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The God Delusion Paperback – Bargain Price, January 16, 2008
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With rigor and wit, Dawkins examines God in all his forms, from the sex-obsessed tyrant of the Old Testament to the more benign (but still illogical) Celestial Watchmaker favored by some Enlightenment thinkers. He eviscerates the major arguments for religion and demonstrates the supreme improbability of a supreme being. He shows how religion fuels war, foments bigotry, and abuses children, buttressing his points with historical and contemporary evidence. The God Delusion makes a compelling case that belief in God is not just wrong but potentially deadly. It also offers exhilarating insight into the advantages of atheism to the individual and society, not the least of which is a clearer, truer appreciation of the universe's wonders than any faith could ever muster.
- Print length464 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherMariner Books
- Publication dateJanuary 16, 2008
- Dimensions5.5 x 1.06 x 8.25 inches
- ISBN-100618918248
- ISBN-13978-0618918249
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Editorial Reviews
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"In the roiling debate between science and religion, it would be hard to exaggerate the enormous influence of Richard Dawkins." Salon
"A particularly comprehensive case against religion. Everyone should read it. Atheists will love Mr. Dawkins's incisive logic and rapier wit, and theists will find few better tests of the robustness of their faith." --Economist
"If I had to identify Dawkins's cardinal virtues, I would say that he is brilliant, articulate, impassioned, and impolite . . .The God Delusion is a fine and significant book." The San Francisco Chronicle
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
I don't try to imagine a personal God; it suffices to stand in awe at the
structure of the world, insofar as it allows our inadequate senses to
appreciate it.
—Albert Einstein
DESERVED RESPECT
The boy lay prone in the grass, his chin resting on his hands. He suddenly
found himself overwhelmed by a heightened awareness of the tangled stems
and roots, a forest in microcosm, a transfigured world of ants and beetles and
even – though he wouldn't have known the details at the time – of soil
bacteria by the billions, silently and invisibly shoring up the economy of the
micro-world. Suddenly the micro-forest of the turf seemed to swell and
become one with the universe, and with the rapt mind of the boy
contemplating it. He interpreted the experience in religious terms and it led
him eventually to the priesthood. He was ordained an Anglican priest and
became a chaplain at my school, a teacher of whom I was fond. It is thanks
to decent liberal clergymen like him that nobody could ever claim that I had
religion forced down my throat.*
In another time and place, that boy could have been me under the
stars, dazzled by Orion, Cassiopeia and Ursa Major, tearful with the unheard
music of the Milky Way, heady with the night scents of frangipani and
trumpet flowers in an African garden. Why the same emotion should have led
my chaplain in one direction and me in the other is not an easy question to
answer. A quasi-mystical response to nature and the universe is common
among scientists and rationalists. It has no connection with supernatural
belief. In his boyhood at least, my chaplain was presumably not aware (nor
was I) of the closing lines of The Origin of Species – the famous 'entangled
bank' passage, 'with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting
about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth'. Had he been, he
would certainly have identified with it and, instead of the priesthood, might
have been led to Darwin's view that all was 'produced by laws acting around
us':
Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object
which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher
animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several
powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that,
whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity,
from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful
have been, and are being, evolved.
Carl Sagan, in Pale Blue Dot, wrote:
How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and
concluded, 'This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than
our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant'? Instead they
say, 'No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.' A
religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as
revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence
and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.
All Sagan's books touch the nerve-endings of transcendent wonder that
religion monopolized in past centuries. My own books have the same
aspiration. Consequently I hear myself often described as a deeply religious
man. An American student wrote to me that she had asked her professor
whether he had a view about me. 'Sure,' he replied. 'He's positive science is
incompatible with religion, but he waxes ecstatic about nature and the
universe. To me, that is religion!' But is 'religion' the right word? I don't think
so. The Nobel Prize-winning physicist (and atheist) Steven Weinberg made
the point as well as anybody, in Dreams of a Final Theory:
Some people have views of God that are so broad and flexible that it is
inevitable that they will find God wherever they look for him. One hears it said
that 'God is the ultimate' or 'God is our better nature' or 'God is the universe.'
Of course, like any other word, the word 'God' can be given any meaning we
like. If you want to say that 'God is energy,' then you can find God in a lump
of coal.
Weinberg is surely right that, if the word God is not to become completely
useless, it should be used in the way people have generally understood it: to
denote a supernatural creator that is 'appropriate for us to worship'.
Much unfortunate confusion is caused by failure to distinguish
what can be called Einsteinian religion from supernatural religion. Einstein
sometimes invoked the name of God (and he is not the only atheistic
scientist to do so), inviting misunderstanding by supernaturalists eager to
misunderstand and claim so illustrious a thinker as their own. The dramatic
(or was it mischievous?) ending of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of
Time, 'For then we should know the mind of God', is notoriously
misconstrued. It has led people to believe, mistakenly of course, that
Hawking is a religious man. The cell biologist Ursula Goodenough, in The
Sacred Depths of Nature, sounds more religious than Hawking or Einstein.
She loves churches, mosques and temples, and numerous passages in her
book fairly beg to be taken out of context and used as ammunition for
supernatural religion. She goes so far as to call herself a 'Religious
Naturalist'. Yet a careful reading of her book shows that she is really as
staunch an atheist as I am.
'Naturalist' is an ambiguous word. For me it conjures my
childhood hero, Hugh Lofting's Doctor Dolittle (who, by the way, had more
than a touch of the 'philosopher' naturalist of HMS Beagle about him). In the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, naturalist meant what it still means for
most of us today: a student of the natural world. Naturalists in this sense,
from Gilbert White on, have often been clergymen. Darwin himself was
destined for the Church as a young man, hoping that the leisurely life of a
country parson would enable him to pursue his passion for beetles. But
philosophers use 'naturalist' in a very different sense, as the opposite of
supernaturalist. Julian Baggini explains in Atheism: A Very Short Introduction
the meaning of an atheist's commitment to naturalism: 'What most atheists
do believe is that although there is only one kind of stuff in the universe and it
is physical, out of this stuff come minds, beauty, emotions, moral values – in
short the full gamut of phenomena that gives richness to human life.'
Human thoughts and emotions emerge from exceedingly complex
interconnections of physical entities within the brain. An atheist in this sense
of philosophical naturalist is somebody who believes there is nothing beyond
the natural, physical world, no supernatural creative intelligence lurking
behind the observable universe, no soul that outlasts the body and no
miracles – except in the sense of natural phenomena that we don't yet
understand. If there is something that appears to lie beyond the natural world
as it is now imperfectly understood, we hope eventually to understand it and
embrace it within the natural. As ever when we unweave a rainbow, it will not
become less wonderful.
Great scientists of our time who sound religious usually turn out
not to be so when you examine their beliefs more deeply. This is certainly
true of Einstein and Hawking. The present Astronomer Royal and President
of the Royal Society, Martin Rees, told me that he goes to church as
an 'unbelieving Anglican . . . out of loyalty to the tribe'. He has no theistic
beliefs, but shares the poetic naturalism that the cosmos provokes in the
other scientists I have mentioned. In the course of a recently televised
conversation, I challenged my friend the obstetrician Robert Winston, a
respected pillar of British Jewry, to admit that his Judaism was of exactly this
character and that he didn't really believe in anything supernatural. He came
close to admitting it but shied at the last fence (to be fair, he was supposed
to be interviewing me, not the other way around).3 When I pressed him, he
said he found that Judaism provided a good discipline to help him structure
his life and lead a good one. Perhaps it does; but that, of course, has not the
smallest bearing on the truth value of any of its supernatural claims. There
are many intellectual atheists who proudly call themselves Jews and observe
Jewish rites, perhaps out of loyalty to an ancient tradition or to murdered
relatives, but also because of a confused and confusing willingness to label
as 'religion' the pantheistic reverence which many of us share with its most
distinguished exponent, Albert Einstein. They may not believe but, to borrow
Dan Dennett's phrase, they 'believe in belief'.4
One of Einstein's most eagerly quoted remarks is 'Science
without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.' But Einstein also
said,
It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie
which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God
and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in
me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the
structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
Does it seem that Einstein contradicted himself? That his words
can be cherry-picked for quotes to support both sides of an argument? No.
By 'religion' Einstein meant something entirely different from what is
conventionally meant. As I continue to clarify the distinction between
supernatural religion on the one hand and Einsteinian religion on the other,
bear in mind that I am calling only supernatural gods delusional.
Here are some more quotations from Einstein, to give a flavour of
Einsteinian religion.
I am a deeply religious nonbeliever. This is a somewhat new kind
of religion.
I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything
that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a
magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that
must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely
religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.
The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even
naive.
In greater numbers since his death, religious apologists
understandably try to claim Einstein as one of their own. Some of his
religious contemporaries saw him very differently. In 1940 Einstein wrote a
famous paper justifying his statement 'I do not believe in a personal God.'
This and similar statements provoked a storm of letters from the religiously
orthodox, many of them alluding to Einstein's Jewish origins. The extracts
that follow are taken from Max Jammer's book Einstein and Religion (which
is also my main source of quotations from Einstein himself on religious
matters). The Roman Catholic Bishop of Kansas City said: 'It is sad to see a
man, who comes from the race of the Old Testament and its teaching, deny
the great tradition of that race.' Other Catholic clergymen chimed in: 'There is
no other God but a personal God . . . Einstein does not know what he is
talking about. He is all wrong. Some men think that because they have
achieved a high degree of learning in some field, they are qualified to express
opinions in all.' The notion that religion is a proper field, in which one might
claim expertise, is one that should not go unquestioned. That clergyman
presumably would not have deferred to the expertise of a claimed 'fairyologist'
on the exact shape and colour of fairy wings. Both he and the bishop thought
that Einstein, being theologically untrained, had misunderstood the nature of
God. On the contrary, Einstein understood very well exactly what he was
denying.
An American Roman Catholic lawyer, working on behalf of an
ecumenical coalition, wrote to Einstein:
We deeply regret that you made your statement . . . in which you ridicule the
idea of a personal God. In the past ten years nothing has been so calculated
to make people think that Hitler had some reason to expel the Jews from
Germany as your statement. Conceding your right to free speech, I still say
that your statement constitutes you as one of the greatest sources of discord
in America.
A New York rabbi said: 'Einstein is unquestionably a great
scientist, but his religious views are diametrically opposed to Judaism.'
'But'? 'But'? Why not 'and'?
The president of a historical society in New Jersey wrote a letter
that so damningly exposes the weakness of the religious mind, it is worth
reading twice:
We respect your learning, Dr Einstein; but there is one thing you do not
seem to have learned: that God is a spirit and cannot be found through the
telescope or microscope, no more than human thought or emotion can be
found by analyzing the brain. As everyone knows, religion is based on Faith,
not knowledge. Every thinking person, perhaps, is assailed at times with
religious doubt. My own faith has wavered many a time. But I never told
anyone of my spiritual aberrations for two reasons: (1) I feared that I might,
by mere suggestion, disturb and damage the life and hopes of some fellow
being; (2) because I agree with the writer who said, 'There is a mean streak
in anyone who will destroy another's faith.' . . . I hope, Dr Einstein, that you
were misquoted and that you will yet say something more pleasing to the
vast number of the American people who delight to do you honor.
What a devastatingly revealing letter! Every sentence drips with intellectual
and moral cowardice.
Less abject but more shocking was the letter from the Founder of
the Calvary Tabernacle Association in Oklahoma:
Professor Einstein, I believe that every Christian in America will answer
you, 'We will not give up our belief in our God and his son Jesus Christ, but
we invite you, if you do not believe in the God of the people of this nation, to
go back where you came from.' I have done everything in my power to be a
blessing to Israel, and then you come along and with one statement from
your blasphemous tongue, do more to hurt the cause of your people than all
the efforts of the Christians who love Israel can do to stamp out anti-
Semitism in our land. Professor Einstein, every Christian in America will
immediately reply to you, 'Take your crazy, fallacious theory of evolution and
go back to Germany where you came from, or stop trying to break down the
faith of a people who gave you a welcome when you were forced to flee your
native land.'
The one thing all his theistic critics got right was that Einstein
was not one of them. He was repeatedly indignant at the suggestion that he
was a theist. So, was he a deist, like Voltaire and Diderot? Or a pantheist,
like Spinoza, whose philosophy he admired: 'I believe in Spinoza's God who
reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who
concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings'?
Let's remind ourselves of the terminology. A theist believes in a
supernatural intelligence who, in addition to his main work of creating the
universe in the first place, is still around to oversee and influence the
subsequent fate of his initial creation. In many theistic belief systems, the
deity is intimately involved in human affairs. He answers prayers; forgives or
punishes sins; intervenes in the world by performing miracles; frets about
good and bad deeds, and knows when we do them (or even think of doing
them). A deist, too, believes in a supernatural intelligence, but one whose
activities were confined to setting up the laws that govern the universe in the
first place. The deist God never intervenes thereafter, and certainly has no
specific interest in human affairs. Pantheists don't believe in a supernatural
God at all, but use the word God as a nonsupernatural synonym for Nature,
or for the Universe, or for the lawfulness that governs its workings. Deists
differ from theists in that their God does not answer prayers, is not interested
in sins or confessions, does not read our thoughts and does not intervene
with capricious miracles. Deists differ from pantheists in that the deist God is
some kind of cosmic intelligence, rather than the pantheist's metaphoric or
poetic synonym for the laws of the universe. Pantheism is sexed-up atheism.
Deism is watered-down theism.
There is every reason to think that famous Einsteinisms like 'God
is subtle but he is not malicious' or 'He does not play dice' or 'Did God have
a choice in creating the Universe?' are pantheistic, not deistic, and certainly
not theistic. 'God does not play dice' should be translated as 'Randomness
does not lie at the heart of all things.' 'Did God have a choice in creating the
Universe?' means 'Could the universe have begun in any other way?' Einstein
was using 'God' in a purely metaphorical, poetic sense. So is Stephen
Hawking, and so are most of those physicists who occasionally slip into the
language of religious metaphor. Paul Davies's The Mind of God seems to
hover somewhere between Einsteinian pantheism and an obscure form of
deism – for which he was rewarded with the Templeton Prize (a very large
sum of money given annually by the Templeton Foundation, usually to a
scientist who is prepared to say something nice about religion).
Let me sum up Einsteinian religion in one more quotation from
Einstein himself: 'To sense that behind anything that can be experienced
there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and
sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is
religiousness. In this sense I am religious.' In this sense I too am religious,
with the reservation that 'cannot grasp' does not have to mean 'forever
ungraspable'. But I prefer not to call myself religious because it is
misleading. It is destructively misleading because, for the vast majority of
people, 'religion' implies 'supernatural'. Carl Sagan put it well: '. . . if by "God"
one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly
there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying . . . it does not
make much sense to pray to the law of gravity.'
Amusingly, Sagan's last point was foreshadowed by the Reverend
Dr Fulton J. Sheen, a professor at the Catholic University of America, as part
of a fierce attack upon Einstein's 1940 disavowal of a personal God. Sheen
sarcastically asked whether anyone would be prepared to lay down his life for
the Milky Way. He seemed to think he was making a point against Einstein,
rather than for him, for he added: 'There is only one fault with his cosmical
religion: he put an extra letter in the word – the letter "s".' There is nothing
comical about Einstein's beliefs. Nevertheless, I wish that physicists would
refrain from using the word God in their special metaphorical sense. The
metaphorical or pantheistic God of the physicists is light years away from the
interventionist, miracle-wreaking, thought-reading, sin-punishing, prayer-
answering God of the Bible, of priests, mullahs and rabbis, and of ordinary
language. Deliberately to confuse the two is, in my opinion, an act of
intellectual high treason.
* Our sport during lessons was to sidetrack him away from scripture and
towards stirring tales of Fighter Command and the Few. He had done war
service in the RAF and it was with familiarity, and something of the affection
that I still retain for the Church of England (at least by comparison with the
competition), that I later read John Betjeman's poem: Our padre is an old sky
pilot, Severely now they've clipped his wings, But still the flagstaff in the
Rect'ry garden Points to Higher Things . . .
UNDESERVED RESPECT
My title, The God Delusion, does not refer to the God of Einstein and the
other enlightened scientists of the previous section. That is why I needed to
get Einsteinian religion out of the way to begin with: it has a proven capacity
to confuse. In the rest of this book I am talking only about supernatural gods,
of which the most familiar to the majority of my readers will be Yahweh, the
God of the Old Testament. I shall come to him in a moment. But before
leaving this preliminary chapter I need to deal with one more matter that
would otherwise bedevil the whole book. This time it is a matter of etiquette.
It is possible that religious readers will be offended by what I have to say, and
will find in these pages insufficient respect for their own particular beliefs (if
not the beliefs that others treasure). It would be a shame if such offence
prevented them from reading on, so I want to sort it out here, at the outset.
A widespread assumption, which nearly everybody in our society
accepts – the non-religious included – is that religious faith is especially
vulnerable to offence and should be protected by an abnormally thick wall of
respect, in a different class from the respect that any human being should
pay to any other. Douglas Adams put it so well, in an impromptu speech
made in Cambridge shortly before his death,5 that I never tire of sharing his
words:
Religion . . . has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy
or whatever. What it means is, 'Here is an idea or a notion that you're not
allowed to say anything bad about; you're just not. Why not? – because
you're not!' If somebody votes for a party that you don't agree with, you're
free to argue about it as much as you like; everybody will have an argument
but nobody feels aggrieved by it. If somebody thinks taxes should go up or
down you are free to have an argument about it. But on the other hand if
somebody says 'I mustn't move a light switch on a Saturday', you say, 'I
respect that'.
Why should it be that it's perfectly legitimate to support the
Labour party or the Conservative party, Republicans or Democrats, this
model of economics versus that, Macintosh instead of Windows – but to have
an opinion about how the Universe began, about who created the
Universe . . . no, that's holy? . . . We are used to not challenging religious
ideas but it's very interesting how much of a furore Richard creates when he
does it! Everybody gets absolutely frantic about it because you're not allowed
to say these things. Yet when you look at it rationally there is no reason why
those ideas shouldn't be as open to debate as any other, except that we
have agreed somehow between us that they shouldn't be.
Here's a particular example of our society's overweening respect
for religion, one that really matters. By far the easiest grounds for gaining
conscientious objector status in wartime are religious. You can be a brilliant
moral philosopher with a prizewinning doctoral thesis expounding the evils of
war, and still be given a hard time by a draft board evaluating your claim to be
a conscientious objector. Yet if you can say that one or both of your parents
is a Quaker you sail through like a breeze, no matter how inarticulate and
illiterate you may be on the theory of pacifism or, indeed, Quakerism itself.
At the opposite end of the spectrum from pacifism, we have a
pusillanimous reluctance to use religious names for warring factions. In
Northern Ireland, Catholics and Protestants are euphemized to 'Nationalists'
and 'Loyalists' respectively. The very word 'religions' is bowdlerized
to 'communities', as in 'intercommunity warfare'. Iraq, as a consequence of
the Anglo-American invasion of 2003, degenerated into sectarian civil war
between Sunni and Shia Muslims. Clearly a religious conflict – yet in the
Independent of 20 May 2006 the front-page headline and first leading article
both described it as 'ethnic cleansing'. 'Ethnic' in this context is yet another
euphemism. What we are seeing in Iraq is religious cleansing. The original
usage of 'ethnic cleansing' in the former Yugoslavia is also arguably a
euphemism for religious cleansing, involving Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Croats
and Muslim Bosnians.6
I have previously drawn attention to the privileging of religion in
public discussions of ethics in the media and in government.7 Whenever a
controversy arises over sexual or reproductive morals, you can bet that
religious leaders from several different faith groups will be prominently
represented on influential committees, or on panel discussions on radio or
television. I'm not suggesting that we should go out of our way to censor the
views of these people. But why does our society beat a path to their door, as
though they had some expertise comparable to that of, say, a moral
philosopher, a family lawyer or a doctor?
Here's another weird example of the privileging of religion. On 21
February 2006 the United States Supreme Court ruled that a church in New
Mexico should be exempt from the law, which everybody else has to obey,
against the taking of hallucinogenic drugs.8 Faithful members of the Centro
Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal believe that they can understand God
only by drinking hoasca tea, which contains the illegal hallucinogenic drug
dimethyltryptamine. Note that it is sufficient that they believe that the drug
enhances their understanding. They do not have to produce evidence.
Conversely, there is plenty of evidence that cannabis eases the nausea and
discomfort of cancer sufferers undergoing chemotherapy. Yet the Supreme
Court ruled, in 2005, that all patients who use cannabis for medicinal
purposes are vulnerable to federal prosecution (even in the minority of states
where such specialist use is legalized). Religion, as ever, is the trump card.
Imagine members of an art appreciation society pleading in court that
they 'believe' they need a hallucinogenic drug in order to enhance their
understanding of Impressionist or Surrealist paintings. Yet, when a church
claims an equivalent need, it is backed by the highest court in the land. Such
is the power of religion as a talisman.
Seventeen years ago, I was one of thirty-six writers and artists
commissioned by the magazine New Statesman to write in support of the
distinguished author Salman Rushdie,9 then under sentence of death for
writing a novel. Incensed by the 'sympathy' for Muslim 'hurt' and 'offence'
expressed by Christian leaders and even some secular opinion-formers, I
drew the following parallel:
If the advocates of apartheid had their wits about them they would claim – for
all I know truthfully – that allowing mixed races is against their religion. A
good part of the opposition would respectfully tiptoe away. And it is no use
claiming that this is an unfair parallel because apartheid has no rational
justification. The whole point of religious faith, its strength and chief glory, is
that it does not depend on rational justification. The rest of us are expected
to defend our prejudices. But ask a religious person to justify their faith and
you infringe 'religious liberty'.
Little did I know that something pretty similar would come to pass
in the twenty-first century. The Los Angeles Times (10 April 2006) reported
that numerous Christian groups on campuses around the United States were
suing their universities for enforcing anti-discrimination rules, including
prohibitions against harassing or abusing homosexuals. As a typical
example, in 2004 James Nixon, a twelve-year-old boy in Ohio, won the right
in court to wear a T-shirt to school bearing the words 'Homosexuality is a sin,
Islam is a lie, abortion is murder. Some issues are just black and white!'10
The school told him not to wear the T-shirt – and the boy's parents sued the
school. The parents might have had a conscionable case if they had based it
on the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech. But they didn't:
indeed, they couldn't, because free speech is deemed not to include 'hate
speech'. But hate only has to prove it is religious, and it no longer counts as
hate. So, instead of freedom of speech, the Nixons' lawyers appealed to the
constitutional right to freedom of religion. Their victorious lawsuit was
supported by the Alliance Defense Fund of Arizona, whose business it is
to 'press the legal battle for religious freedom'.
The Reverend Rick Scarborough, supporting the wave of similar
Christian lawsuits brought to establish religion as a legal justification for
discrimination against homosexuals and other groups, has named it the civil
rights struggle of the twenty-first century: 'Christians are going to have to
take a stand for the right to be Christian.'11 Once again, if such people took
their stand on the right to free speech, one might reluctantly sympathize. But
that isn't what it is about. The legal case in favour of discrimination against
homosexuals is being mounted as a counter-suit against alleged religious
discrimination! And the law seems to respect this. You can't get away with
saying, 'If you try to stop me from insulting homosexuals it violates my
freedom of prejudice.' But you can get away with saying, 'It violates my
freedom of religion.' What, when you think about it, is the difference? Yet
again, religion trumps all.
I'll end the chapter with a particular case study, which tellingly
illuminates society's exaggerated respect for religion, over and above ordinary
human respect. The case flared up in February 2006 – a ludicrous episode,
which veered wildly between the extremes of comedy and tragedy. The
previous September, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published twelve
cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. Over the next three months,
indignation was carefully and systematically nurtured throughout the Islamic
world by a small group of Muslims living in Denmark, led by two imams who
had been granted sanctuary there.12 In late 2005 these malevolent exiles
travelled from Denmark to Egypt bearing a dossier, which was copied and
circulated from there to the whole Islamic world, including, importantly,
Indonesia. The dossier contained falsehoods about alleged maltreatment of
Muslims in Denmark, and the tendentious lie that Jyllands-Posten was a
government-run newspaper. It also contained the twelve cartoons which,
crucially, the imams had supplemented with three additional images whose
origin was mysterious but which certainly had no connection with Denmark.
Unlike the original twelve, these three add-ons were genuinely offensive – or
would have been if they had, as the zealous propagandists alleged, depicted
Muhammad. A particularly damaging one of these three was not a cartoon at
all but a faxed photograph of a bearded man wearing a fake pig's snout held
on with elastic. It has subsequently turned out that this was an Associated
Press photograph of a Frenchman entered for a pig-squealing contest at a
country fair in France.13 The photograph had no connection whatsoever with
the prophet Muhammad, no connection with Islam, and no connection with
Denmark. But the Muslim activists, on their mischief-stirring hike to Cairo,
implied all three connections . . . with predictable results.
The carefully cultivated 'hurt' and 'offence' was brought to an
explosive head five months after the twelve cartoons were originally
published. Demonstrators in Pakistan and Indonesia burned Danish flags
(where did they get them from?) and hysterical demands were made for the
Danish government to apologize. (Apologize for what? They didn't draw the
cartoons, or publish them. Danes just live in a country with a free press,
something that people in many Islamic countries might have a hard time
understanding.) Newspapers in Norway, Germany, France and even the
United States (but, conspicuously, not Britain) reprinted the cartoons in
gestures of solidarity with Jyllands-Posten, which added fuel to the flames.
Embassies and consulates were trashed, Danish goods were boycotted,
Danish citizens and, indeed, Westerners generally, were physically
threatened; Christian churches in Pakistan, with no Danish or European
connections at all, were burned. Nine people were killed when Libyan rioters
attacked and burned the Italian consulate in Benghazi. As Germaine Greer
wrote, what these people really love and do best is pandemonium.14
A bounty of $1 million was placed on the head of 'the Danish
cartoonist' by a Pakistani imam – who was apparently unaware that there
were twelve different Danish cartoonists, and almost certainly unaware that
the three most offensive pictures had never appeared in Denmark at all (and,
by the way, where was that million going to come from?). In Nigeria, Muslim
protesters against the Danish cartoons burned down several Christian
churches, and used machetes to attack and kill (black Nigerian) Christians in
the streets. One Christian was put inside a rubber tyre, doused with petrol
and set alight. Demonstrators were photographed in Britain bearing banners
saying 'Slay those who insult Islam', 'Butcher those who mock
Islam', 'Europe you will pay: Demolition is on its way' and, apparently without
irony, 'Behead those who say Islam is a violent religion'.
In the aftermath of all this, the journalist Andrew Mueller
interviewed Britain's leading 'moderate' Muslim, Sir Iqbal Sacranie.15
Moderate he may be by today's Islamic standards, but in Andrew Mueller's
account he still stands by the remark he made when Salman Rushdie was
condemned to death for writing a novel: 'Death is perhaps too easy for him' –
a remark that sets him in ignominious contrast to his courageous
predecessor as Britain's most influential Muslim, the late Dr Zaki Badawi,
who offered Salman Rushdie sanctuary in his own home. Sacranie told
Mueller how concerned he was about the Danish cartoons. Mueller was
concerned too, but for a different reason: 'I am concerned that the ridiculous,
disproportionate reaction to some unfunny sketches in an obscure
Scandinavian newspaper may confirm that . . . Islam and the west are
fundamentally irreconcilable.' Sacranie, on the other hand, praised British
newspapers for not reprinting the cartoons, to which Mueller voiced the
suspicion of most of the nation that 'the restraint of British newspapers
derived less from sensitivity to Muslim discontent than it did from a desire not
to have their windows broken'.
Sacranie explained that 'The person of the Prophet, peace be
upon him, is revered so profoundly in the Muslim world, with a love and
affection that cannot be explained in words. It goes beyond your parents,
your loved ones, your children. That is part of the faith. There is also an
Islamic teaching that one does not depict the Prophet.' This rather assumes,
as Mueller observed,
that the values of Islam trump anyone else's – which is what any follower of
Islam does assume, just as any follower of any religion believes that theirs is
the sole way, truth and light. If people wish to love a 7th century preacher
more than their own families, that's up to them, but nobody else is obliged to
take it seriously . . .
Except that if you don't take it seriously and accord it proper respect you are
physically threatened, on a scale that no other religion has aspired to since
the Middle Ages. One can't help wondering why such violence is necessary,
given that, as Mueller notes: 'If any of you clowns are right about anything,
the cartoonists are going to hell anyway – won't that do? In the meantime, if
you want to get excited about affronts to Muslims, read the Amnesty
International reports on Syria and Saudi Arabia.'
Many people have noted the contrast between the hysterical 'hurt'
professed by Muslims and the readiness with which Arab media publish
stereotypical anti-Jewish cartoons. At a demonstration in Pakistan against
the Danish cartoons, a woman in a black burka was photographed carrying a
banner reading 'God Bless Hitler'.
In response to all this frenzied pandemonium, decent liberal
newspapers deplored the violence and made token noises about free speech.
But at the same time they expressed 'respect' and 'sympathy' for the
deep 'offence' and 'hurt' that Muslims had 'suffered'. The 'hurt' and 'suffering'
consisted, remember, not in any person enduring violence or real pain of any
kind: nothing more than a few daubs of printing ink in a newspaper that
nobody outside Denmark would ever have heard of but for a deliberate
campaign of incitement to mayhem.
I am not in favour of offending or hurting anyone just for the sake of
it. But I am intrigued and mystified by the disproportionate privileging of
religion in our otherwise secular societies. All politicians must get used to
disrespectful cartoons of their faces, and nobody riots in their defence. What
is so special about religion that we grant it such uniquely privileged respect?
As H. L. Mencken said: 'We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only
in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is
beautiful and his children smart.'
It is in the light of the unparalleled presumption of respect for
religion that I make my own disclaimer for this book. I shall not go out of my
way to offend, but nor shall I don kid gloves to handle religion any more
gently than I would handle anything else.
Copyright © 2006 by Richard Dawkins. Reprinted by permission of Houghton
Mifflin Company.
*Prices subject to change without notice
Product details
- Publisher : Mariner Books
- Publication date : January 16, 2008
- Edition : Reprint
- Language : English
- Print length : 464 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0618918248
- ISBN-13 : 978-0618918249
- Item Weight : 1.05 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 1.06 x 8.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #27,166 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2 in Atheism (Books)
- #6 in Religion & Philosophy (Books)
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About the author

Richard Dawkins taught zoology at the University of California at Berkeley and at Oxford University and is now the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, a position he has held since 1995. Among his previous books are The Ancestor's Tale, The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, Climbing Mount Improbable, Unweaving the Rainbow, and A Devil's Chaplain. Dawkins lives in Oxford with his wife, the actress and artist Lalla Ward.
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Customers find the book highly readable and thought-provoking, describing it as a good start to help answer some questions. Moreover, they appreciate its wit, particularly its British style and satirical tone. However, the religious content receives mixed reactions, with several customers noting that it ignores positive contributions of religion. Additionally, the book's comprehensiveness and readability receive mixed reviews, with some finding it uninteresting and repetitive.
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Customers find the book highly readable and fun to read, with one customer describing it as a masterpiece.
"...Overall, Great book that Ill continue to cite and reexamine but many pages aren't useful." Read more
"...All round a great book, not a very difficult read, and written with wit, humour, and lots of compassion...." Read more
"...Nonetheless the book is well written and fascinating and believers and nonbelievers alike can get much value from it...." Read more
"Elegant. Smart. Rational. Objective. Well written. Logic. Factual...." Read more
Customers find the book thought-provoking, describing it as insightful and educational, with one customer noting its scholarly approach.
"...Further on, his thorough, reasoned treatment of various aspects of faith and reality, and of fair evidence made a compelling case for placing..." Read more
"...ideas expressed therein would inevitably triumph because they were so logical and self-evident...." Read more
"Interesting but condescending in the prognostication that any one educated and intelligent would automatically become an atheist...." Read more
"...He is honest and straightforward in his hatred for God and admits that although he rejects all religions, the primary target of this book is..." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's wit, describing it as a good-humored treatise with a bitterly satirical tone and style that makes it laugh-out-loud funny in parts.
"...Prof. Dawkins is one of the kindest, most considerate, charming, witty, even-tempered, mannered, cordial, courtly, and articulate people of..." Read more
"...It's difficult to say why. It has a charm, an honesty, and a humor that together conspire to make an entertaining read. Solid 5 star book." Read more
"...written from a strong anti-religion position, it was well written, funny, serious, entertaining, offending, but overall prompted serious..." Read more
"...its amazing and even humorous, shocking and has its WTF moments!..." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the religious content of the book, with some appreciating its logical approach to dismantling religious arguments, while others find it too focused on atheism.
"...Simply put, God does not exist...." Read more
"Richard Dawkins is such a great scientist that I cannot follow all matters he explores in this book...." Read more
"...The topic disturbs my soul. The author's thesis is that there is no God , because God cannot be proved to exist...." Read more
"From a staunch believer: a must read for both believers and non-believers...." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the book's comprehensibility, with some finding it a tremendous introduction and good start to answer questions, while others find the thinking obtuse and unconvincing about Intelligent Design.
"Dawkins is incredible! He is detailed, specific, tongue in cheek at times and altogether rich in his intellectual paths...." Read more
"...topic addressed with these two approaches: rigorous logics, and comprehensiveness...." Read more
"...However, at times, Dawkins' book becomes tedious, ponderous, and textbook-like...." Read more
"...It is comprehensive and masterfully written, provoking thought and following reason to its logical end...." Read more
Customers find the book uninteresting and repetitive, describing it as drawn out and boring.
"Boring and pointless, but a good read to understand the frustrations of others." Read more
"...amazingly blind, lazy, defeatist, divisive, infantile, fanatical. This is too bad, since Dawkins is a powerful intellect and a fine writer...." Read more
"...I don't know why he decided to write a book on philosophy. Not worth your time, read books written by professionals of that field instead...." Read more
"...Sometimes the narrative is a bit incoherent, but I'd recommend it to anyone interested in the topic!" Read more
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Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on April 30, 2009The irrationality in religious arguments for the existence of God.
In this book and his related conferences around the world Richard Dawkins rightly demonstrates the irrationality in the arguments put forward for the existence of god. He also correctly analyzes the distorted thinking in major religions of the world and in Creationist dogma under the guise of "Intelligent Design" and how religions have been harming societies of the world throughout history. He refutes many religious allegations that claim to prove the existence of god one by one by showing the distorted and inconsistent thinking in them. For example, the religious reasoning that if science can not explain a natural event this is proof that the natural event is designed and caused by God and therefore God exists is ludicrous. The fact that something is not yet explained by science is no proof of the existence of God. Many natural events that have scientific explanations today could not be explained scientifically centuries ago. Dawkins gives the example that thousands of years ago humans could not explain the sunrise and concluded therefore that it was an event caused by a diety. Science does not claim to be able to explain everything. However, even if science can never explain a certain natural event this does not lead to the logical conclusion that God did it and that God exists.
Somethings can not be proved nor disproved scientifically. For something to constitute a scientific hypothesis it must be falsifiable either by observation and / or experimentation. I recommend that the reader refer to Karl Popper's books on the philosophy of science for details, although the subjectivity of observations has been brought as a counter argument by some people. When somebody makes a claim and says you can not disprove it by science that does not make the claim automatically true. Dawkins quotes the great philosopher Bertrand Russel on that : if somebody were to claim that a teapot was in orbit around the sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter this claim could not be proved nor disproved scientifically because at present we don't have telescopes powerful enough to show such a small object so far away from Earth. However, the fact that science can not disprove it does not make the claim true. Dawkins states that similarly the existence of goblins, genies etc. could be, in fact are claimed and their existence can not be disproved scientifically. Using this as an argument that they must therefore exist is illogical and irrational. By the same reasoning, claiming that God exists because science can not prove its non - existence is also ridiculous. If we want to conclude that God exists this must be based on some strong evidence, not necessarily scientific evidence, but some evidence nevertheless. Religion states that creation as explained in the Holy books is evidence. Dawkins demonstrates that holy scripture is not evidence ; it is not based on any rational reasoning. Religious reasoning goes : " it is so because the Bible / Kuran say so. You can not question the Holy books because they are scripture downloaded from God. "
Dawkins reminds us that scientific reasoning is based on developing scientific hypothesis that can be tested against evidence. Science never claims to have found the ultimate truth, scientific explanations have been developing and changing for the past 400 years. By contrast, all the major religions claim to have the ultimate truth already. They are divine and written in the Bible, the Kuran etc. There is no need to test them because they are divine truths. And if science claims the contary regarding creation etc. it is science that is wrong, because the holy books are divine scripture and God can not be wrong. Dawkins reminds us that religion is based on faith resulting from indoctrination at childhood.
Is God a scientific hypothesis or not ?
I agree with all of Richard Dawkins' comments so far. But two of his statements in two different parts of his book / lectures seriously contradict one another. On the one hand he says that God should be a scientific hypothesis subject to proof or disproof like any scientific hypothesis. On the other hand he says that science can not disprove God. By themselves these statements are OK. But taken together they are mutually exclusive ; they can not both be true. If God is a scientific hypothesis we can not say science can not disprove God ; science may not yet have proved or disproved God. But as a scientific hypothesis it should eventually prove or disprove God. If on the other hand the statement that science can not disprove God is true then we can not say that God is or should be a scientifc hypothesis. Because something that can not be proved nor disproved scientifically, like the teapot in orbit around the sun, is not a scientific hypothesis. It seems that Richard Dawkins overlooked this contradiction in these two statements of his. He did not make these statements one after the other ; they are quite separate in his book / lecture. Put the two statements together and the contradiction is obvious. I think Mr. Dawkins needs to make up his mind about this; can the existence / non- existence of God be a scientific hypothesis or not ? If yes, then he should not say elsewhere in his book / lecture that science can not disprove God. He can say science has not yet disproved nor proved the existence of God. By contrast if he concludes that science can not disprove God then he should drop his other statement that God should be a scientific hypothesis. Both statements can be considered and discussed and perhaps accepted separately, but not together. It is obvious that Dawkins has been analyzing the subject of Religion and God for many years, has traveled the world, discussed with clergy of various religions etc. and is very knowledgeble about it on top of his expertise on biology. I am amazed that with so much knowledge he can fall into such a logical error.
Proof / disproof does not have to be scientific.
Whether God should be a scientific hypothesis or not is a discussable issue. However, I wish to add that not everything need be a scientific hypothesis to be fasifiable and / or provable. For example a brilliant detective like Sherlock Holmes can prove who committed a murder by analyzing various evidence and making logical inferences that at the end prove the murder. The method used by the detective is not science no matter how analytical or brilliant it maybe. Yet the proposition of who committed the murder is falsifiable and provable.
Likewise many analytical and logical thinking methods that lead to proofs / disproofs are not science. For example mathematics, logic, historical analysis etc. are not science. Mathematics is a tool used by science. Many theorems can be proved / disproved mathematically. Some scientifc propositions maybe analyzed and helped to be proved mathematically but mathematical propositions themselves, although provable mathematically, are not falsifiable by observation and therefore not science. If as a reader of this review you find it hard to accept that math is not a science I recommend that you read some material on what science is and is not. Math is a very valuable analytical tool of science, but is not science itself.
My main point is that if it is concluded that God is a scientific hypothesis its existence / non-existence will eventually be proved or disproved, however long it may take. But it does not need to be a scientific hypothesis to be falsifiable or provable. On the other hand, if it is determined that God can not be a scientific hypothesis this does not mean that existence or non- existence of God can not be proved / disproved. It only means that the God proposition, although unscientific, has not yet been proved nor disproved but may be proved / disproved in the future by some other rational method that is not scientific. Or it may never be proved / disproved. What is certain is that irrational religious arguments have not proved the existence of God and never will. Any proof / disproof will come from some kind of rational method of reasoning.
Are there any benefits of a religious life ?
Among other subjects he mentions in his book Richard Dawkins says that religious ceremonies such as weddings in churches and the like should still be part of our culture and we should still learn about the Bible and other holy books like we learn about any work of literature. But that we should do these without indoctrination and dogma. When we study the Iliad and similar works as part of humankind's literature we don't necessarily believe in them. The study of Holy books should be no different.
Do we need religion to have moral lives ?
Dawkins also explains with examples that even though religious faith may sometimes provide psychological comfort, that does not make the religious claims true. The allegation that we must be religious to have moral and ethical lives is false. A person can be good without believing in God. Among religious people there are many good ones and many immoral ones. Some of the ethical teachings in the Holy books are good morality but many of them ( Dawkins gives many examples ) are immoral to common sense and downright detrimental to society.
Who is the audience ?
This book and Dawkins' lectures are very much needed in the contemporary world where religious polarization is on the rise. However, religious people will not read his book nor listen to his lectures. Even if they do they will not change their minds. Because minds that have been shaped by religious indoctrination since childhood can not be changed by logical arguments and presentation of scientific evidence. Were Galileo and Copernicus able to change the minds of the clergy by presenting scientific evidence of their theories ? Dawkins says that he received some messages from readers that they stopped believing in God and religion after having read his book. But I doubt that they were fundamental advocates of religion in the first place. This book is likely to ( in Dawkins terminology ) " raise the conciousness " of people who are moderately ( non - fanatic ) religious or non - religious. It has no chance of convincing the religious fanatic. Not because it is not a good book, but because dogmatic belief of any kind is not open to evidence of alternative opinions. In fact, we can see on Dawkins' videos on the internet how he has been insulted by religious leaders around the world when he went to discuss with them. I am sure Dawkins does not intend to convert them, perhaps he wants to expose their intolerance to the general public.
What can we do ?
I am writing this review from a country that has been a secular republic since its establishment in 1923 but has always been under threat of religious fundamentalism. In fact, access to Richard Dawkins' website is blocked by court decision from this country, no doubt as a result of religious fanatic initiative.
I think the challenge facing the secular people in various countries in the world is keeping secular education alive and ensuring that children are brought up with secular - not necessarily atheist - methods of thinking.
In his concluding remarks, Dawkins does not recommend parents to indoctrinate their children to become atheists, although he is an atheist himself. He says don't indoctrinate your children with religion and don't label them as catholic, protestant, moslem or jewish children. They ARE NOT catholic, protestant, moslem or jewish children. They are children of catholic, protestant,moslem or jewish parents. Labelling children as young as 4 years of age with religion is as ridiculous as labelling them as socialist, marxist, capitalist, keynesian, monetarist etc. Therefore Dawkins advises parents to let the children decide themselves when they become adults what they think of religion and of the holy books. Do not indoctrinate them to believe the Bible, the Kuran or atheism at a young age. This is very good advice, but unfortunately only a minority of the populations in many countries have the capability to provide a secular education for their children. I hope that secular education will become more widespread leaving the choice to be an aetheist or religious to the individual without indoctrinating him / her to be either. However, I am not too optimistic that this will ever be possible on a wide scale.
Is Richard Dawkins taking security measures to protect himself ?
I see on his videos on the internet that he goes around the world to discuss with leaders of militant Islam, with fundamentalist Christians and although he appears to be courteous on the videos he says that he is an atheist and is often insulted. His views are too extreme for religious people to tolerate and I am worried that he maybe attacked one day. It does not appear on the videos that he is taking any security measures.
- Reviewed in the United States on October 5, 2006I find the comments here interesting. I've got to order this book and read the author's viewpoint for myself. I have some thoughts concerning some of the comments posted here.
As a Christian I see many problems with the church and those who call themselves "believers". I believe the entire concept of "hell" has been distorted over the years to scare people into church attendance. The Greek text doesn't seem to support the current concept of hell as much as Christians would like it to. Nor does the overall O.T./N.T. teaching on "hell". The modern church seems to do alot these days to increase attendance and make money in the name of God. I will never agree with that.
I must say that all that comes in the name of science is not always science. Much of it is not observable nor can it be truly tested. We have to admit that what science has called fact and good for us often times becomes false and bad for us somewhere down the road. We all thought Pluto was a planet. Now some within the scientific realm are trying to tell us otherwise. I think there are more hidden agendas around than we want to admit to within science. It's not as cut and dry as we would like to make it. There is alot of philosophical thought within the discipline we call "science". Where scientific fact cannot be observed it is often substituted with the latest philosophy that promotes the cause. When this happens it should no longer be considered purely science or science at all. Much of it is not observable, testable, or repeatable.
We turn to so-called "experts" but who can we call an expert when the experts cannot even agree? Even the most note-worthy of scientists that are considered credible still differ in opinion. Can we determine who is an expert simply from their educational background? If so, then since some colleges and universities are better than others then which college or university produces the best experts? Should the ones who earned a degree with an "A" average be considered better than the ones who earned a degree with a "C" average? Do internet classes count? If scientific experts disagree then which one should we consider to be the expert? We tend to agree with the ones that support our lifestyle choices and support our way of thinking.
In the same manner much of what is done in the name of Christianity/Religion is neither Christian or particularly good in any way, shape, or form. Just because someone with a cause decides to label it as Christian doesn't make it so. All that comes in the name of Christianity is not necessarily Christian. You cannot judge Christianity by the deceived who claim to follow it yet show no evidence of it.
I also question the concept of Christian's abusing children with the teaching of a concept of hell. While this may or may not be entirely true in some cases why doesn't anyone question the child abuse done over and over again by those who have absolutely no religious affiliation at all? How many naturalist/atheists have abused children? Some of the reviewers out here act as if only religious people are guilty of child abuse and that those who are not religious never abuse children. You tend to get angry over supposed abuse surrounding an ideology but not physical forms of abuse or perhaps false ideologies that you may hold to that have been taught to your children.
If morality evolved along with us apart from a god then how do we know it evolved properly? Is there a morality of the fittest as well? Random chance morality doesn't seem all that wonderful. If we all evolved and there are many, many different views of morality how do we decide which moral stance is right and which one is wrong? Obviously some evolved better or at least different than others. How do we make the determination that one view of morality evolved better than another? Which evolved view of morality do we accept and cherish as being proper?
What if my evolved morality believes that it is proper to kill one of your children yet your evolved morality says that it is not o.k. for me to kill your children? If it is all part of a random chance evolved morality how can you say it is wrong for someone to believe that murder is right? What is the standard for morality in the world of "evolved morals"?
When it comes to evolution I have often wondered why "man" as the highest evolved creature seems to have less ability to survive in some cases than the lower evolved animals he dwells with. When the tsunamis hit most of the animals had something within them in that told them to seek higher ground before the flood water engulfed them. Meanwhile the human beings were swallowed by the wave. I would like to believe that mankind should have all that the animals have to survive plus so much more. Yet it is apparent that we dont. Why is it that the highest evolved species of man has so many problems? We are dispensing so many psychotropic drugs these days under the guise of "if we cannot help you we will sedate you". We turn to science for answers to our problems but many times we do not find any help at all. The concept of answering life's problems in an easy to swallow pill form seems appealing but it is not realistic. The problems still exist beyond our cloudy sedation and science induced designer pharmaceuticals. Our household pets seem to have less problems than us. That doesn't always make me feel like the crowning glory of the evolutionary process. I do not see as much adaptation to the environment as I do stress, trying to cope, and all out searching for answers. The plethora of self-help material, over use of prescription drugs, psychology, and psychiatry seem to point to a problem without certain answers.
I don't have to mention all of the down sides to religion in my post here. Others will do fine without my help. I just lost a marriage that I wanted that only got worse when church people became involved. I don't need to hear about what is wrong with the church goers. I already know. It seems likely that both sides are lacking in evidence and explanation. As Christians we need to focus more on living a proper lifestyle that sets an example and doesn't leave non-believers wondering-"What is so great about Christianity or religion?" As for science-----there needs to be some admitting of certain philosophical presuppositions that are held near and dear instead of calling it science.
I'll give the book 5 out of 5 stars before I even read it. It's worth 5 stars simply because it promotes debate.
Top reviews from other countries
- J. BrandReviewed in the United Kingdom on September 25, 2012
5.0 out of 5 stars A powerful argument but perhaps a little too argumentative?
Ii will probably not be news to most people that Dawkins' main premise is that the proofs of god's existence are flawed and the probability of god's existence is so astoundingly remote that without some quite unlikely new evidence being produced we should ignore the concept.
Expressed like that this is a very simple book and one which is very difficult to argue with. Dawkins' quite comprehensively covers most of the main theological arguments and proofs for the existence of god and quite convincingly establishes that they are flawed in some way. Believe in god as an act of faith by all means but do not try to persuade anyone that it is a logical choice let alone something that is proved. However as said that is a fairly trivial point to dismiss those arguments.
The better part of his book is where he considers the social effects of religion and illustrates the corrosive and damaging nature that religion can all too frequently have in society. Effects that mean that even if religion is long established by tradition it certainly has no automatic right to respect and the tacit assumption through much of modern society that we should respect it should be overhauled. The fact that someone believes in a particular god should far from giving them a right to impose those opinions on others be a reason to be suspicious of their motives. Is that too suspicious of religion? well consider Dawkins' arguments against religion being imposed on children and you might change your point of view. Dawkins' covers a lot of the moral, ethical etc. arguments for religion in society and reasonably easily demonstrates that far from being a moral source most religion is at best a selective reading of a few ancient texts. To follow the texts literally would be frighteningly evil so far from a moral source religion is just a synonym for whatever some section of society has decided and has little to do with what they profess to be their sacred texts.
Of course not all religious people do deserve such opprobrium and that is one of the criticisms of the God Delusion. Richard Dawkins does seem a little too keen to put all religious people in the same box, Taliban fundamentalists and parents sending their child to sunday school seem to be grouped together in the same breath. He is also a little too keen to paraphrase other peoples arguments, resorting on a couple of occasions to presenting an imaginary argument with a religious proponent which is a particularly weak way of presenting his arguments as it can easily be dismissed, if a religious person would say that he should be able to quote an example and quoting hypothetical arguments lays him open to a charge that he is misrepresenting religion.
Above all what Dawkins' does not do is prove that god does not exist. He demonstrates that god has not been shown to exist, that there are far more probable explanations and that religion where it does exist can be so socially damaging that there should be a presumption against religion rather than the tacit respect that it all too frequently is given.
An excellent book if you'll excuse two dodgy strawman presentations of religious arguments but as they're not central to his argument they do not detract too much.
- rlepschReviewed in Brazil on April 15, 2020
5.0 out of 5 stars A decisive step into building my scientific mind
This book is definitely a milestone in my life and it has been a great help on becoming a real humanist.
- Peter HeiseReviewed in Canada on February 3, 2013
5.0 out of 5 stars What Now! Where do we go from here.
I have read (The God Delusion) from cover to cover with great interest because the subject is close to my heart. CONGRATULATIONS!
Dr.R.Dawkins explanation of our narrow window of our burka world is very apropos, the ‘New Ten Commandments’ are refreshing, and the many quotes from Bertrand Russell etc are very revealing. I was hoping to find in his book the following quotes from Nietzsche’s “Beyond Good and Evil” written in 1886. Permit me: From 52: “To have bound up this New Testament (…) along with the Old Testament into one book, as the “Bible”, as the “Book in Itself”, is perhaps the greatest audacity and “sin against the Spirit” which literary Europe has upon its conscience.” From 57: “Perhaps the most solemn conceptions that have caused the most fighting and suffering, the conception of “God” and “sin”, will one day seem to us of no more importance than a child’s plaything…”.
The question “WHAT NOW!” repeated itself many times before finishing the book to the point where I had to write to Dr. Dawkins.
While investigating the book an inevitable conclusion arose leaving me with fact that civilization is at a critical Chaos-window, a critical point of bifurcation. This diagnosis becomes more and more urgent. We are living in a period of transformation which is struggling to be born. The Christian God-head and other religions are incomplete! We are in a world where knowledge and technology proliferates but wisdom languishes. The development of consciousness is the burden, suffering and blessing of humankind. We (all sides) are slowly going to be cooked in this alchemical retort (namely society) until we transcend our current state and differences and only then will the heat subside. The longer solutions are delayed the greater will be the heat! Understood psychologically, we either attract one another wisely in good spirit or confront one another in enmity.
There is tremendous room for a sequel which could be a 'tour de force' given Dr. Dawkins popularity and abilities. It could help millions throughout the world in raising our consciousness and in shifting the moral Zeitgeist. This shift may be slow but it is time to raise the curtain on our next act and with it our collective awareness.
We can evolve to a Breakthrough! Future generations may well look back at this time and regard it as a defining moment when man became more human.
- PlaceholderReviewed in India on August 31, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars Provocative, Enlightening, Contentious!!!
"The God Delusion" resurfaces like a philosophical comet, leaving a trail of fiery discussions and sparking fresh constellations of thought in its wake. Richard Dawkins' magnum opus continues to electrify minds, and this edition, adorned with new insights, feels like an awakening of intellectual exploration.
Dawkins' prose is a symphony of eloquence and persuasion, orchestrating an ardent critique of religious dogma with a precision that is both awe-inspiring and disruptive. Like a master sculptor, he carves through the marble of faith, revealing the contours of reason that lay hidden beneath. The verve of his writing isn't just for show; it is the rallying cry of rationality that ignites minds and challenges them to dare question centuries-old beliefs.
In this iteration, the book boasts an updated prelude and a concluding reflection by the author. These additions serve as a bridge between past and present, giving readers a compass to navigate the evolution of debates this book has instigated. Dawkins acknowledges the counterarguments his work has faced while steadfastly reaffirming his position—a gesture that is intellectually honest and encouraging of robust discourse.
Dawkins' analogies are the torchlights guiding us through the labyrinth of theology. He compares belief without evidence to a spectrum of possibilities, from leprechauns to Zeus, forcing us to confront the arbitrary nature of our convictions. His poignant parables highlight the delusionary nature of faith and invite readers to break free from the chains of inherited beliefs.
However, even in its brilliance, the book can be an acquired taste. Dawkins' unwavering conviction can occasionally feel like an unyielding wave crashing against differing shores, potentially alienating those who stand in the intersection of faith and skepticism. The book's focus on fundamentalist aspects of religion, while driving its point home, might not fully encapsulate the entirety of religious experience and expression.
"The God Delusion" is a phoenix, reborn from the flames of debate, its feathers now glistening with a decade's worth of insights. Dawkins' words aren't merely text on paper; they are the spark that lights the tinder of contemplation. This edition compels readers to reckon with their beliefs and explore the borders of human knowledge and understanding.
In closing, the Edition remains a beacon of intellectual audacity, beckoning readers to dance on the edge of enlightenment. Dawkins' magisterial work remains an essential read for the curious, the daring, and the truth-seekers among us. If you're prepared to embark on a voyage that challenges your convictions, this book will be your compass to navigate the uncharted waters of belief and reason.
- 西本鞠亜奈Reviewed in Japan on April 1, 2025
5.0 out of 5 stars ?
Didn’t start yet but I’m very excited
西本鞠亜奈?
Reviewed in Japan on April 1, 2025
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