Saturday 13 March 2010

Evolution and Faith - Dawkins Dilemma

The theory of evolution suggests that natural selection favours traits that aid survival.  So how has religion survived for so long?  It would appear that perhaps it aids survival - although the fact that religious belief aids survival does not prove that it is true.

However, what I want to look at is more the change in religious belief, something which Richard Dawkins seems to want to deny, suggesting that only fundamentalist views of faith are "true".  For example his suggestion in the Times that:
Loathsome as Robertson’s views undoubtedly are, he is the Christian who stands squarely in the Christian tradition.
when commenting on Robertson's comments on the Haitian earthquake.

If you accept that there is an interventionist God then given the plethora of interpretations of faith out there you would expect the "right" one to come out on top.  If you do not accept that there is an interventionist God then the one that was most likely to aid survival would "triumph", whether it was true or not!

So if Dawkins wants to take fundamentalist religion as the only true faith he has to accept an interventionist God.  If he doesn't like an interventionist God but wants to claim that fundamentalist faith is most predominant then he has to accept that it is because it aids survival.  Horns of a dilemma or what J

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