Dawkins takes on God ... and it's about time

Throughout my life as an atheist, I have never been militant about it. I have always enjoyed a good argument, but if people find superstition and myth comforting, far be it from me to disturb their intellectual slumber. And if they couldn't deal with facts such as heliocentricity or evolution, so what? Let them wallow in their ignorance. Of course I recognized the division, hostility and violence that religion has caused throughout history, the inevitable result of absolute faith, but what could one do about it?

Atheism is not, after all, a belief system to counter other belief systems. It's just one belief. There is no catechism, no bible, no dogma, no ritual, no rules, no organization. It's no more an institution than heliocentrism, or evolutionism. It's simply accepting what the evidence suggests about one thing. No big deal.

Richard Dawkins, the eminent biologist, is not so cavalier. He is challenging religion. And he's cutting right to the bone. He is challenging its very basis, the belief in a God. His assault on the bastion of organized religion includes his latest book The God Delusion, in which he refers to the Bible as "a chaotically cobbled together anthology of disjointed documents." His intentions are clear. "My earlier books did not set out to convert anyone ... this book does," he declares.

Dawkins' crusade is timely. Religion is becoming increasingly a threat to all of us, particularly in its fundamentalist manifestations. Everywhere, in North America, in Europe, in the Middle East, in Asia, fundamentalists, whether Christian, Muslim, Jew or Hindu, increasingly gain precedence over their more moderate brothers and sisters. And everywhere they work to push back human rights, especially the rights of women. Perhaps of most concern is their attitude toward the greatest challenge humanity faces, global warming. They show little interest in dealing with it and indeed many believe it's a good thing, part of God's plan. They believe they will be raptured up to heaven while the the rest of us sinners burn in hell for eternity, sadistic but perfectly consistent with global warming' s potential to incinerate the Earth.

Never before have we needed more to depend on rational analysis. Dawkins is insisting we do.

But can his crusade succeed? We humans are mere specks in the universe, in both time and space. Our lives are utterly insignificant in the grand scheme of cosmic evolution. Can a self-conscious organism accept such a humiliating fate, or will most of us always require assurance we are something more and be driven to invent myths that give our lives meaning, even immortality? Dawkins has given himself a huge challenge. I wish him luck