Believers are, on the other hand more generous donors to charity (+14 per cent) and produce more good works (+57 per cent) than non-believers. So religion, on these statistics, makes you more likely to kill and have the clap but also to be a good Samaritan.
The political split is also stark. Professors Pippa Norris (Harvard) and Ronald Inglehart (Michigan), in a study of ‘37 presidential and parliamentary elections in 32 nations in the past decade’, found that 70 per cent of the devout vote on the right while only 45 per cent of the secular do so. In terms of political parties, 60 per cent of Republicans in America are creationists, with only 11 per cent accepting evolution (I find this an extraordinary figure); on the Democrat side, 29 per cent are creationists and 44 per cent are for Darwin. As for a link between right-wing regimes and dangerousness- I could not possibly comment.
What does all this say about the future of God? The first thing is that he is distinct from the religions that claim to represent him. These religions often demand rigid adherence to dogmas, can be used as rallying points for bullies (whether the zealots really believe the pieties they shout is immaterial), and should be condemned as such. Religions that enclose the mind and inhibit free thinking are dangerous.
Proof of the existence or non-existence of God is also a long way off. Richard Dawkins can remain serenely godless. Even Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, admits there is no ‘proof, rather a state ‘of silent waiting on the truth, pure sitting and breathing in the presence of the question mark,’ as he puts it. Well, no danger in that!
But there are no scientific absolutes either. Science may be tested with far more rigour than almost anything else we do (try doing brain surgery, flying a 747 or designing modern electronics on the basis of faith alone) but it can never be 100 per cent certain of anything. Michael Frayn’s book The Human Touch reminds us that even the most famous laws of physics and maths, from those of Euclid to Newton, still contain fudge. Science in all its glory is nonetheless a succession of approved approximations and agreed assumptions. Modern maths is so demanding that some proofs would need to be run through very fast computers for twenty years and still give us only 98-99 per cent assurance they are secure. At least, though, science demands and has inbuilt scepticism to keep it honest, in the long term anyway. Religion also has sceptical dialogues, but their intention is not to overthrow the entire system of belief.
As for ‘atheistic evangelism’, as I wrote in Unintelligent Design, most of us don’t think about God from one month to the next. Atheism is not a campaign of recruitment. Nor is it an absence of something, like the loss of a leg or a sense of smell.
And science can offer a means of understanding how a moral code can develop with altruism at its core. It is perfectly fair for Dawkins to be impatient with the Bible’s ethical code when he asks which part is to be the source-’the one demanding stoning to death or the plucking out of an eye, or the part offering love and forgiveness?’
Where I differ most from Richard Dawkins and his views on God is over the old chestnuts of first causes and multi-universes. Answering the question about where the universe came from by saying God made it should not be followed by the retort, ‘Who made God?’ Such regressions are demeaning. Why is there something rather than nothing? We just don’t know.
After barely 400 years of modern science, it is hardly surprising that there are many curly questions left to answer. The origin of the world is one of the biggest, and we may have to wait a long time for a convincing reply to come from anyone. Making one up as a debating point is silly. As for the puzzle of why our universe seems so suitable for life, we are told by some astrophysicists, such as Martin Rees, that this can be explained by there being countless parallel universes which are wholly hostile to life, so ours isn’t such a fluke. But until someone can prove these ‘multiverses’ exist, this is merely another sleight of hand.
Meanwhile, Paul Davies has sidestepped all this in his latest book, The Goldilocks Enigma. He doesn’t offer an explanation for the origin of the universe but does suggest why its laws may vary and need not be God-given. Davies sees the world as a kind of vast computer where different software (scientific laws) comes into play depending on its state. Thus, in the very first moments after the Big Bang or at the nano level, the laws are different from those at the mature state or macro level. There would be no need for a Great Physicist to have laid down the laws of nature before setting the grand scheme on its way.
This makes sense and gives convincing hope that there are good leads, scientifically, to be followed up. But we may still never know the ultimate astrophysical answer.
As for religion and society: Dawkins may be a trifle too ready to invoke science for my comfort, but this may well come from his living with Dr Who’s second most celebrated assistant, Lalla Ward.
My main reason for joining this debate last year had little to do with God himself. We are both resigned to constructive mutual neglect. What gave me outrage was the new transmogrification of creationism in the form of intelligent design (ID) and its stated attempt to replace science.
This attempt to invade schools in America, Britain and Australia may appear to have been dealt a death blow by the opinion handed down by Judge John E. Jones at the conclusion of the Dover case in 2005. But the resilience of the ID movement should never be underestimated. Its future is amazingly and disconcertingly bright.
Consider: only 40 per cent of Americans now accept the idea of evolution (down from 45 per cent in 1985); this puts the US 32nd out of a league of 33 mainly European countries (Science, 11 August 2006). Consider: in Britain, 48 per cent of the population accept evolution but 39 per cent prefer ID or creationism. Fifty-nine UK schools are using ID materials ‘as a useful classroom resource’. Consider: 11 per cent of Italians want Darwin removed from curricula (Nature, November 2006). Consider: the Discovery Institute in Seattle, from which the ID push is promulgated, is now funding a research lab called the Biologic Institute, where qualified scientists seek evidence for ID (New Scientist, December 2006). This institute is doing arcane-sounding research on protein folding and amino acids, and claiming it confirms non-Darwinian ideas. Other scientists say this is nonsense. The aim of Biologic, however, is to allow the ID movement to claim that, yes, they are part of science proper-and therefore should be allowed into schools as part of science courses. Devious!
Whatever one’s views of a pluralistic society, it is clear that many countries, most of all the US, have pushed hard-line religious attitudes and systematically placed right-wing Christians at the centre of administration, including that of scientific institutions.
Garry Wills gave a detailed analysis in the New York Review of Books in late 2006. This is an extract giving an indication of the takeover: