This link leads to “The Dawkins Letters”. David Robertson who is a minister in the Free Church of Scotland is based at St Peter’s Church, Dundee. His responses to Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion have now been published in a slightly revised form in “The Dawkins Letters”.
Robertson says of this series of 11 letters to Richard Dawkins’ in response to his book, The God Delusion,”I am writing it for my own benefit and for the sake of those who having read your book, perhaps share the same frustrations, or maybe have even been influenced or feel threatened by it.” Well, I am one of those readers of TGD but not threatened by it but happy to read Roberston’s resposes to it and provide the link for anyone else who would like to read them.
I must admit that having read TGD I found sympathy with Robertson when he says, “Just as the Jews were responsible for all the ills in Weimar Germany, so according to your book religious people are responsible for the majority of ills in today’s society. Along with John Lennon you want us to ‘imagine’ a world with no religion. A world which you claim would have no suicide bombers (I assume it slipped your mind that the majority of suicide attacks have been by the secular Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers?), no crusades, no 9/11, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, etc. By the way John Lennon was one of my heroes and I loved Imagine. Then I grew up and realised that it took a great deal of imagination to take seriously a song which spoke of imagining a world ‘with no possessions too’ written by a man who lived in a mansion and had an abundance of possessions, whilst there were millions dying from lack of resources.”
Each letter is a response to each of the chapters of TGD. He does address Dawkins’ complaint that being an atheist is a disadavantage career wise. Says Robertson, “I cannot think of a single career option in Britain where being an atheist would place you at a disadvantage . . . . However there are many people for whom admitting they are ‘religious’ is a severe block to their career and life. Those who seek to be Christian politicians, singers, businessmen, teachers and social workers often face significant prejudice and irrational fear. It is sometimes advantageous to deny one’s faith or even to leave it. Being a Christian is more often than not a stumbling block to one’s chosen career path, rather than the other way around.”
“I also smiled,” says Roberson, “when I read your complaint that atheists were persecuted and misunderstood. Apparently you are the new ‘gays’ who need to ‘come out’. Forgive me for saying this but I had not noticed that atheists were particularly silent or poorly represented in British society (or even American). In Britain all our government institutions, media outlets and educational establishments are primarily secularist. The National Secular Society or the British Humanists get a far bigger exposure than the vast majority of Christian churches - despite the fact that most secular societies could fit their members into a phone box.Even when the Prime Minister is asked a relatively innocuous question about whether he prays, his media minder Mr Campbell felt compelled to point out ‘we don’t do God’. Atheism and secularism are without doubt the prevailing philosophies of those who consider themselves the elite.
Declaring that TGD “comes across as a desperate attempt to shore up secularism’s crumbling defences,” it will be interesting to work through Robertson’s 11 letters and see where I might identify my reading of TGD with his. There is a link at the end of each letter forwarding the reader on to the next. Following the introduction are the following letters:
Letter # 2. A Religious Non-Believer
Letter # 3. Respect
Letter # 4. The God Hypothesis
Letter # 5. Arguments For God’s Existence
Letter # 6. Why There Almost Certainly Is A God
Letter # 7. The Roots And Evil Of Religion
Letter # 8. The Roots Of Morality: Why Are We Good?
Letter # 9. The Good Book And The Moral Zeitgeist
Letter # 10. Childhood Abuse And Gap Theology
Letter # 11. Final Letter To The Reader - Why Believe?
All Accessible from here:
