Richard Dawkins, the well known self-publicist and voracious critic of all things religious has a particular soft spot for Christianity. His latest public diatribe can be found on The Times Online website with the snappy title of ‘Hear the rumble of Christian Hypocrisy’. Here’s his opening paragraph:
We know what caused the catastrophe in Haiti. It was the bumping and grinding of the Caribbean Plate rubbing up against the North American Plate: a force of nature, sin-free and indifferent to sin, unpremeditated, unmotivated, supremely unconcerned with human affairs or human misery.
Is that the sound of Darwinian evolution, ‘a force of nature, sin-free and indifferent to sin, unpremeditated, unmotivated, supremely unconcerned with human affairs or human misery. If it is, then it could be the sound of Professor Dawkins own brain cells. In fact, if this is so about the Haiti earthquake why should Professor Dawkins be in the slightest bit concerned. I mean, evolution obviously has no use for the Haitians that died and maybe the whole island ought to disappear for the sake of Darwinian progress.
But I’m sure this is not what Professor Dawkins believes at all – nor I for the record. After all that would be inhumane, would it not. But why not. Why any concern, why shed anything for Haiti. I would like to applaud Richard for giving aid to help disaster victims – see his website here – even though he can’t explain why. It’s worth noting however that it’s not without bias – it’s not neutral (and don’t let him con you into thinking it is). It supports his own belief system.
The reason it would be inhumane is that our brains – and emotions – aren’t wired in that way. We respond to suffering, evil and injustice in the way we do because of how we are made. In Dawkins world there is no rational explanation of evil. Why is anything evil? It’s the same old story, Dawkins et al must borrow or steal from the Christian world-view because they can’t live in their own world.
If I, on the spur of the moment, just happened to be outside Dawkins house with a gun and blew his brains out why should this act be anything other than ‘a force of nature, sin-free and indifferent to sin, unpremeditated, unmotivated, supremely unconcerned with human affairs or human misery’. By the way, I have no intention whatsoever to do such a thing – but why not? The fact is it would be an act of evil and injustice because there’s a good God that has decreed these things to be wrong, the breaking of His law. Until people understand the goodness of God they will never be able to break out of their own un-liveable world-view – indeed will not even want to do so.
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