Richard Dawkins and the Johari Window

Richard Dawkins and the Johari Window

I've got a bunch of books on my shelf waiting to be read. Two of them are Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" and Alister McGrath's reply "Dawkins' God". The first one was given to me by a friend who is an atheist -although he doesn't agree with Dawkins' approach or all of his ideas. The second one I picked up from a Christian bookstore last time I was in Perth.

I've got to admit that I'm tempted to read the second (shorter!) book as a way of killing 2 birds with one stone. It would tell me what Dawkins is on about and why he's on the wrong track, all in one go. I think that's a dangerous path to go down though.

I think we've got to be able to hear ideas from outside our own perspective and listen to them with a sense of careful openness, even if those ideas might be uncomfortable for us to hear. Much of what we hear might be rubbish, but there might be some really important truths that we need to hear if we are going to connect with where people are at and how they are thinking. We also might need to admit that there are some valid criticisms of how we (the Church) have thought, spoken and conducted ourselves that need to be addressed.

One tool that I find very helpful is the Johari Window - do a web search to find out more about it, but here's one way of drawing it:


Most of the time, we look for people to tell us what we already know, or to tell us new reasons why what we already know and do is right! We buy books and listen to people who we already know we like and agree with. As a result we get stuck in patterns of thinking and behaving which stifle growth and maturity.

So I'm going to do my best to make time to read "The God Delusion". There'll be times when I agree with what Dawkins' is saying and there'll be times when I think I know better (He's wrong and he doesn't know it!). However there will be some things that I learn from him which may also be of great use to me in my personal and intellectual growth. I'll also acknowledge that there will be some times when both he and I don't know as much as we think, and by listening to guys like Alister McGrath I will gain valuable perspective outside that of Richard Dawkins and myself. In the process of this whole discussion I will be trusting God to guide me in right paths, and even though it doesn't attempt to be a scientific textbook, the divinely inspired truths of the bible will have final authority because they have been tried and tested and more than anything else in this life, I know them to be true.

Book Review - Special Assignments

I was a bit nervous about reading this book, as it was my selection for our book club. Would my first turn at choosing a book turn out to be a disaster? I've never really been into crime novels, and I'd never come across the author - Boris Akunin - before, either.

"Special Assignments - the further adventures of Erast Fandorin" is set in Moscow during the late 1800's. Fandorin is a quite a fascinating, but aloof, character: a creative yet methodical thinker with a flair for the dramatic. Perhaps his greatest asset is the way he utilises intuition and psychology to get into the mind of his quarry and predict their future moves.

The two novellas that make up the book are quite different in nature. The first, "The Jack of Spades" is an almost light-hearted contest between the notorious conman Momos and Erast. The second story has a much darker plot, as Erast and his assistant Anisii Tulipov race the clock to stop a series of gruesome murders.

I won't give any of the story away, so I'll simply say that I enjoyed the book. It was good to have the different "flavours" of stories together in the one book, as it probably would have been either too heavy or too light if the stories were separate. I found the characters fairly engaging, more particularly that of Anisii Tulipov. We learnt much more about him as a person and in terms of having a window into his thoughts and perspectives and also his life story. Erast remains something of an enigma. While most readers probably admired Erast, they would care more about Anisii.

The insights into the criminal minds in both stories could probably lead to some interesting discussions about human nature and what it is that makes us who we are. We might go a little way down that track at book club!

Book Review - Longitude, by Dava Sobel

I’ve got to confess that I love Maths and Physics as well as a bit of Geography – so this book was always likely to fascinate me. However I’m not that good with mechanics, which turned out to be where I struggled most with the book.

I enjoyed the story of the scientific pursuit and the way that personalities and politics influenced the endeavour. I think you have to admire the dedication and focus of many of these people – some who painstakingly observed the heavens and others who meticulously crafted clocks, taking many years to finish a single model.

After ANZAC day we are particularly aware of the critical importance of being able to determine your position accurately, and we’ve probably forgotten how difficult an art that has been until quite recently.

My main disappointment was the lack of pictures! I would have thought that it was only logical to include the schematics for the various clocks and watches, and maps of some of the locations mentioned. My mind struggled to properly understand the mechanisms and their functions as they were described, since I had nothing to visualise. Because I couldn’t see how they fitted together, I didn’t get a full appreciation for the workings and the skill required to invent and assemble them.

I was grateful for the stories in the book that illustrated the need for the system of determining longitude, as the book would have been pretty dry otherwise. Even so, it’s still probably a book more for the curious tinker or historian than the average person.

Book Club Initiation

Last night was my first taste of being in a book club. I'd read the book (Shockwave: Countdown to Hiroshima, by Stephen Walker) and really enjoyed it. It brings up a huge number of topics to talk about, and everyone in the group found it really opened their eyes to the incredible history surrounding the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. If you are interested in history, or physics, or war, or ethics, or aviation, human drama and even a little bit of romance; you will enjoy this book. The ethical issues that it raises are particularly interesting, and it was fun to toss these around a little bit in the group last night. These ethical issues are very relevant for us today when considering conflict around the world and even in our own personal lives. Particularly our tendency to dehumanise those we are in conflict with - we don't think of them as people but as savages or fanatics or whatever. And because we don't think of them as people with feelings and families and histories and hopes...people just like us... we are excused in treating them in ways that we ourselves would not wish to be treated. We forget the words of Jesus that are described as the Golden Rule - treat others as you would like to be treated yourself. The great tragedy of war is that it is an arena in which living by that rule is almost impossible. In fact the event of war is brought about by the forsaking of that rule by those in power. "Forward he cried, from the rear, and the front ranks died. The Generals sat, and the lines on the map moved from side to side." - from "Us & Them" by Pink Floyd.

I felt that Stephen Walker did a good job of reflecting the moral and strategic complexity of the decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima (and later, Nagasaki) without seeking to represent his own personal views too strongly or even go down the line of a debate on the issues. I had only a slight grizzle, which was that I felt that the characters tended to be identified a little too strongly with their particular idiosyncrasies (like the repeated mention of General Groves' weight and love of chocolate), almost to the point of caricature. I felt that maybe that didn't represent those people quite fairly, but as Gary pointed out last night, we tend to remember people by their idiosyncrasies, so I guess that it was only natural for this to be reflected in the book.

To sum up, a very good read. 4 stars.