Tuesday, August 12, 2014

The God Delusion - The God Hypothesis Part 2


I started looking at Chapter 2 of The God Delusion titled “The God Hypothesis” here. There I dealt with his sections on monotheism and polytheism specifically.
In this second look at the chapter I will consider Dawkins' thoughts on whether we can resolve “The God Hypothesis”. Can we prove or disproved whether "God" exists, or will we be left wondering?

Dawkins said in his preface, specifically to agnostics, "I hope that Chapter 2 will change your mind, by persuading you that 'the God Hypothesis' is a scientific hypothesis about the universe, which should be analysed as sceptically as any other".

He states “The God Hypothesis” as that:
"there exists a superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us."
His alternative view that he advocates in this book is that:
"any creative intelligence, of sufficient complexity to design anything, comes into existence only as the end product of an extended process of gradual evolution".
My initial feelings are that he won't really be able to prove or demonstrate this, and that he may be attempting to prove more than he should or could. His argument will revolve mainly around evolution, but evolution doesn't say that God couldn't create a world or universe in the first place. And it doesn't prove he is the not the cause of the order we perceive in nature - what we call the laws of nature, or the law of physics. Also on the origins of intelligence: he would at least be arguing something like: "intelligence" some how emerges from complexity. It is also intriguing by what he might mean by "creative" intelligence. Creative to me hints at a creator and some sort of ingenuity.
The other issue is the "only". If he can demonstrate that a "creative intelligence" can come from a gradual process, he hasn't proved the "only", i.e. that this is the only reason or cause. Also he hasn't proved that a "creative intelligence" must be caused.