn't base your, your, your life on, on a holy book which has contradictory verses where you can choose one verse when you want to make one point, and another verse when you want to make, make another. But isn't it the case that that the penalty for apostasy is death? You can't take these things and just hold. I could hold up an example of, we mentioned earlier, Sam Harris has said there are some views that are so irrational, people should be put to death for them. Should I hold all atheism? Of course I won't hold him to me.
Well, let me put it. Dealing is the penalty for apostasy, death? No. Good. I'm delighted to hear that. What, why didn't the Quran doesn't say it? Is well, then some Islamic scholars do. Okay, that's debate and discussion. There are no arguments going on. Things take place over centuries. Okay.
Let's have an atheist make a point and join the debate. Ladies, as waving a hand, actually. In the Quran, mankind refers only to Muslims and excludes infidels, which is all the rest of us. So that's a small point. But I really, my question to Professor Dawkins is, how does he feel about the encroachment of all religions, extremists, evangelists, Christians, and a lot of Muslims into the politics and everyday life? And how does he feel about a religion influence trying to influence politics and public? You know, how do you feel about religion influencing politics in public life?
People should be free to to speak their minds. I mean, I'm great believer in in free speech. And so members of parliament should speak their minds. And if their minds are influenced by their, their religion, then that's, that's fine. What I would object to, I think, is the view that somehow religion has a privileged right to speak because it's religion. And I think you'll probably agree to that as well. If, if you stand up in Parliament and make an excellent speech in favor of something which religion has a view on, like abortion, say, if you make your points well and win the vote by making your points well, that's fine. But what you shouldn't be allowed to get away with is saying, "Because it's religion, therefore this is what we should do."
Lady, they're in their scuffle. As social scientists, we sort of the model of the rational actor is somewhat discredited. We don't look at all actors at all times as acting rationally. In fact, we assume that they don't. But that is the pre lead to my question. My question with really, would you accept that it's not so much religion that causes conflicts, but since their commitment to some belief that you think is morally important? And in that sense, do we get rid of morality?
Well, I think I partly said that when I said that in the great wars of the, of the 20th century, these were driven by non-religious motivations. But they were driven by "my country, right or wrong" kind of patriotism. That's a little bit different from morality. We're talking about, at least it's, it's not religious. I was interested in what you said. You, in your preamble, when you said that, didn't I take it you're a social scientist? And you're, you're no doubt right to suggest that since social scientists are studying the human animal, you noticed that people actually don't behave rationally.
Well, unfortunately, that's true. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't behave rationally. Just because people don't.
Let's take a question from an atheist or an agnostic gentleman in the black jacket, three rows down in the middle. Very apparent to me that evolution, nature has given the human species some very, very powerful survival instincts. We're aggressive, men want to spread their genes, we want to gather as much resources together as we can to to help her genes continue and survive. And as a result of that, there's been a lot of very, very dark episodes in our history. The Roman Empire, which was terribly oppressive, had an istic. The Vikings, who stole, raped, pillaged. The Persians, so on and so forth. Do you not think that it was actually the ideas of religion that took human, the human race, the human species, from beyond these base survival instincts and started to give them a new paradigm for thinking, which was not necessarily in the interests of their the instincts that they have for survival?
It's perfectly true that that a, a sort of selfish gene view of life, which is what I'm mostly, mostly written about, is a very unpleasant view of life. And, and if you followed the, the creed of The Selfish Gene literally and actually lived your life according to it, it would be a very unpleasant world in which to live. It would be a sort of Thatcherite. I mean, I've often said that while I'm a passionate Darwinian when it comes to explaining the way life is, I'm a passionate anti-Darwinian when it comes to organizing our lives. The world would be a better place if religion disappeared tomorrow. Yes, it's about all the good things we discussed and recognize. But you still have the Nazi Holocaust, two communism. You wouldn't have the charities.
That's fine. I would have the charities. But but I mean, it's only your assumption. But I want to finish it because it, because the question I actually challenged me by saying that it was religion that helped us to escape from the unpleasantness of The Selfish Gene. I don't actually think that is true. I think that we have escaped by a long and slow process of civilization, in which religion, no doubt, played a part. If you look historically, over the very long time span of history, we're getting better, we're getting nicer, we're getting more charitable, we're getting kinda, getting less cruel. I wouldn't give religion the credit for that. I think I would give a much more complicated mixture of civilizing processes the credit for it. And religion is probably a part of that.
Okay, let's take one last question. Gentlemen there in the blue jumper, and we have two minutes. The last question. Professor Dawkins, as an atheist, is it not the case that you either believe in the universe just popping into existence without a cause, which is worse than hocus-pocus, or in this thing called the multiverse, which has as much independent empirical evidence at Hades controlling the underworld?
Right. The fret, the phraseology you, you use, this is somewhat biased, somewhat somewhat slanted. The popping into the universe popping into existence out of nothing. The multiverse theory is used in this context to explain the fact that some physicists believe that the physical constants are too finely adjusted. It's as though it's a put-up job. It looks as though the physical constants are so finely adjusted that if you change any one of them, then the universe would collapse. The donor to say that, yes. Now, the multiverse hypothesis is a kind of Darwinian way of solving that problem. It says there are billions and billions of universes, all of which have different settings of their fundamental constants. A tiny minority of those billions and billions of universes have their constants set in such a way as to give rise to a universe which lasts long enough to give rise to galaxies, stars, planets, chemistry, and hence the process of evolution. That's.
Do you understand it? It doesn't make me chuckle that you mock me for believing in a prophet that flies into a heaven, but you believe in lots and lots of universes that you can't show me proof to me, testing me in a lab, as a basis of getting out of believing in a God and a prophet.
I'm astonished that you should compare the two. Evidence for the two. Well, you cannot use your own intuitive common sense in order to dis physics. I mean, if you could do that, we wouldn't need physicists. I mean, they are very sophisticated people. They do mathematics. But there are physicists like Paul Davies who have dissed the multiverse theories being nonsense.
Well, Paul Davies would rather take the view that there's something mysterious in the origin of the universe. And that's another perfectly respectable physicist's view. A Steven Weinberg, the Nobel Prize-winning.
It's respectable if a physicist holds a view about mystery in the universe, but not if anyone else holds it. If we're talking about the origin of the universe, that is a problem in physics. Yes.
Let's end with a couple of quick questions. If, as Christopher Hitchens, the late Hitchens, wrote, religion is in eradicable, and as you put it, harder to get rid of than smallpox, doesn't this basically mean that whatever motivations you have, no matter how passionately you're driven and love for the truth, you are essentially wasting your time?
I would never admit to wasting my time trying to propagate the truth. And I think I can claim a modicum of success with the people that I've written, have read my books, the people who've attended my lectures. It's a doctrine of despair to say that we're stuck with religion for all eternity. The religions of ancient Greece and ancient Rome and the Vikings are all dead. Nobody believes in Jupiter or Thor anymore. And I have great hopes that the same is going to be true of the, of the God of Abraham.
And one last thing. There's a new book out from one of this country's well-known philosophers called *Religion for Atheists*, which makes the case that no matter how false religion is, no matter how imaginary God may be, there are some lessons, there are some institutions, there are some values that atheists could usefully borrow.
I've heard that argument. But I've heard people say that we, that humans do need some sort of rituals, and they need some sort of gathering places, meeting places. I can sort of see that. It's not a thing that interests me very much. I don't feel any great need for for Ricky, or I don't feel any great need to fill the alleged vacuum that will be left when religion goes. I think there's plenty to fill it already.
A fantastic discussion. It's a pleasure to have had you here on Al Jazeera. Thank you all to the audience here in the Oxford Union chamber, and thanks to you all at home for watching. Goodbye, and dare I say, God bless you.