Richard Dawkins: What an idiot.
I don't see his smarts.. so they ain't there.
First, this is not a debate on the existence of God or supernatural forces of any form, name etc. This is a criticism of the embarrassingly crude and narrow-minded approach that Richard Dawkins adopts in his book 'The God Delusion', while advancing arguments for atheism that are quite predictable and very repetitive, and don't take more than a brief skimming through by any layman, to understand. These arguments have been made by atheists worldwide in more or less a similar fashion for a long time now, and have been strengthened very much after Darwin came out with 'The Origin Of Species' in 1859.
I wanted to begin my critique here by saying something about evolution, versus creationism, and provide you with my views on the subject. But if I did so it would be very foolish, because my knowledge of evolution is confined to a layman's idea of it, and I know that there is no dearth of experts in the field who would more than easily tackle my amateurish doubts and speculations on the subject, with their immaculate research studies and principled methods of observation that have brought them to their current levels of understanding. No, my problem is not as much with evolution, as it is with the 'scientific method', so to say. Even assuming for argument's sake that evolution has made us what we are today, that shouldn't be grounds for a person to apply the principles behind the discovery of this process to everything in the Cosmos, and denounce the existence of forces and phenomena which are beyond our perception today. The scientific method suffers from a severe handicap when addressing questions that are beyond the realm of the first Tattva, and enter the realm of the second and third.
The first step of the scientific method involves 'careful observation'. Aren't we making an assumption here? An assumption that we can indeed observe, fully and without handicap, the phenomena which we seek to observe. This is a vital mistake, and one which illustrates the fact that if we are where we are today, it's not entirely due to the 'scientific method'. We cannot create, modify, innovate or explain anything solely on the basis of what we have observed. Inventions like the light bulb, the airplane, the safety pin etc., testify to that. There's always an idea, or an assumption, something that doesn't really 'exist' before we can perceive it with our five senses. So the next time you hear people say something like, 'I do believe that science can ultimately find the answer to all the complicated questions in life', don't hesitate to give them a piece of your mind. Like Dawkins, they are patronizing, narrow-minded, presumptuous, belligerent upstarts who underestimate the potential and diversity of human consciousness, and grossly mislead an already dislocated and hollow generation of people all over the world into believing that if you're in a dark room that's full of artistic masterpieces, there's no such thing as art.
'Starry Night' - Vincent van Gough
. Very annoying.
