AND ANOTHER THING
If there is no God, what is the Oxford atheist scared of?
PAUL JOHNSON
by have the atheists got cold feet? Having proclaimed for a century that the arguments for the existence of God had only to be brought out into the light of common day — and public discussion for them to collapse ignominiously, why have they begun to panic about their own arguments? Why, having been brazen in their know-all arrogance, have they sud- denly turned yellow? I ask this in the light of Richard Dawkins's craven refusal to come out of his safe academic burrow and debate with me, in an open forum, under agreed rules and neutral chairmanship, the existence or non-existence of God. If the head of Britain's anti-God lobby, and the occupant of Oxford's first Chair of Atheism — yes, I know it's officially about explain- ing science but we are all aware what Dawkers is really up to — is not willing to stand up for his beliefs, then we have to conclude there is something seriously wrong with them.
I brush aside Dawkins's ostensible reason for refusing — that my challenge is moti- vated by self-interest. We all know that is not the real reason he is scared. After all, according to the author of The Selfish Gene, everyone is motivated by self-interest all the time and any other motive would be unnatural or illusory. Needless to say, I do not subscribe to this depressing view of mankind, and I find myself pitying the Pro- fessor for thinking it impossible for a human being to be driven by a faith, a cause, a genuine desire to enlighten society or — the chief object in my case — a burn- ing wish to share the precious gift of belief in God with as many fellow-mortals as pos- sible. One of the truly dreadful conse- quences of being a materialist like Dawkins is that you are obliged in logic to deny the existence of metaphysics, and the world of the spirit is a no-go area for you. You are forced to imprison yourself in a one- dimensional existence, with no significant past and no personal future, where the only things that matter are material objects pushed around by hoggish genes. But as I say, Dawkins's professed reason for funking a debate is not the real one.
I suspect there are three main reasons why Dawkins won't compete. One is the intellectual laziness characteristic of Oxbridge prima donnas. After all, if you are accustomed to playing the smart-alec academic panjandrum in front of goggling gaggles of freshmen, or lecturing to tame audiences who copy down your words as if they were holy writ, or lording it as the resi- dent lion in the provincial society of North Oxford drawing-rooms, it's a bit of a shock to go out into the real world where people answer back and proofs are demanded and academic waffle gets you nowhere. Outside the protected environment of the common rooms and lecture halls, there is no such thing as secure intellectual tenure. Dawkins knows this. It is one thing to go to London to deliver a few sound-bites in a television studio, quite another to face a live audience for two hours under real Queensberry rules.
Then again, I suspect Dawkins is gen- uinely worried by the poverty of his argu- ments. In the 19th century the positivists had it easy in one way: they could point to the absurdities of what theologians had said in the past — angels dancing on the head of a pin, for example — without being bur- dened by a similar body of archaic idiocies on their own side. That is no longer true. Articulate atheism now has a long history and a spectacularly silly one. The obiter dicta of earlier scientific materialists, all of them in their own day at least as eminent and confident as Dawkins, make hilarious reading today. Thus Emile Littre defined 'the Soul' as 'anatomically the sum of the functions of the neck and spinal column, physiologically the sum of function of the power of perception in the brain'. By con- trast, Ernst Haeckel asserted: 'We now know that . . . the soul [is] a sum of plas- ma-movements in the ganglion cells.' Hip- polyte TaMe laid down: 'Man is a spiritual automaton . . . vice and virtue are products like sugar and vitriol.' Karl Vogt insisted: 'You should never count your sheep before they're hatched!' `Thoughts come out of the brain like gall from the liver or urine from the kidneys.' Jacob Moleshot was equally certain: 'No thought [can emerge] without phosphorus.' Once, all the atheists had to do was attack. Now they have a lot to defend — or repudi- ate. I can well believe that Dawkins is scared that on a public platform he could well end by getting his plasma-movements twisted in his ganglion cells.
Thirdly, unlike their predecessors, pre- sent-day atheists have it easy. The whole grain of society — in academia, in the media, in public discourse, in common par- lance — is in their favour, as it once was in favour of the Christians. As I know from my own experience, for someone today to insist on bringing God into the argument — in a television studio, round a dinner- table, in a public discussion — is now a social solecism, causing uneasiness, disquiet and embarrassment. God is a three-letter word, not to be pronounced except in a cer- tified God-slot. An unthinking agnosticism is taken for granted everywhere, so atheists are seldom called on to put their case ab initio. They have almost forgotten what it is. It was not always thus. Thomas Henry Huxley had to fight it out all his life with militant bishops and self-confident Chris- tian politicians, and was a first-class contro- versialist in consequence — he makes Dawkins seem naff. George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells were constantly on public platforms debating God, religion and the possibilities of an after-life with the likes of Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton. They too were brilliant at fighting their corner. Bertrand Russell defended his own brands of rationality against allcomers for three- quarters of a century and knew exactly how to do it. And I don't recall Freddie Ayer ever ducking a fight either. But Dawkins doesn't know whether he can do it. He is unsure of his arguments, his cause and his skills. He is scared he would make a fool of himself in front of the world and, not least, in front of his academic colleagues, who whatever they believe or disbelieve would of course be delighted to see King Atheism take a tumble. So he skulks in his New Col- lege tent, afraid to put on his armour and venture forth. As the poet Chapman put it, there is something contemptible about the inactive scoffer:
O incredulity: the wit of fools, That slovenly will spit on all things fair, The coward's castle and the sluggard's cradle.
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