The God Delusion Debate - Article Example

Evaluation of the debate In the debate, Dawkins explains his theses regarding the rejection of God’s existence saying that science is based on evidence-based grounds whereas faith is blind and is based merely on satisfactory beliefs and thus it drags humans to believe what is told in religion without the need of understanding and exploring. He says that science does not support religion; rather, it supports rationalism or atheism. He further argues that the designer God, if there is one, must need another designer to resign him.

He argues that Christianity poses dangers to the existence of humans as all wars and destructions come as a result of the religious beliefs and difference in faiths. In short, the debate is all about the six main claims that Dawkins has presented in his book. The matchless arguments placed by Lennox dragged Dawkins to give a second thought on his atheistic views and at the end of the debate, Dawkins comes to admit that God is not a delusion. Dawkins’s Arguments Dawkins (2006) explains an argument from his book, that is, faith is blind whereas science is evidence-based (p.92). He argues that faith is another name for self-created superstitious beliefs.

According to Dawkins, “science uses evidence to discover the truth about the universe” and scientific discoveries are based on research and investigation. Thus it is based on clear pieces of evidence and proofs and has “grown out of religious traditions”. Another argument that Dawkins explains from his book is the Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit, that is, the designer is dead; otherwise, one must explain who designed the designer (p.113). He explains this argument by saying that the creator of this universe and everything in it has to be as complicated as his creation, and if a complicated entity needs a designer to come into being, then the designer being complicated also needs a designer, and this process should go on to infinite times back.

He argues that the existence of life on this earth has been designed by natural selection and evolution and, thus, the designer must have evolved through the same mechanism. Counter-Arguments Lennox presented his counter-arguments about faith being blind and science being evidence-based. He said that science is not able to answer the questions that come in a human being’s mind- Who am I? What is the purpose of my creation? Where am I going? Answers to these questions are taught by religion and faith in God.

Science is not able to answer any of these questions. He further caught Dawkins off-guard by asking him if he had faith in his wife to which Dawkins responded affirmatively. And when Lennox asked what was the evidence of this faith, Dawkins gave contradictory statements. Lennox explained the evidence for some of the illustrations from the Bible to prove that “not all faith is blind faith”. About Dawkins’s assertion about the designer hypothesis, Lennox counter-argued that “Darwinism does not explain life” because he had just explained that the evolution began due to a mutant replicator but he failed to explain “how the replicator came to exist at the first place”.

Lennox said that the designer of the universe has not been created by anyone and he is eternal.