Within Reason - #10 — Richard Dawkins | Outgrowing God

Episode Date: September 19, 2019

Richard Dawkins is the world-famous evolutionary biologist, New York Times bestselling science writer, emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and previously Oxford University's Professor for Public Understanding of Science. Dawkins rose to prominence after his 1976 publication The Selfish Gene, which introduced the term 'meme' and began a series of highly popular books including the Blind Watchmaker, The God Delusion, and, most recently, Outgrowing God. Professor Dawkins speaks to Alex about the meaning of atheism, the labelling of children as 'atheists', the evolutionary and social bases of morality, and the usefulness of theology as a discipline. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Free access ends August 24th. Visit Ancestry.ca for more details. Terms apply. This episode of the Cosmic Skeptic podcast is brought to you by you. To support the podcast, please visit patreon.com forward slash cosmic skeptic. So welcome back, everybody, to the Cosmic Skeptic Podcast. Today I'm joined in his own very lovely home by Professor Richard Dawkins, of course, the evolutionary biologist and fellow of New College, Oxford University, turned face of new

atheism and author of a number of highly popular works, including The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, The God Delusion, and most recently, his new book, Outgrowing God, which is available to purchase right now. YouTube, a link will be available in the description. Thanks for being here, Professor Dawkins. So, I suppose the best place to begin with this is, given not only your own previous work, but also the work of other new atheist writers, why do you think we need another book about atheism? Well, it's about 10 years or more since I wrote The God Delusion, and I've always wanted to write a book for young people. The God Delusion is written in a style for, sort of, shall we say,

university graduates, although not necessarily in a particular subject. And rather to my surprise, various people have said that they would like a kind of easier version. That's not quite what outrelling God is, because it doesn't actually, you know, the chapters don't cover the same ground, but it is written in a style for 14-year-olds, up to 99-year-olds, I suppose. So it sort of started off as being aimed at younger people. Because, you know, I myself read the God delusion when I was a teenager, and although some of it was kind of over my head, undoubtedly, it was still very lucid and convincing. I'm glad to hear that. I mean, I should have thought it was. I must have been slightly surprised at that reaction from some people.

But I wouldn't like to say that the outgrowing God is dumbed down. It's not that at all, but I suppose the vocabulary is a little bit less extensive than some of my other books. I see, because I think you're well known for writing in quite an eloquent manner. Was it quite challenging to try and write in a more, I guess, simplistic is the word? I wouldn't say, a lot about simplistic. I think I just avoided driving the reader to the dictionary quite so often, perhaps. I'm not a way to put it to me. Do you find yourself doing that in your other works? Well, the magic of reality was a book that was explicitly four children, so certainly it was that.

Yes, I suppose that's their example, really. Yeah. Now, I remember you tweeted in 2018 about writing this book, and you said, I'm actively working on two new books. Outgrowing God is atheism for teenagers. Second one is atheism for children. It still needs a title. And then you said, both will be seen as some by blasphemous

and as hate speech simply for telling the truth. I mean, reading Outgrowing God, it didn't come across particularly hateful to me. No, no, of course not. But there are many people for whom religion is such a sort of sacred thing, obviously, that any criticism of religion, however mild, comes across as hate speech. It's a sort of, it's a point about the way people perceive things rather than the way the book actually is.

Sure, and given that this book is an attempt to, I imagine, reach out to younger readers who haven't really thought about this stuff before, or maybe optically, it might make more sense to be a little less harsh in the criticism if you're trying to reach that kind of audience. Is that something that you try to do? Yes, it's not really harsh. I suppose there's one or two little bits

a little bit harsh. I mean, the sort of slightly satirical bit about God telling Jesus he's got to go down. I mean, that's about the only harsh bit I can think of. Can you think of any more? Well, I was just thinking, would you, I mean, would you cater for an audience like that?

Would you, when writing a book like this, be willing to kind of say something you believe and then think, well, that might not come across particularly well, so I'll change it. Or are you saying, no, this is what I believe, this is what's true. It's a very good question. I mean, I suppose I go a little bit more towards that this is what I believe, so I'm going to say it anyway, that some of my colleagues do. There's a sort of continuum between people who really want to seduce, really want to reach out and persuade in a sort of mild way. And some of my colleagues who, in America particularly, who are interested in putting across the importance of evolution in education and want to get religious people on their side, don't applaud the way I go about things because they want to say, it's okay, you can keep God and have evolution. and I don't hold that view

and so I suppose that for them I err a little bit too much on the side of being in your face in one little anecdote I was talking to one of the lawyers in the Pennsylvania case a few years ago about teaching evolution in schools

and our side won but when the lawyer heard me talk I was just talking private to him he said well I'm very glad we just in time. You was an expert witness because I would have, as it were, ruined the case for teaching evolution, the case for the full compatibility of evolution with God. I see. So did you find yourself doing, because I think people aren't going to disagree that that's your style of writing and speaking, but did you find yourself doing that less for outgrowing God specifically? Because it's aimed at teenagers. I wouldn't say so really, not really, no. Sure, but so is this book just for teenagers, or do you expect adults to read it as well?

Well, it's been read by one 10-year-old who liked it very much, and I'm really hoping it'll be read by adults as well. Sure, so when it comes to adults, these will be people who were around when the goddilusion came out and may well have read it. Is there more to offer in this book to people who've already ingested the god delusion and accepted this message? Well, it is different. It doesn't really cover exactly the same ground. I was conscious of not wanted to just simply have a overlap. It's not God delusion light. So anybody who's read the God delusion,

I would like to think that they would enjoy reading outgoing God. Yes. How do you think that the religion in society and the difficulties of being an atheist have changed since you first published the God Delusion in 2006, which was part of this new emergence of the popularity of atheism, which may have made things easier for today? I'm not a sociologist or a psychologist, so I haven't sort of done the research on it.

There are indications that religiosity is declining, certainly in this country, and also in America actually as well. I mean, the figures are going in the right direction. I'm not really very well equipped to judge how much things have changed in the last 10 years. I just sort of battle on and try to tell the truth. But, I mean, have the reactions that you've got been a little easier or less frequent? Outgrowing God, of course, isn't out yet. Well, sorry. Well, I mean, it is by the time this is released.

But it isn't out at the time we're speaking. So I haven't had any reaction to speak of to outgrowing God. I'd be surprised if it wasn't received a little more nicely, I think. The way that I see it, I think that since that books come out over a decade ago, it seems to have gotten a bit easier to be an atheist, because at least people are culturally aware that that's the thing that people are now. That could well be true, yes, I think that could well be true. And I think what I'm hoping is that there will be a sort of tipping point

like there was with the gay community who were not that long ago sort of ostracized and now are fully mainstream. Sure. I mean, what do you think it is that did that? I think it's a fascinating question. I mean, it's happened very suddenly, very quickly. I mean, in my lifetime, homosexual acts in private were actually illegal to go to prison. Right. And now, really, quite the contrary. I mean, so it happened really very, very quickly, and I think there probably was a tipping point when suddenly it became okay. And I think the same is going to happen with atheism as well.

When you say a tipping point, do you mean kind of in the number of people who were coming out? Yes, I mean, a sort of sudden crossing of a bridge. Yes. But once you're over that bridge, then it starts to rush. I guess is that kind of what you were trying to do with the out campaign all those years ago? Yes, yes, it is. Exactly right. And the out campaign was then somewhat superseded by a similar campaign called openly secular in America.

Right. But they're both aiming at the same. thing, yes, aiming towards that tipping point. I guess perhaps it's more needed in America. I'm interested in whether, because not only do you think religion is untrue, we also spend a lot of time talking about why religion is harmful. There's a kind of two separate discussions. They're two separate things.

And for me as a scientist, the untrue part is the one I'm most interested in. Sure. Some of my colleagues, I suppose the late Christopher Hitchens was more interested in the harmful aspect of it. I'm interested in both and I like to give sort of equal attention to both. I said, well, maybe it's slightly more to the, it's not true. claims. But what do you make of the approach of people like Hitchens who were just far more rhetorical and... Yes, well, he was very eloquent and one of the most eloquent people I've ever met, I think, and he made excellent points and I strongly

recommend his books. What do you think it is that made people like him? Sorry? What do you think it is that made people like him? Well, beautifully written. Not only his writings, but also his speeches. I mean, he's a superb public speaker. immediately, immensely resourceful with words when he needs them and historical references, literary references and things like that.

Yeah, I managed to speak like he was writing poetry or something. Yeah. Something I think we can all envy. I mean, I think I'm better at writing than speaking. Oh, I thought you were going to say better at writing than he was. No, no, no. I'm interested, because we're talking about the rise of atheism. We mentioned it a moment ago. There was something I wanted to ask you about

from the book, because I'm interested. interested in your definition of atheism to start with. Yes, this is a confusing thing. People do get very confused. For me, it doesn't mean that I know that there is no supernatural being. But there is no evidence for it, and I think it's very unlikely.

So the divide between agnosticism and atheism often confuses people. And for some people, an agnostic is somebody who says, well, we don't know, we can't know. And therefore, it's not worth talking about, and it's equally likely that there is a god and that all the gods and that there isn't. I don't think that.

I mean, I think it's highly unlikely, but it's not absolutely definite, so you can't prove it. Do you see them as on the same plane, agnosticism and atheism? Because a lot of my atheist colleagues see the agnostic label as a claim to knowledge saying, I don't know,

and therefore I don't believe, and it's atheism that describes the belief component rather than the knowledge components. They don't actually exist on the same plane. Agnostic, of course, literally means don't know. Oh, precisely, yeah. And so that's fair enough. I just want to go a little bit further than that and say,

don't know and but think it's highly unlikely. You could say don't know and think it rather likely. Yeah, because that's the thing. If a theist says, well, of course I'm not 100% sure that God exists, as I think Bill O'Reilly said to you, in fact, once, you could just as easily turn around or say, well, that technically makes you an agnostic. You could, yes.

So I think that there is a continuum there in one's level of confidence. I think it's a matter of probability. Yeah. Do you think it's an unhelpful term? I know that Hitchin, since we mentioned him, really didn't like the term agnostic and described it as quite an unfortunate term. I don't like it very much, I must say.

It's not even clear to me what T.H. Huxley thought. I mean, I've read his announcement of the term. But I suspect that he was what I would call an atheist. Yes. Well, you define at one point at the very least, and I can quote, that atheism is simply a lack of belief, of a belief in anything supernatural, does that mean that you don't have to believe in God to be a theist?

And you can be, because to me, if you're somebody who doesn't believe in God, that's literally the meaning of atheism, atheists. But you could still perhaps be, have some kind of new age spirituality, believe in some karma or something like that. Yes. I mean, perhaps there's an unfortunate way to put it anything supernatural, because of course that could include, I don't know, telepathy or... Lepricorns or something.

So I, when you talk about spirituality and sort of people like Einstein who would not have called himself an atheist, although in my terms he was an atheist, he was very adamant that he didn't believe in anything, any supernatural being. But he had a sort of pantheist. reverence for the unknown. And I have that too, of course. So like Carl Sagan, like Einstein, they both, I think, wanted to acknowledge a kind of spiritual feeling

when contemplating the deep problems of the universe and existence and life. And I share that. Yeah, and that can be hard to describe, so they would often invoke religious language. I know Einstein's certain. Yes, that's right. I mean, Carl Sagan did.

didn't. Einstein did. And I think it's very unfortunate, actually. I mean, Einstein used the word God just as a kind of tag for that which we don't yet understand. So he really said things like, but God doesn't play dice with the universe. Or what I really want to know is, did God have a choice in creating the universe? What he meant by that was, well, the latter one was, is there more than one way for a universe to be? But he put it in God language. It's a poetic way of putting it. I'm going to put it an unfortunate one because people out there are only too eager to seize on the word God and assume that Einstein therefore believed in God, which he didn't. Yeah, I guess it's similar to the way that people might speak of genes choosing to do a certain thing or something like that. That's right, and of course I do that as well. And in the case of genes, I would have hoped it wouldn't give rise to confusion, although actually it has a... Yeah, right.

But I guess that's partly because you're so clear about how you're using the term, whereas... As long as you read the book itself and not just the title. Exactly, yeah. I think that the reason that I'm asking you about your definition of atheism is because there's something that you said, and I know you're quite famous for having observed this. You write that one of your pet peeves is the habit of labeling young children with the religion of their parents, which is something I think that a lot of atheists share and how it makes no sense to talk of a Catholic child, what you really mean is the child of Catholic parents.

But you then say at the end of the paragraph on page 11, it's right at the beginning you say, I don't think we should talk about atheist children either. Why not? Well, for the same reason, because I don't want to be accused of indoctrinating children, obviously. I mean, clearly a newborn baby doesn't believe anything, and so in that sense, the newborn baby is an atheist, but I think that's a rather pedantic thing. To call a child an atheist child is rather like calling a child a Catholic child

because it puts a label on the child. I was very shocked once at an atheist conference, where it was a nice conference in America and there were quite a lot of children about there were children of people at the conference and they had playgroups and creches and things and then at the end a woman on the stage said all you atheist children come up on the stage

and I hit the roof I was furious at that because that's exactly what we're trying not to do I see but then the reason why I perhaps wouldn't have such a hostility towards that is because I don't want people to be confused with the definition of atheists One of the things that I spend most of my, a lot of my time doing, is telling people, no, I don't believe there is no God.

I just don't believe that there is one. Yes. And if we are defining atheism as simply a lack of belief in God, then consistently I think we are committed to saying that a child at the moment of being born is an atheist. Because if we don't, then people are going to question, is that really what your definition means? That's an excellent point. But you're speaking as a sophisticated, educated, educated philosopher, and most people won't get that. they'll think, oh, there you are trying to drive atheism into children. You're trying to take our children and make them into atheists or say that they are atheists.

But isn't that what you're essentially saying? That's what you're saying. I sort of am. I mean, if we're talking as we're talking philosophically, yes, you're perfectly right. But I'm so keen on the idea of not labelling children that I would prefer on this occasion to restrain myself from talking about a child as being atheist. I see. So this is precisely an example of what we were talking about earlier, about believing something, but perhaps tailoring your words. One quite helpful thing, I think, is to change the way you pronounce the word. If you say atheist, it sounds like a rather sinister thing. If you say atheist, which actually is the same thing, but it gets the meaning across.

Well, that's the confusion. It's not atheism. It's a theism. So it would be quite nice to change the pronunciation, but that's hard to do. that's not an easy thing to do, especially in writing. I just, I... Well, in writing, you could say a hyphen in, I suppose. Yes, that's true. Might take up doing that. Then I think you might...

The anger that you get from a lot of philosophers who are trying to redefine terms that are in use or reintroduce the way that they're being used might be even more fervent than religious responses as I've found talking about ethics, for instance. Ethics is something that you talk about in the book. You talk about the origins of morality. There's a chapter in Outgrowing God called How Do We Decide What is Good?

Essentially, I suppose, a response to the claim that you need a religion to be good and you're saying, no, we don't. Here's a way to do it. And in the chapter, you offer a compelling history of moral progress. But what in a nutshell is your answer to the question of how we define what's good? Not about how we have changed, but what is the justification for the changes that we've made? I think that's actually genuinely difficult question. It's Sam Harris goes rather far in his book, I think it's called The Moral Landscape,

where he says, no, we actually can define what's right and wrong, what's good and bad. And suffering is bad for him. And I think certainly at a common sense level, I would like to go along with that. I mean, it's possible for some philosopher to come along and say, oh, no, I think suffering is good. I mean, and you can't totally argue against that. I just think it's a horrible thing to say, and I think most people would agree that it's a horrible thing to say. But then I must say that slightly rings of when people say, like, yes, you could come along and say there's no God, but I think that's a fairly horrible thing to say. Yes.

Well, I think I suppose it's an aesthetic thing. I don't think it's a horrible thing to say. But, no, I mean, I don't actually have a comeback to some sadist who comes along and says, I think suffering is wonderful. I see. So what if it were the case that somebody is using some kind of sadistic bent that they have in order to justify some religious morality? How are you going to communicate to that person that what they're doing is wrong? I think that such a person would be quite rare. I'm not sure.

I think I'd rather devote my attention to decent people. Because you speak of, when you open the chapter about morality, you talk about, oh, so for instance, you're talking about the evolution of other characteristics we have. So you say, for instance, it's obvious why we have a desire for the opposite sex. It's obvious why that's evolved. And yet there are homosexuals, which you can see as kind of an evolutionary anomaly. but they're not wrong for being, for the sake that they're an anomaly, but if you're going to say that moral values have evolved as well,

in the sense that we've evolved a desire for the opposite sex and we've evolved a desire for pleasure and for well-being, then if somebody is similarly anomalous and just happens to believe that no suffering is good, pain is good, then how can we say that that is wrong or bad if an anomaly in sexual preference is not wrong or bad? I think you can't actually say it's wrong. I think you just have to say, I don't want, I want to live in a society

where that sort of person doesn't have influence. And that's just, and the reason that you want that is because of your evolutionary heritage. Well, I'm not sure about that. If we come back to suffering again, homosexual behavior doesn't do any harm. It doesn't, it doesn't hurt anybody. It doesn't cause any suffering. whereas if somebody has a philosophical belief that inflicting pain is good

then I come back to my sort of rather fundamental Sam Harris type axiom almost that suffering is bad but the reason that suffering is bad or that its experience is bad is because we've evolved to feel suffering as bad. Well in the sense that I mean it's a sort of biologically interesting point

that you could actually breed by artificial selection animals that like to be, that like what we would think of as suffraic. I mean, it's never been done. But when you think of what pain is about, it's a mechanism in the brain to teach the animal not to repeat some action, which causes pain. Yeah. Well, and there's obviously a very good reason for that. Theoretically, I suppose, as a Darwinian, I would have to say, you could breed animals

that like pain Well I suppose philosophically That's the thing It wouldn't be pain By definition It wouldn't be pain But shall we say That like being having pins stuck in them

Or something of that sort So from a Darwinian point of view I suppose you're right To keep coming back to that But then because obviously Evolution is a process It's not a totally random process It caters to its environment

but there is a level of arbitrariness to it in the sense that we could have had six fingers instead of five that wouldn't have been an unimaginable consequence that's fairly arbitrary I think you'd probably agree yes with reservations I think it's a bit easy to say something like that I think you're right in that case but it is possible that six fingers would have been worse or four fingers would have been worse yes but it's also it's also possibly

possibly not or you can imagine yes to be to be a historical contingent accident so I'm interested in in asking about if If morality is something that's evolved within us and was susceptible to similar arbitrariness, is the fact that rape is wrong as arbitrary as the fact that we have five fingers instead of six? I don't think so because I think once again rape causes suffering. But then the fact that we experience suffering and the fact that we call that suffering is something that's evolved. You're being too philosophical for me. We could call something else.

Yeah. No, I mean, six fingers versus four fingers or five fingers is not a question where suffering arises. I see. So I'm just interested, biologically speaking, is there a good reason that we should have evolved to experience suffering in the way that we experience it? Well, I've just said the reason for suffering is

to teach the animal not to do again what is. just done. That's the only answer I have to that. Okay. Well, I suppose we can allow our listeners to make of that what they will. You talk about moral evolution in most of the chapter. You give examples of where we've progressed as a society. How can we determine, because you do that in order to distinguish parts of our ethics that come from our evolutionary history and parts of our ethics that come from society. How can we distinguish and identify which parts of our ethical conduct come from our biology and which come from society? Well, that's a good question.

Well, do you see them as kind of the same thing? All part of the process of evolution, whether biological or social. I wouldn't say the same thing. They resemble each other. The sort of cultural progress which Steve Pinker identifies in the better angels of our nature looks like evolution in a way, and it's gradual, and it happens progressively from century to century. The evolutionary foundation of it is possibly somewhat deeply buried in the cultural overlay.

I think the cultural overlay probably is more important. And do you see the seeds of moral progress happening now? Can you see where, in the sense that you talk about how 100 years ago things were vastly different to how they are now? What are the, what are things that you think might change a hundred years from now? Well, that's a very nice question. I mean, my feeling is probably a widening of what Peter Singer calls the expanding circle. So if we go back a few centuries, people of different races were regarded as inferior, not even human, and were treated accordingly, appallingly.

And so I suppose the obvious extrapolation of that is the widening of the expanding circle. to non-human species. Now, Singer talks about how you can make an evolutionary case about why it makes sense to care about fellow creatures when a lot of people would intuitively say that if evolution serves the self, which of course it serves the gene, but people see it as serving the self, how can there be altruistic behavior?

And he offers an explanation to say that, you know, when you help your fellow creature, you're helping those who share your genes, it makes evolutionary sense to develop a care for your fellow creature. Do you feel the same logic would extend to non-human animals? I mean, I don't think that logic works even as far as Peter Singer takes it.

I see. So how would that circle expand to non-human animals then? Oh, by non-genetic means. Right. I think that he's actually right to want to expand the circle morally. But I think he's wrong to think that it really is the same process of evolution, that the expanding circle really does represent

resent something evolutionally. It doesn't. As far as evolution is concerned, kin groups, kin and potential reciprocators are as far as it goes. The expansion is done by what I would call a mistake, a very blessed mistake, a very good mistake. But when we are altruistic towards non-relatives who we're never ever going to meet again, that is a a byproduct, a mistaken, but I hasten to stress again, a very good mistake. Yes. But I mean, you can see why, I think, as Singer points out in the expanding circle, the way that human beings were living at the time that these characteristics evolved,

it made sense to treat any human being as though they were relative because they likely were, but the same can't be said for non-human animals. Nor can it be said for non-related humans. We've already expanded that far. Yeah, and that was not a, that was a purely cultural process. That was a purely cultural process. And so expanding it to, to non-humans, it's nothing to do with chimpanzees being more closely related to us than kangaroos.

I see, yeah. The question is, as Jeremy Bentham said, can they suffer? Yes, and I mean, what do you think it will take? I'm interested because when you talk about my... moral progress. You give the example of the founding fathers in America having owned slaves. I mean, the pinnacles of liberty and liberal theory are also anathema to it in the fact that they abuse that in the most cynical way possible. And you say when talking of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington particularly, you say we can at least hope that they didn't know the conditions

on the slave ships coming from Africa, implying that because we think so morally highly of people like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and things, they're so rational that if they'd have known what the conditions were really like, then they perhaps would have changed their point. But like, in today's society, we do know the conditions of the equivalent. We do know the conditions of animals in factory farms.

And that doesn't seem to be doing it. I mean, what do you think it will take? That's a good point. I mean, in the case of Jefferson and Washington, I don't know much about it, but I presume that although they had slaves, they're probably quite kind to them, whereas the treatment of slaves on the ships

was utterly, utterly, ghastly, I mean, appalling. I very much hope they didn't know. But you make the point about, you know, we see lorries transporting sheep or cows. They remind me of, you know, railway trucks going to Belston. And I think there is a tendency to turn a blind eye, and there probably was in the...

the 18th century towards the way slaves were treated and there is now towards them as you say factory farms and slaughterhouses yes maybe um maybe sally hammings would have something to say about thomas jeffson treating his slaves well um but i mean what what can we do uh as as people who are espousing the ideas that we're talking about in outgrowing god the idea that you don't need religion to be moral morality can come from our from our evolutionary heritage uh will someone says, well, what if it is the case that I just don't care? I mean, with the religious, at least they can say that if you don't care, you have to care. Someone might turn to your account of morality and say, well, if you're saying that morality has come from our evolution,

then if I've evolved not to care about non-human animals, then there's no reason why I should. You keep coming back to the evolution. I think we've moved on so much from that now. And we, I mean, we, most of what we do is only, shall we say, loosely governed by our evolutionary past. It's so much governed by our cultural heritage. And that, I think, is what we need to change. And it is change. It does change. I like the phrase consciousness raising, which feminists have made popular.

And I think it's a gradual process. I think that in the going back to the point about labelling children, I think that's a matter of consciousness raising. I mean, when you point out that you wouldn't dream of talking about an existentialist child or a logical positiveist child, people get the point. You raise their consciousness. Now, in the case of slaughterhouses, we need to raise consciousness. And it's happening. I mean, clearly there are political movements. All the same mechanisms that I identified and talked about things like dinner party conversations in journalism. and judges' decisions and parliamentary decisions and things. All this is moving in the same direction.

Yeah, and you throw moral philosophy as just one of those mechanisms. That's one of those, yes. Implying that moral philosophy, as you see, it isn't trying to kind of get to what's true deontologically. It's just a mode of progression. I doubt if there is a fundamental truth you couldn't get to. I think, as you say, it's a mode of progression. Yes, I suppose that's probably one of the issues of philosophy in general

trying to get there. You consistently talk in the chapter about morality about ethics being in the air. What do you mean by that phrase? Well, I said that it clearly isn't literally in the air. I meant just what I've just been saying. I meant the atmosphere of discourse in the society in which we live.

Newspapers, radio, television, conversations. That's what changes. as the not just centuries, as the decades go by, that is changing progressively by which I mean in a consistent direction. It doesn't have to mean a good direction. I think it is a good direction, but just in a consistent direction. So that's the thing I'm interested in because we're talking about moving away from evolution. You're talking about how things have changed culturally, but what is it, if it's not an expansion of the evolutionary logic, what is it that's driven it in that particular direction? I'm fascinated by that question. I mean, it clearly

seems to be like evolution in the sense that it's going consistently in one direction. Yeah. And yet it's not just one, it's not like natural selection which is one force, which is one agency pushing in one direction. It's a whole lot of things. It's a bit like

Moore's Law for the expansion of computer power, which seems to be very lawful. It's a straight line on a log scale. And yet it's not due to any one force like natural selection. It's due to a whole combination of different things. So I think that the,

what I call the shifting moral zeitgeist, the changing in the air, it's not in the air, but it's a combination of lots of different things which are all conspiring to, not conspiring, all adding together to push society in the same direction. Sure. So given that you admittedly don't really know why it's going in that particular direction, in outgrowing God on the chapter of morality, are you trying to offer an account of where morality does come from or how to justify moral claims without religion? I think it's much easier to show that there is a progressive change than it is to... To justify it or to explain it.

But isn't that the interesting question that the religious are interested in? It's like, well, I don't really care if you can explain how things have changed without reference to God. I'm interested in why they should have changed. That's what my religion gives me. Well, it may be what their religion gives them, but if it's based on a falsehood, I'm not interested. I see. Speaking of people talking about falsehood,

you have a lot to say about theology as a discipline, if it can even be called that, the way that you paint it. Here's a quote to give you a taste of the kind of thing I'm talking about. You say this is utterly typical of the way theologians think, ignore what is actually being said, and pretend it was all intended to be a symbol or metaphor. Do you think there's any legitimate form of theology? Of course.

I mean, I think if you actually go to a department of theology and talk to professors of theology, you'll find they're doing wonderful things. I mean, they're translating the Dead Sea Scrolls. They're looking at biblical history. They're looking at a form of anthropology, really. That's fine. What is not fine is logic-chopping about the fundamental meaning

of the transubstantiation. or the Trinity or something of that sort. That's the kind of theology that I think is not a subject. The kind of theology that is a subject is historical scholarship, literary scholarship, that kind of thing. Do you think, would you say the same thing about the kind of philosophy that deals with absolute truths? If a moment ago you said that perhaps you don't think there is a basis

to the truth in ethics, philosophers who try to do that, like Sam Harris, are essentially doing the same thing. They're trying to find, that they're engaging in an area that you don't think even exists. Is that analogous to theology? There's plenty of room to argue about what truth is in the real world. It's in science.

I think that in the case of morals, it's much harder to use the word truth. I would prefer not to use the word truth where morals are concerned. Do you think the kind of theology that you spoke of a second ago when it comes into investigating the nature of certain religious claims,

do you think that is useful? Well, I think, as I said, as a form of anthropology, an anthropologist who studies what we could call the theology of a tribe of people in Africa or somewhere, I mean, that's anthropologically interesting, talking about what the people believe and how their cultural beliefs have developed and what it means to them. That I think is, so if the theologians who study the beliefs of Roman Catholics are doing it as anthropologists, I guess that's perfectly legitimate. Well, I mean, the reason I ask is outside of the anthropological investigations, the kind that you were just dismissing as useless, if an atheist engages with that kind of thing and studies theology in that manner, do you not think that it can be useful in the sense that understanding those controversies can help people to. to debunk point yes yes probably can and i mean the way that you talk about theology might put someone off trying to do that could be yes yes um yeah that that's a that's a fair point i just i'm sure you've come across the criticism when you're talking to to a to a religious scholar and you're arguing about um and you say you know why would god um send himself to be tortured

couldn't he think of a better way and they're they're thinking but there's so much literature on this. Like, how can you say that when you haven't engaged with the theological literature? And then you say, well, you know, theology is a bit useless. It's like if you'd have engaged with theological literature, then perhaps they would give you the time of day and say, well, at least you've done the reading and are making a point based on... Well, okay, but I mean, why would I bother to read Christian theology any more than Australian Aboriginal theology or... I suppose the same reason that you would talk about Christian theology more than you talk

about the alternative, because it's what you're doing. It's what you're engaging with. I've got better things to do. I do science. I see. And so you see your atheist activism campaigning, whatever you want to call it, as an outstretch of your scientific education. I'm much more interested in science than what's actually true. Yes. Yes. But then you do find yourself, did you find yourself kind of almost forced into the debates about the usefulness of religion and the... Sort of. I mean, I just get a bit irritated when I, when I hear people talking about, you know, does the son proceed from the father, or is he part of the father? As he proceed from the father and the son, whatever that means. But even if the son's the same as the father, I understand. But so, I mean, an atheist can be a theologian.

They are. I mean, there are some who are. So, as a student of theology myself, which I didn't want to reveal until I'd, um, Well, I guessed it. Until I'd understood your view or heard them honestly. I feel as an atheist, I'm engaging with theology, but I wouldn't call myself a theologian. You're somebody who saying that your interest in atheism is stemming from your interest in science.

When you talk about atheism, you are essentially engaging with philosophy. So in the way that I engage with theology, don't call myself with the allusion, I'm interested, you engage with philosophy, that's undoubtable, but do you call yourself or consider yourself a philosopher? Well, I don't want to disavow that title, but I am not well-read in the history of philosophy, and so I wouldn't wish to claim to be a philosopher in that sense. Dan Dennett, who is well read in philosophy, has written an afterword to one of my books,

The Extended Phenotype, in which he devotes most of it to the question, is Dawkins a philosopher? And concludes, yes, he is, but I'm not well read in Locke and Barclay. Why does he say that you are a philosopher? Well, you have to read it yourself. I mean, it's an interesting read, actually. I'll leave a link to that in the description as well.

But I think that's a good place to end. Leave that up in the air. And I suppose it's up to the listener to decide. I feel like whether or not someone's a philosopher is usually a label that someone else puts on someone. It's very rarely that someone can call themselves a philosopher these days without sounding a little bit presumptuous, perhaps. So maybe that's up to the audience. Well, they're kind of philosophers who are professors of philosophy. Professors of philosophy, but I think it's a little harder to do when it isn't.

isn't your profession. Yes. But I don't... Well, have a look at Dan, then it's after work to the extended phenotype. It's a later additional. Yes, to those watching on YouTube, I'll leave a link to that in the description.

Listeners can easily find that too. But yes, I think this has been good. Like I say, Outgrowing God is essentially just the conversations that we've been having, the things that we've been talking about here, put in a form that hopefully can be read by all ages as professors. Dawkins says. I think it'd be nice to end. I picked up on something you said on page 131 if listeners

are interested in. And it was when you were talking about moral progress. And you said, we learn from each other. We hear stories about people we admire and vow to imitate them. We read novels or opinion pieces in newspapers, listen to podcasts or speeches on YouTube and change our minds. And I think that a book like Outgrowing God is just a further con contribution to the process of changing minds and moral and scientific education and evolution. So I hope that people who've listened to this podcast feel the same way. And if you do, then a link to the book is in the description. And I hope that you will purchase it. And it's available to purchase right now. But with that said, I have been, as always, Alex O'Connor

with the Cosmic Skeptic podcast. And today I've been in conversation with Professor Richard Dawkins. Thank you very much. You know, Thank you.