Is Richard Dawkins Growing Up? Ctd

Some good pushback from readers on this one:

The ideas that Dawkins put forward in the linked article are not new to him; he discussed them as early as 2005, in his book The Ancestor’s Tale (a superb read by the way, with next to no God-bashing). In what way is Dawkins being essentialist? Sure, there is a vast spectrum of religious beliefs and practices out there. What we call “Christianity” or “Islam” varies greatly depending on time, location, and social circumstances. But from this vast range of beliefs, commonalities can be drawn and subjected to criticism. This is not “treating all religions as the same essential thing.” The argument that:

(1) We cannot know whether the universe was created by a god of some sort, and

(2) Even if we did know that, we have no way to determine what this god wants or expects from us (if anything)

… can be used to counter any theist argument from this spectrum of beliefs.

Another reader:

I don’t believe Dawkins has ever applied essentialism to religion. He may not have expressed this clearly in every sound bite (who has?) but it’s completely consistent with his overall philosophy and the philosophy of most atheists I know.

Several years ago there was a bizarre report that Dawkins was converting to Deism. It turned out to be related to an interview in which he said you could make a reasonable argument for a Deist god. Most atheists likely agreed with his position: you can make a far stronger case for a Deist god than an old-earth Christian god, and a stronger case for an old-earth Christian god than a young-earth creationist one. The odd part was that people apparently thought Dawkins was incapable of making this distinction. So they took his seemingly astounding acknowledgment that a good argument could be made for Deism as evidence he was embracing Deism.