AN EVALUATION OF RICHARD DAWKINS' NOTION OF ATHEISM

Richard Dawkins is considered to be the most famous of the “four horsemen” of the new atheist movement as well as the most popular living atheist. Dawkins is a professional biologist and a proponent of evolution in the light of Charles Darwin viz: natural selection, he is of the view that the idea of a supreme transcendent Being who is the Creator and is uncreated is the least probable option of the many alternating, and atimes contradicting views, with regard to the origin of the universe, the world and everything in it. Dawkins does in fact, believe in a God and its name is ‘natural selection’. Atheism, on the other hand, is the idea of complete absence of belief in God and deity. Thus atheism means absence of theistic belief. Atheism does not signify any conviction that God does not exist; rather the idea is the absence of belief that God is real. It is essential to note that Dawkins is of the view that religion is a human invention. He claims that it is the result of a misfiring or an unfortunate by-product of an underlying psychological propensity which in other circumstances is/ once was, useful. He also launches a ferocious cannonade on the concept of God and its existence.