194 life
Of course, the kind of argument that Wilson is promoting is hardly new.
Both Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud proposed similar sorts of arguments: try-
ing to offer a naturalistic explanation of religion, arguing that once one has
this explanation in place, one can see that the belief system is false. So already
I doubt the absolutely essential Darwinian component to the general form of
the argument. But even if the argument were sometimes well taken, what of
the specific case of Darwinism and Christianity? The missing elements in
Wilson’s case are crucial. The fact that one has an evolutionary explanation of
religion is surely not in itself enough to dismiss the belief system as illusory
or false. We might offer an evolutionary explanation as to why somebody spots
a speeding train, but the fact that it is an evolutionary explanation does not
make the existence of the speeding train fictitious.^16 Indeed, if anything, the
evolutionary explanation convinces us that we do have a true perception of the
speeding train. If evolution led us think that it was turtledove rather than a
train it would not be of much survival value. None of this is to deny that people
have proposed arguments suggesting that belief in Christianity is unsound,
ridiculous even. There are all sorts of paradoxes that the Christian must face.
But whether or not one can defend Christianity against such charges, I do not
see that the charges themselves have been brought on by Darwinism: which
is the nub of this discussion. Hence, although Wilson may be right about the
evolutionary basis of a belief in Christianity, he is wrong in thinking that this
necessarily destroys the truth-value of Christianity.
Richard Dawkins
Let me start by quoting a couple of paragraphs from an interview that Dawkins
gave recently.
I am considered by some to be a zealot. This comes partly from a
passionate revulsion against fatuous religious prejudices, which I
think lead to evil. As far as being a scientist is concerned, my zeal-
otry comes from a deep concern for the truth. I’m extremely hostile
towards any sort of obscurantism, pretension. If I think somebody’s
a fake, if somebody isn’t genuinely concerned about what actually is
true but is instead doing something for some other motive, if some-
body is trying to appear like an intellectual, or trying to appear more
profound than he is, or more mysterious than he is, I’m very hostile
to that. There’s a certain amount of that in religion. The universe is
a difficult enough place to understand already without introducing
additional mystical mysteriousness that’s not actually there. Another
point is esthetic: the universe is genuinely mysterious, grand, beau-
tiful, awe inspiring. The kinds of views of the universe which reli-