Criticism of Richard Dawkins' Pragmatic Atheism in The God Delusion

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

• Ruhollah Nazari ¹
• Hamidreza Ramazanidoro ²
• Mohamad Jafari ³

¹ Master degree from Allameh Tabatabai University

² PhD student of Imam Khomeini Educational and Research Institute

³ Faculty member of Imam Khomeini Educational and Research Institute

10.22067/epk.2023.77198.1142

Abstract

The issue of efficiency of religion is one of the most important current theological topics. Since this concept does not require complex philosophical and scientific grounds, it can easily engage the general public, and for this reason, it has been used by atheists like Richard Dawkins. Following the pragmatic approach to religion, Dawkins has discussed the relationship between religion and morality in some chapters of the The God Delusion, but not in the usual way, rather, he tries to deny religion by denying the moral efficacy of religion. It is not that simply Dawkins declares that ethics is separate from religion and that religion can enter other fields such as issues related to belief, rather he attempts to undermine the authenticity of religion through showing its inefficiency. In denying religious ethics, Dawkins presents his argument in two ways. First, he explains human ethics from a scientific and evolutionary point of view, and in the next stage, he criticizes religious ethics, and then, by proving human ethics and negating religious ethics, he concludes the negation of religion and God with a pragmatic approach. This article examines Dawkins' pragmatic approach with descriptive-analytical method, regardless of his scientific-evolutionary arguments which have been criticized in other articles. The following results have been achieved: 1. fallacy in his pragmatic approach, 2. imperfection of the human ethics claimed by him, and 3. criticizing his perspective toward religious ethics and presenting the rational-scriptural model of religious ethics.

Keywords

• Pragmatic atheism
• Dawkins
• The God Delusion
• ethics
• benefits of religion

Main Subjects

• Islamic Philosophy and Kalam

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©2023 The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0)

References

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Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Dembski William. Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology. Illinois, InterVarsity Press (IVP), 1999.