Why I Said Dawkins is a Hypocrite

Like many bloggers, I use labels (tags) for my posts. I've seen on other people's blogs that it's really easy for tags to get out of hand so I try to be careful with which ones I use. They need to be broad enough so that they categorize posts easily but narrow enough so that they are still very relevant to every post they're applied to. It's not always easy but by paying attention, tags don't get too numerous or remain too few as to be useless. One tag I use is “hypocrites.” It occurred to me, though, that my use of the word may not be viewed the same way as how liberals use the word. To clear up any confusion, I thought I'd take a few moments to elaborate on what I mean.

To liberals, hypocrisy seems to be the most grievous of sins. For example, many liberals advocate the legalization of drugs while most conservatives are against drug legalization. Drug users are usually viewed sympathetically by liberals. However, when Rush Limbaugh's addiction to Oxycontin became public, he was reviled as a “hypocrite” by the left. Here was a conservative who has spoken out against drugs but was, himself, a drug addict. Limbaugh's sin, then, wasn't necessarily his drug use but his hypocrisy.

By using the word “hypocrite” this way, liberals are really engaging in a type of type of ad hominem which doesn't really address the arguments being raised by the person they're calling a hypocrite. Simply because Limbaugh used drugs, for example, does not mean that everything he said about drugs is false. To the contrary, his experience my have given him a greater insight into the dangers of drug addiction. The left merely used the scandal of his addiction to disparage Limbaugh personally and to discredit his show.

I look at hypocrisy in a more philosophical sense. In logic, contradictory statements cannot be true. There is a rule in logic known as the law of non-contradiction. In a nutshell, something cannot be “A” and “not-A” at the same time in the same sense. Here's what it means by same sense: the word “green” can mean a couple of things: it can mean a color and it can mean unripe. So someone could say, “the apple is green (in color) and not green (meaning it's ripe).” This is not a contradictory statement because an apple could truly be “green and not green,” merely in different senses. However, if I said, “I am RKBentley and I am not RKBentley,” and I mean both in the same sense, then my statement cannot be true because it contradicts itself. I either am RKBentley or I'm not.

Unlike my critics, when I talk about hypocrisy, I'm not necessarily concerned about the hypocrite's character. The usual reason that I point out hypocrisy is to show the contradictory nature, and thus the invalidity, of an argument. If a critic contradicts himself, then his argument cannot be true; one premise or the other (or both) must be false. In this sense, hypocrisy is very relevant to a debate.

In my last post, I talked about the hypocritical arguments of Richard Dawkins. Let me put two of his quotes side-by-side.

“In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”

“Faith can be very very dangerous, and deliberately to implant it into the vulnerable mind of an innocent child is a grievous wrong.”

These statements contradict each other. In the first, Dawkins says there is “no justice,... no purpose, no evil, [and] no good.” In the latter, Dawkins says it a “grievous wrong” for parents to impart their religion to their children. Well, which is it? Is there right and wrong or isn't there? Both statements cannot be true, therefore I seek to examine which premise is false. If the first is true, then Dawkins has no grounds to make his accusation against Christian parents. If the latter is true, then Dawkins cannot say the universe is void of good and evil. Either way, Dawkins' arguments are undermined.

In Matthew 7:24-27, Jesus said that if we hear His words and do them, we are like a wise man who builds his house upon the rock. But anyone who rejects His words is like a foolish man who builds his house upon sand. Christians should always be able to make sound arguments because their foundation is solid. On the other hand, atheists can hardly escape being hypocrites. It is a symptom of their condition where they deny reality. They cannot make sense of anything without contradicting their own worldview. When they do, Christians should stand ready to challenge the hypocrite's premises. The critics are either wrong in their criticism or they are wrong in their worldview. Either way, their arguments fail. It's inevitable because their arguments are built upon sand.

The Logical Failings of Dawkins and other New Atheists

There is a brand of atheist out there commonly called, “new atheists.” They're a peculiar breed who have adopted a different strategy in combating religion. Rather than simply argue about the (supposed) lack of evidence for God, they seek to demonize religion. To them, religion isn't just simply untrue, it's evil and so shouldn't exist. To that end, they lie, malign, demean, and demonize religion in general and Christianity in particular. As is always the case with godless apologetics, such a tactic is rife with contradictions and inconsistencies.

A chief proponent of this movement is Richard Dawkins. Dawkins is not only an archetype of the new atheist, he is also a very gifted speaker. His is an especially venomous approach and he has a way with words that makes his arguments sound compelling if you can overlook the contempt he holds while he speaks them. I'm not trying to question his motives, mind you; if his arguments are sound, it doesn't matter why he makes them. Even so, he is so malicious that he often sounds as though he is simply ranting. It's hard to take someone seriously who does nothing but whine.

Now, because Dawkins is so prolific an author and speaker, there are plenty of his quotes I have at my disposal with which I can expose the fallacies that plague the arguments of new atheism.  Let's look at a few.

A typical approach by folks of this stripe is to highlight examples of “immoral” passages from the Bible. This was the approach taken by the atheist who confronted William Lane Craig in the video I posted a few days back. Typically, critics use loaded words when describing these passages. For example, 1 Samuel 15:2-3 is described as “genocide” and Proverbs 23:13 is described as “child abuse.” This type of argument is known as an “argument of outrage” which is a type of appeal to emotion. It's not really evidence of anything. Instead, it's simply an attempt to make the subject sound less appealing.

Besides being a simple argument of outrage, such arguments are also non sequitur – that is, the conclusion does not follow the premise. When atheists make arguments like this, they are, in a sense, saying, “Evil exists, therefore there is no God.” How does that make any sense? That would be like saying, “Crimes happen, therefore there are no police.” Obviously, such a statement is absurd on its face. The morality of something (or lack of morality) is not necessarily evidence of its truthfulness.

Dawkins seems to understand this point. In his book, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, Dawkins said, the following:

“Even if it were true that evolution, or the teaching of evolution, encouraged immorality that would not imply that the theory of evolution was false.”

How strange. It seems that when Dawkins defends his personal point of view, the moral consequences of his positions aren't relevant. However, when attacking religion, Dawkins thinks that its alleged immorality is a fine reason to reject it. The technical term for holding these contradictory views is “special pleading.” In the more common vernacular, it's called “hypocrisy.” Dawkins is correct in the first point: evolution is not false because it is an amoral theory (it's false for a lot of other reasons). But by that same token, neither is Christianity proven false on the sophomoric grounds that some people find certain passages objectionable.

There's still a deeper point behind such arguments. Namely, to call any biblical passage morally wrong, one must first assume there is some absolute standard of right and wrong. If there is no God, then no such standard exists. Indeed, Dawkins has often spoken of the lack of absolute morality. Here's an example of one quote:

“In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”

River Out Of Eden: A Darwinian View Of Life

So, according to Dawkins, there's no justice, no evil, no good, and no purpose. Some people get hurt and some people get lucky and that's just the way it is.  Everything is just nature being nature and whatever fortune befalls us only comes from nature's “pitiless indifference.” A lion killing a zebra is no more right or wrong than an apple falling from a tree. Both are simply natural events that occur in a universe without purpose. But in typical, irrational fashion, Dawkins doesn't apply his worldview consistently. Consider the following quote:

“Faith can be very very dangerous, and deliberately to implant it into the vulnerable mind of an innocent child is a grievous wrong.”

The God Delusion

Note his use of the word, “wrong.” On what grounds does he consider it wrong? By his own words, parents teaching children how to behave is nothing more than the “pitiless indifference” of our “selfish genes” trying to perpetuate themselves in a world who's only rule is to survive. If, by passing their faith on to their children, parents are conveying some survival benefit, then it's not “wrong.” One might as well say that an apple falling from a tree is “wrong.”  The only way Dawkins can call anything wrong is if he first concedes there is an absolute standard of right and wrong.  Such a standard does not exist in a universe without God so in order to say it's "wrong" to teach a child religion, Dawkins must first appeal to the biblical idea that there is an absolute standard of morality.  Ironic, huh?

Of course, one might try to argue that there is no survival benefit to believing in God but that is not the point; if there is no God then there is no absolute standard of right or wrong. Whether or not there is a selective advantage to believing in God is up to nature to decide – not Dawkins. Besides, as we've already discussed, whether or not something is objectionable isn't evidence of its truthfulness. Let me give you another quote by Dawkins.

“Unfortunately, however much we may deplore something, it does not stop being true.”

The Selfish Gene

That one sentence undoes his own argument. If Dawkins truly feels this way, why does he devote the entire book, The God Delusion, to describing how deplorable he thinks religion is? From this book we read:

“Yahweh: The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unplesant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser, a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

OK, Dawkins. So what's your point? No matter how deplorable you find something, that doesn't stop it from being true, right? That's what you said. Hypocrite! How typical of atheists. Even if every word in your libelous characterization of God were true, you haven't spoken anything against His existence. You might have told me that you find Him deplorable; I'm waiting for evidence that He's not real.

I find Dawkins' gross hypocrisy and total lack of coherence to be abominable. I guess that's evidence that Dawkins doesn't exist. Oh, if were only that easy! I never cease to be amazed at the self-defeating arguments used by atheists. In one breath Dawkins says that evolution is true no matter its morality; then in the next breath he says religion is false because of its morality. Such is the way of the irrational.

50,000 Views!

I've passed a milestone with my blog this week; since my first post on October 19, 2007, I've had 50,000 views of my blog! Now, you might notice that counter at the bottom still shows less than 37,000 but I didn't install that counter until quite a while after I started blogging. The number I'm using for the official number of visits comes from Blogger's official stats. So let's pop the proverbial champagne!

Over the last four years, I've had visitors from every continent including Antarctica. I especially like knowing that I've had visitors from China, countries in the Middle East, the former Soviet Union, and many other places where it might be difficult to reach people with a Christian message.

For those who might be curious, here are my top five posts with the most page views of all time:

Koala's on the Ark (5,500+ page views). This is not only the most visited – it's the most visited by far. It's actually the pictures that get found the most often. If you do a Google search on Koalas, it's one of the first pics you'll find. I admit the little bugger is cute. This is also one of the few posts that has 2 pics in it so it doubles my chances of being found in a search (maybe that's a clue). People visit for the pictures but hopefully they stay for the content.

Misquoted Bible Verses (2,400+ page views). If you do a Google search for “misquoted Bible verses,” (not an uncommon search) this blog post currently appears as number 4. The pic gets almost no hits in searches but I think it's funny so I keep it. This post has the distinction of always having been among my top 10 read posts each week since I first posted it. There's also a funny anecdote about it: I once bumped into someone online once who asked, “are you the same RKBentley who wrote the post about misquoted Bible verses?” She had found my post on Google the night before and then we met online. What are the odds? I guess one might say it's a small cyber-world.

Answering the 10 Questions Every Christian Must Answer: Part 3 (2,100+ page views). This post is often found using the phrase “starving children” in a Google image search. It's also commonly found by people searching “10 questions every Christian must answer.” I did an 8 part series in response to the popular, atheist video and the whole series gets a fair amount of traffic. The added hits on the image search kicks this post up to the #3 spot.

The Evolutionist's Empty Demand For Evidence (1,700+ page views). This gets a lot of hits from an image search on “evidence.” Also, when I post on Yahoo! Answers, I use this post as a usual answer.

Revelation 17: Is the Harlot of Babylon the Catholic Church? (1,500+ page views). Apparently a lot of people ask this question. Depending on how the question is worded by the user, my blog will usually appear on the first page of a Google search. The image gets a lot of hits as well.

It's been a long road and there were more than a few times I almost gave up completely. Looking back, though, I'm glad I didn't. Like anything else, it's gets easier with practice. When I first started tracking page visits, I was happy to get about 10-15 per day. Every once in a while, though, I would get a spike of 25, 30, or maybe even 50 or more visits. You would think that would be a good thing but it was the spikes that began to make me unhappy with my blog traffic. If I could get 50 visits in one day, then why can't I get 50 visits every day?

It was when I installed the Statcounter widget on my blog that I really began to see how my visitors found my blog. With this knowledge, it was a simple step to begin doing more of the things that brought visitors. It was little things, really. Instead of using clever (or attempts at clever) titles for my posts, I began using phrases that people might actually search for. A lot of people found my blog during an image search so now I try to include an image with every post. And of course, the more posts I made, the more chances it gave me for people to find me and land somewhere on my blog during their search.

As you can see from the screen shot, I had over 3,700 page views last month alone which averages well over 100 per day. At that rate, it's not going to take 4½ years for the next 50,000 but I expect the rate to continue to rise. I'm closing in on 150 views every day but I'd like to double that by this time next year. Four years from now, I'd like to be celebrating 1,000,000 page views!

It's nice to know my posts are being read, however, I'm not doing this for my own glory. In another forum, I use the tag line, ταῦτα γράφω ἵνα πιστευὴτε – “I write these things so that you might believe.” I want to take the gospel into all the world. I want to win the lost and equip the saints. I want to do my small part in fulfilling the Great Commission.

Thanks to all who visit. Keep visiting. Keep commenting. Feel free to cut and paste any part of my blog. Link me to your friends. Tell your atheist acquaintances about this crazy creationist who has a blog. And above everything else, keep me in your prayers.

God bless!!

RKBentley

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere

Many people aren't aware that today is the anniversary of the famous ride of Paul Revere. When British troops moved from Boston to seize rebel weapon stores in Concord and to arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock in Lexington, Revere rode ahead of them to alert the local militia and to warn Adams and Hancock. I was going to publish the Longfellow poem describing the event but it's a little too long. You can read the entire poem here but I've edited it down a little and included most of it below:

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,--
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,--
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,---
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,---
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

It was the next morning, when the militia engaged the British regulars, that the famous "shot heard round the world" was fired.  Longfellow's poem is not entirely accurate in its details but it is stirring nonetheless. You can read Paul Revere's own description of the event here.