Sum

I've just read "Sum" by David Eagleman. I didn't intend to buy it, and I'd never heard of it before this afternoon, but I was drawn to it in Waterstones today, and am incredibly glad I was. It's one of the most unique fiction books I've read in ages. It consists of fourty short (2-4 pages) narratives explaining how the afterlife might be. It expounds beautifully on the huge range of possibilities that our universe presents, and how no-one really knows the answer to any ultimate questions.

A particular favourite quote of mine comes from 'Missing' where it is explained that God is in fact a married couple, and that when you die, you enter a parent-child relationship with them. I love how cleanly it explains the synergism between science and religion

"Every human in the world is a child to them, and they devote a tremendous effort to their parenting skills.
It is heartening to see that they learn from us in the same manner that all parents learn from their children. For example it turns out they didn't know how to express the workings of their universe as equations, so they are greatly impressed with the ideas of their physicist children, who phrase clearly for them for the first time what they wrought"

This is a fantastic book, and I would unreservedly recommend it to anyone. It's well thought out, imaginative, unique, entertaining, humorous and moving, all at once.

Thoughts

Jesus' 1st instinct when confronted with the sick was to heal. Lepers, the blind etc. So a god doesn't 'like' suffering, he hates it.
I'm sure I've lost a proportion of my readership already (however many you are). Simply using the J word evokes emotions in most people - in many, fear, confusion, anger, pity and resentment. I know for me the word still conjours up images of South American States-types preaching "Jesus Christ, praise the lord" which I find shocking. And images of CICCU hoodies and people professing to know all the answers. People telling me I am "a parachutist without a parachute" [CU in 1st year] just succeed in scaring me off and creating a stigma for themselves and religion as a whole.
In Alastair McGrath's rebuttal to Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion", "The Dawkins Delusion" he makes the observation that many eminent scientists and intelligent people are practicing Christians - surely they are not all "deluded" people with an "imaginary friend" as Dawkins would have you believe - do they know something I don't?
I've already had the shocking epiphany that a belief in God and an understanding of science are not incompatible (here) which was vitally important in seeing that 'God' is not a deluded excuse for not understanding. I suppose it is an explanation for that which cannot be explained; that which we can explain (his work???) we do - through science.
I don't want to be "Christian" or "religious", I'm almost ashamed of the stigma, but there is also no way I can be an atheist - it seems to be ignoring a huge proportion of the argument. I couldn't come to terms with, for example, the death of a loved one with a simple "that's the end" attitude. I would need to believe that there is something more, that I would one day see them again. Of course need is a well documented atheist explanation for the existence of religion, and that shouldn't be a starting point, but it's important.
One of my previous questions "Why church?" has been answered in a number of ways. One, an evangelical response was "If we believe that God exists, then it demands some sort of response rather than apathy as most of the British public choose" ,and another less evangelical one "it's like going to a dinner party where you've had an amazing time and thoroughly enjoyed yourself. You should say thank-you". Both I think, are good answers.
I realise that I'm mostly just presenting information here in an unstructured fashion - maybe I'll return to this later and make it more readable (perhaps a cogent argument would be useful), but at the moment I don't really know where I'm going with it, so it's difficult to structure. I'm writing this down to justify decisions I make. Any move from here will have to be one I find logical and one I believe to be valid.
To leap back to the start, suffering. People believe different things (or more than one). We have free will, and certain types of suffering (war etc.) are a result of a human abuse of this. Other, natural forms of suffering are harder to justify in a loved world. I suppose they simply result from the natural way the world is set up. Take cancer as an example. It is, in most cases, a normal cellular function taken to an extreme - cell growth uncontrolled, and the result of a mutation in the genetic code for either a "tumour suppressor gene" (TSG) or an "oncogene" (actually an 'after the horse has bolted nomenclature, like calling bones 'flaccidity preventors', or television aerials 'static removers'). All genes are mutable and this can result in their malfunction which can lead to cancer through the loss (TSG) or gain (oncogene) of function of these genes. However, of course mutation - the imperfection in the replication and maintenance of DNA is vital for the processes of evolution - without this imperfection, all species would be static, infact, most wouldn't exist at all. So in order to have evolution, there must be imperfections in the system which leave it open to pathology. Does this mean the world is imperfect? Not necessarily, it's just the way it is.

The Dawkins Delusion

The Dawkins Delusion - by Alistair McGrath and Joanna Collicutt McGrath.

I must admit that this was a very good read. McGrath gives a fair and well argued critique of a book he describes as "often little more than an aggregation of convenient factoids, suitably overstated to acheive maximum impact, and loosely arranged to suggest they constitute an argument". He essentially portrays Dawkins as an "Athiest Fundamentalist" who's main aim is not to pass on the message of evolution to the uninitiated, but to wipe out all world religion. One of my favourite quotes sums up how McGrath views Dawkin's world view:

"Here is Ruse's comment on what happened next:

'When John Paul II wrote a letter endorsing Darwinism, Richard Dawkins' response was simply that the Pope was a hypocrite, that he could not be genuine... Dawkins himself simply preferred an honest fundamentalist.'

Ruse's comment immediately helps us understand what is going on. If Dawkins' agenda was to encourage Christians to accept biological evolution, the Pope's statement would have been welcomed... Dawkins is unable to accept that the Pope - or presumably any Christian - could accept evolution."

It appears that Dawkins is a character who shares many attributes with fundamentalist Christians and is in fact doing more damage to the atheist/Darwinian cause than any creationist. In my opinion, and I have held this view for some time, he does genuinely believe that evolution is the be all and end all of life on earth: "no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.” (A River Out of Eden, Dawkins 1995). However, until reading this book, I pretty much agreed with him - though I was willing to compromise for religion. Having read this book my eyes have been opened even further to the possibility of a God. One of the most important revelations (as well as the aforementioned "Real Magic" was that many scientists are religious. And, in the words of Gould "Either half my colleagues are enormously stupid or else the science of Darwinism is fully compatible with atheism"). Religious belief is not infantile, or stupid.

Thus, I must agree with McGrath. While Dawkins' books on the natural sciences are well argued, clear and enlightening, it appears that The God Delusion is a departure from his usual well argued, scientific, evidence based writing. Now, I have not read The God Delusion, but having read this critique I'm not sure I want to. Dawkins arguments seem to lack depth and carefully researched arguments - many of his points rely on long-defunct Christian theology, in short, if you do read the God Delusion, read The Dawkins Delusion as well - at least give religion a fair shot. McGrath has the advantageous position of an ex-atheist Christian trained in molecular biophysics and also theology. Read the book, and make your own mind up. In my mind, Dawkins has lost alot of respect.

How much is religion "blind faith" and how much of it is reasoned?

Real Magic

Nnrgh - I can't sleep. Winding down time with a bit of a conundrum - I'm not eloquent on the subject, but here's the way it seems.

My fear is thus: If one assumes there is a "god", for want of a better term, then all I have spent the last 3 years learning about is pointless.

Why? If one assumes there is a "god", then all the glorious feats of science and biology that I am confronted with, baffled with, and amazed by are nothing but simple creations to him. It's not this apparent simplicity that upsets me, more the "magic". It' s all here by magic. Our hugely complex physiology is all there by magic, the brain... magic... he did it. Oh... How dull.

Here comes the revelation (I'm sure it's been said before a million times, a million ways, but it's a personal realisation that has got me thinking properly for the first time about this subject). Maybe it is "magic", but, magic that functions in a way we can describe - science. It is incredible, but explainable. Where does this leave God? There's no reason why there shouldn't be a God. Science can explain a lot extremely well (the expression patterns of Engrailed in the Drosophila parasegments to take a poignant example), but surely a point will be reached where we just cannot explain some things - they'll be outside our field of understanding? Is such a wangling in of God into scientific understanding just an "easy way out" for the religious? I'm no longer sure that it is. Many scientist are religious, and they are certainly not "deluded fools" as Dawkins would have you believe.

Why God? this is my main problem now. I've leaped over the "Science and God are mutually exclusive" boundary (that, incidentally, Dawkins still seems to be stuck behind), but why bother with believing in something so unbelievable, why bother with "Church" (though of course, by church I mean any sort of religious ritual)? I'm working through these parts slowly... but it's an interesting journey. This "real magic" point really has excited me, but I'm still nowhere near anything but agnostic.

Any (constructive - no knee-jerks) ideas are welcomed.