I have just finished The God Delusion, and am devoted to Richard Dawkins and his fervently held thesis. (Then again, I am the famous one* for uncritical embracing of people/places/passions, followed in a week? a month? a year? by a blasé, revisionist disinterest. As the first best friend I made in Saigon, Jonas, said, rather poignantly, to the second best friend I made, “It’s lovely to be on top of Ginger’s pedestal, but it’s such a long, lonely fall down.”)
Completely devoted. What has endeared me most is not the argument but the emotion. It is, in fact, an embedded answer to one of the criticisms levelled at atheism – that a world without god is a world without passion, and without good works. Though it must have made him gazillions, I have no doubt this Oxford don views his self-career-hijacking as a public service.
He is manfully unashamed of his anguish. He talks, for example, about an Israeli experiment in which children were asked their opinion of Joshua’s actions during the battle of Jericho (related in the book of Joshua). Joshua killed every man, woman, child and beast in the city, keeping only silver, gold, bronze and iron, as these are “sacred to the Lord; they shall go into the treasury of the Lord”. Sixty-six per cent of the children gave their total approval to this act, for such reasons as:
Joshua did good because the people who inhabited the land were of a different religion, and when Joshua killed them he wiped their religion from the earth.
Would Palestinian children feel similarly, in a comparable situation? Presumably, thinks Dawkins. “These considerations fill me with despair.”
He constantly talks of being moved by people’s stories of religion, particularly as it scarred their childhoods. These are often told to him in letters, which he invariably answers. He adores Douglas Adams, to whom he dedicates the book, quoting him on religion: “Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?” In fact, at one point, he most sorely laments his late friends: “Douglas, I miss you. You are my cleverest, funniest, most open-minded, wittiest, tallest, and possibly only convert. I hope this book might have made you laugh – though not as much as you made me.”
He also adores his wife, Lalla Ward. You may have once done so one also – I certainly did. Lalla was the second incarnation of Dr Who’s timelord assistant Romana.
I was cross and disorientated when Romana regenerated, but I learnt to love her so slavishly and to think her so pretty that it seemed impossible I wouldn’t grow up to be her. She still is so pretty.
I feel certain Dawkins is talking about Lalla when he tells this story.
Another child, a girl, had a ‘little purple man’, who seemed to her a real and visible presence, and who would manifest himself, sparkling out of the air, with a gentle tinkling sound. He visited her regularly, especially when she felt lonely, but with decreasing frequency as she grew older. On a particular day just before she went to kindergarten, the little purple man came to her, heralded by his usual tinkling fanfare, and announced that he would not be visiting her any more. This saddened her, but the little purple man told her that she was getting bigger now and wouldn’t need him in the future. He must leave her now, so that he could look after other children. He promised her that he would come back to her if ever she really needed him. He did return to her, many years later in a dream, when she had a personal crisis and was trying to decide what to do with her life. The door of her bedroom opened and a cartload of books appeared, pushed into the room by … the little purple man. She interpreted this as advice that she should go to university – advice that she took and later judged to be good. The story makes me almost tearful, and it brings me as close as I shall probably come to understanding the consoling and counselling role of imaginary gods in people’s lives.
This story has harkened me back to my own imaginary childhood world. It was the spotty house. I miss the spotty house. My real family lived there – and a large, noisy, bossy one it was too; no wonder I so often sought time out with my gentle, clever parents. And, conveniently, it was just around the corner, although my mother tell me I was always slightly vague on the exact directions.
Richard Dawkins is reminded of A.A. Milne’s Binker:
Binker-what I call him-is a secret of my own,
And Binker is the reason why I never feel alone.
Playing in the nursery, sitting on the stair,
Whatever I am busy at, Binker will be there.Oh, Daddy is clever, he’s a clever sort of man,
And Mummy is the best since the world began,
And Nanny is Nanny, and I call her Nan-But they can’t See Binker.
Binker’s always talking, ‘cos I’m teaching him to speak
He sometimes likes to do it in a funny sort of squeak,
And he sometimes likes to do it in a hoodling sort of roar…
And I have to do it for him COs his throat is rather sore.Oh, Daddy is clever, he’s a clever sort of man,
And Mummy knows all that anybody can,
And Nanny is Nanny, and I call her Nan-But they don’t Know Binker.
Binker’s brave as lions when we’re running in the park;
Binker’s brave as tigers when we’re lying in the dark;
Binker’s brave as elephants. He never, never cries…
Except (like other people) when the soap gets in his eyes.Oh, Daddy is Daddy, he’s a Daddy sort of man,
And Mummy is as Mummy as anybody can,
And Nanny is Nanny,and I call her Nan…But they’re not Like Binker.
Binker isn’t greedy, but he does like things to eat,
So I have to say to people when they’re giving me a sweet,
“Oh, Binker wants a chocolate, so could you give me two?”
And then I eat it for him, COs his teeth are rather new.Well, I’m very fond of Daddy, but he hasn’t time to play,
And I’m very fond of Mummy, but she sometimes goes away,
And I’m often cross with Nanny when she wants to brush my hair…But Binker’s always Binker, and is certain to be there.
I’m a hopeless non-fiction reader – it took me weeks to get through it – but I loved turning every page of this lumpy, brainy book. It’s not the freedom from such preposterous reasoning as the resurrection, or the perverse lab-rattery that is the “gift” of free will. Cause I never believed that stuff anyway. Nor is it freedom from pretending to respect someone’s religion rather than their humanity. It was for the kindness of it, the humour and the wonder, and Dawkin’s steely and munificent brilliance.
*Jokey family idiom. Originates from my nephew, The Big Reuben. (That’s The Big Reuben because my friends Chris and Ros had a baby, and called him Reuben, so I call him The Little Reuben. It’s like the Lebowskis). Anyway, at age five, The Big Reuben told us he was “the famous one for vintage trucks”.
The Big Reuben is such a hipster. He’s been into vintage everything since he was about two. Seriously.
