Books: The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins

[major_clanger]

Possibly the most thought-provoking book I've read this year.

I am an atheist. I don't believe in God, or gods, or supernatural forces. I have been since early in my time as an undergraduate, partly through exposure to the reasoned scepticism of some of my fellow students, and partly through reading books such as Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker. But that book, like many of its ilk, was really aimed at explaining why the Argument from Design was unnecessary and invalid for explaining the amazing complexity wrought by evolution. The God Delusion goes much further than that; Dawkins sets out to show why, in his view, belief in a Creator is not just unnecessary and superfluous but is actively wrong-headed, destructive and above all corrosive to the human spirit. Dawkins doesn't want us to admit to being atheists; he wants us to be proud of it. For, he argues, if we are not, we sell ourselves very short in the argument with those who are religious and proud of it. And why is such an argument important? Because whilst our pride as atheists should lead us to do no more than insist that we choose how we think, very often the pride of the religious drives them to insist that they choose how we think.

It would be difficult to do justice to Dawkins' arguments in anything less than an article-length essay, so I will merely commend this book in the strongest terms to you, irrespective of your religious beliefs or lack of them. I very much doubt that many people who read this will agree with all of it; in fact, I am sure that a fair few of my friends will find much to argue with. But Dawkins very clearly lays out a wide gamut of the arguments about religion; reading this book, irrespective of your beliefs, should at the very least make it a lot easier to have an informed discussion of them.

And for me? Well, having read the book, I went back to my Facebook profile and amended the hitherto carefully-left-blank 'Religious Views' slot to 'Atheist'. And whilst I haven't actually bought the T-shirt, I do now have an appropriate icon.

Comments

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

No, they are not trivial. I think it's a function of a certain mentality rather than a product of religion per se, however: the Stalinist purges weren't conducted out of a religious mania, for instance.

And although the Christian church was ultimately responsible for the witch trials, the worst witch hunts in the far north of Europe were conducted where clerical influence was weakest, suggesting that in some areas, the church was a moderating influence on people's urge to gratuitously persecute their neighbours.

And to be honest, paganism isn't exempt, when one starts to consider the Nazis' peculiar Norse preoccupations.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that Dawkins's chief (though by no means only) target is unthinking faith - and you can have that outside religion, particularly in politics. You certainly had it in Nazi Germany - and many Nazis were Christian. However, currently, religion pleads a unique privilege to ignore contrary evidence. Dawkins is happy to admit that he could be wrong, and would change his mind given evidence.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

If he is genuinely happy to alter his opinion given evidence, I'm happy too - as long as his definition of what would constitute evidence doesn't change when it's inconvenient to do so. I have to say, my early encounters with Dawkins' writing (and here I'm talking about 20 years or so ago) do not make me very confident: I suspect that there's a similar mentality on both sides in this instance.

I'd be the first to condemn unthinking faith. But I'd like to see Dawkins pitted against, say, a Jesuit (has he been?) rather than the somewhat low level folk who appear - from reviews, as I have not watched the TV programmes - on the show which features him.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Dawkins claims that he much prefers educated argument, but that it seems very hard to get the likes of Jesuits or bishops to discuss religion with him in public. (He notes that there are exceptions, and in The God Delusion he is very approving of some senior religious figures he has debated with.)

He does state though that he will not now debate with Creationists, on the basis that he has never been up against one who was interested in having a genuine argument. (And I suspect he thinks, probably with good reason, that people who try to set up such debates really just want a punch-up.)

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

The trouble with Creationists is that they make a basic logical error (okay, they make many such errors): disproof of a theory is not sufficient to establish the truth of a rival theory.

Yes, there are problems with the theory of evolution (which I do espouse, BTW), but just stating that there are difficulties with it does not mean that creationism is automatically established. They still need to do the work in setting up the evidence needed for proving Creationism, and they can't do it.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I'd need to look it up,but he's been the only atheist speaker at conferences where there were a dozen Christian speakers, for instance. The Bishop of Oxford is a mate of his. He certainly tackles Aquinus, among others, in The God Delusion.

[annafdd.livejournal.com]

Maybe religion itself isn't the problem: have you seen this? http://www.mahablog.com/2007/08/17/essentials-altemeyers-the-authoritarians/ (more particularly, the Rule the World game)

(the Mahablogger is herself a non-theist Buddhist)

[andrewducker]

Cheers - that was fascinating!