The God Delusion

Critics

• Judgment day

  The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins 416pp, Bantam, £20 In September 1997 Richard Dawkins allowed an Australian film crew into his Oxford home, only to realise in the course of a particularly inept interview that they were creationists trying to trap ... (read full critics)

  guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

• Beyond Belief

  Richard Dawkins, who holds the interesting title of “Charles Simonyi professor of the public understanding of science” at Oxford University, is a master of scientific exposition and synthesis. When it comes to his own specialty, evolutionary biology, ... (read full critics)

  nytimes published on Sat, 18 Sep 2010

21 Reviews

• 9 people find this helpful

  

  An atheist criticizing Christianity (esp. Catholic)from a Darwanian point of view. Some of the arguements, like the parts about babies being baptized, the terrorists' unquestioning faith and the misuse of power by the church in the past, are sound. However, being too eager to defend his view, Dawkin ... (continue)

  An atheist criticizing Christianity (esp. Catholic)from a Darwanian point of view. Some of the arguements, like the parts about babies being baptized, the terrorists' unquestioning faith and the misuse of power by the church in the past, are sound. However, being too eager to defend his view, Dawkins sometimes presents points and arguements that are as unconvincing as those presented by the church when it comes to inconsistency and contraditions within the bible.

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  Oldwave said on Jul 30, 2007 | Add your feedback

• 3 people find this helpful

  

  Well written and very highly recommended. However, I don't think that the Boeing argument is even necessary and that Dawkins plays it up a bit much. The pure absurdity of theology, the absolute lack of evidence, and the fact that when confronted by a similarly insane belief in another culture we wou ... (continue)

  Well written and very highly recommended. However, I don't think that the Boeing argument is even necessary and that Dawkins plays it up a bit much. The pure absurdity of theology, the absolute lack of evidence, and the fact that when confronted by a similarly insane belief in another culture we would rule it out (e.g. cargo cults) is more than enough.

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  Joey Doll said on Oct 20, 2008 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

• 3 people find this helpful

  

  illuminating and stimulating! Even though Dawkins seems to turn atheism into a new religion...
  Yet he is one of the brightest authors I've ever read...

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  davd said on Aug 19, 2008 | Add your feedback

• 

  Beautiful book: a clear, funny dissertation about God and science.

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  Sabbirra said on Feb 18, 2010 | Add your feedback

• 

  Is God a Delusion?

  Not to me.
  At the age of 10 I decided that God does not exist. Since then, I have encountered no evidence of its existence, and discarded the question as irrelevant to me. Never illuded, never deluded.

  Richard Dawkings thinks differently about it. For him, the existence of a super-natural God is hi ... (continue)

  Not to me.
  At the age of 10 I decided that God does not exist. Since then, I have encountered no evidence of its existence, and discarded the question as irrelevant to me. Never illuded, never deluded.

  Richard Dawkings thinks differently about it. For him, the existence of a super-natural God is highly improbable, and in his The God Delusion, he explains why. First he comfutes all the major arguments which have been used by theologician to demonstrate God's existence, one by one, in a hilarious spiral. Later in the book, it becomes more clear what is he fighting against, and that is religion - i.e. the system of beliefs based on beliefs.
  The book is well written and enjoyable. The thesis are rigorous and compelling. A good book. It could help a lot of people, especially in these highly religious times.

  There are some minor remarks - but those are for the scholars. For instance, I cannot understand and appreciate the anthropofic vision or assumption. Moreover, I hate the lack of phantasy of people imagining extra-terrestrial life. Life is a process whose output is highly impredictable, so I would guess that extra-terrestrial life would look as shocking different to us, as australia's wildlife looked to the first occidental sailors.

  Finally, a godless life is a sinless one! Can you imagine what kind of impact that would have on your sexual life?

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  Peppuzzo said on Jan 15, 2010 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

• 

  The only reason I read this book is because it is written by Richard Dawkins. Otherwise, I won't care to read an atheist book, since, I am a strong atheist already. I don't need any further supports on the obvious fact that: There is NO almighty-creator "god". The Christian / Muslim / Jadaism "god" ... (continue)

  The only reason I read this book is because it is written by Richard Dawkins. Otherwise, I won't care to read an atheist book, since, I am a strong atheist already. I don't need any further supports on the obvious fact that: There is NO almighty-creator "god". The Christian / Muslim / Jadaism "god" is a man-made one. This "god" is very mean, jealous and blood-thirsty, and I found many of my Christian friends are much better than their religion and their "god".

  To summarize, Dawkins thinks it is unlikely to have a "god", since:
  1. One of the biggest mystery for human is how this complex and universe could arise at all.

  2. Naturally we will attribute this appearance of well-designed universe to a designer, a "god"

  3. But this assumption has an obvious fault: who design the designer then??

  4. Darwinian evolution theory and the elegant natural selection has provide an alternative and totally scientific explanation of the bio-diversity we can see everywhere.

  5. We don't have an equivalent theory like Darwinian evolution in Physics, yet. But there are already some good and promising hypothesis that could ultimately resolve this problem in origin of physical universe in totally scientific way too

  6. So, "god" is very likely to be a nonsense.

  So, how does religion arised? Dawkins think religion is a by-product / mis-fire of something else. For example, the children are natural selected to be obedient to parents and elders, so that the adults can protect them from danger and teach them arts and skills of making a living. So, once the religion is built up, it passes on from generation to generation, exploiting the obedience of children. So, religion as a meme keep propagate among human.

  Well, without "god", will we turn into evil human??

  First of all, if you really take out a bible and read through it, you will find that the moral conduct of "god" is way below average. And his favorite human like Lot, Abraham, etc are really horribly immoral people. If we really derive our moral sense from Bible, we should be killing our own sons, enjoying incest, still having slavery, and, oh, forget about woman-rights. Women are not human in bible.

  One very important point about Old Testement: Judaism is for the priviledged Jews only. "Love Thy Neighbour" is not what your think it means. Neighbour only mean other fellow-Jews. That means all non-Jews, you are free to kill, rape or whatever you like. Judaism is an tight, In-Group religion. It is only St Paul (or Peter?? Whatever) want to propagate it so loosen the criteria and allow the inferior non-Jew to join the group.......... No wonder, true Judaism does not accept Christianity....

  In this case, it is obvious our moral sense, our inante ethnical distintion between right and wrong must arised from somewhere else. Dawkins propose several possibilities. One is that, the selfishness is only on gene level, not the individual human level. In order to survive and propagate, Tic-for-Tack is actually a stable and also sucessful strategy for human. Adding the fact that human can recognize each others, remember previous favours (and wrong-doing) and we are equipped with language so spreading gossip, also, our ancestors used to live in tight and small group - these all make Tic-to-Tack the sucessful strategy for our selfish gene to prosper.... so, even from Darwinian evolution, natural selection has selected human to be kind and cooperative to survive.

  Some other very interesting possibilities on the origin of moral sense: One is that, altrustic giving is an advertisement of dominance or superority. If I am the bird that is strong enough to risk being hawk's lunch to give alarm to all other birds, and I survive, that means I am strong, smart and powerful. So I have the dominance!

  To summarize, the reason that we are naturally selected to have moral sense:

  1. we used to live in tight kinship. Saving other also preserve the same (selfish) gene
  2. reciprocation: kindness to kindess, but revenge for cheating
  3. with gossip, we can earn a reputation of being kind and help on survival, mating, etc
  4. able to be altrustic is a way of dominance.

  ****

  I would like to share my story and also some thoughts.

  Both my parents do not believe in any religions, but also not hostile to religions. So, I have full freedom to choose my own belief (or not-belief). I went to a Aglican primary school (remember that HK was a British colony at that time). The teacher of my Bible class was such a sweet, kind and religioius old lady, that, I have decided that Christianity must be a wonderful religion to have such a nice believer. I was a Christian since six.... up till fourteen. In these eight years, I was a very sincere Christian. I went to Sunday school and almost pray every night, not too bad for a child with no parents to force you to do this. But even the young me kept having the questions like this: Oh, I am very sorry that I lost temper to my friend today. I know once I pray to God and say sorry to him, I am forgiven. BUT, the problem is not solved. I am still the same short-tempered kid, and lose temper to the same friends and also other people, again and again. Even I am forgiven by god, I hate to hurt others, but cannot help.....

  Just praying to god, and believe in him does not make me a better person.

  So, when I was grown up enough to have more indenpendent thinking, and learn more scientific facts, my faith loosen. And the final blow arrived when one day, at fourteen, I decided that, instead of just reading some quote of the Bible, I should read the Holy Bible myself. My vocabulary at fourteen is more than enough to understand (the Chinese) Bible. Instead of starting from the beginning, I somehow decided to start from the last chapter... maybe because sub-consciously, I didn't want to read on the Eden, Adam, Eva stuff. These stories obviously contradict from the FACT that we all evolved from monkey.

  But, starting from Revelation turned out to be a even quicker blow to my belief. I finished "Revelation" in one night, leaving me burnt with anger. I was totally pissed off reading the details on how god destroying the world, killing every living being except those believe in him. I still remember I was not able to fall asleep, silently and angrying asking god that night: "Are you threatening me???"

  "Do you mean that if I dare not to bellieve in you, you will burn me with hell-fire and sink me into freezing water???"

  "This is called LOVE???"

  That night, I decided that, I am not a Christian any more.

  It sounds easy now, but at that time, it took a lot of courage. I beleive that God is all-mighty since I was a little girl. God is very powerful, and obviously merciless. What if this is truly the God, and the damn God will truly throw me into hell-fire since I don't believe in him any more???

  Well, I have to thank to my rebellious adolescence period that give me enough courage to keep it. I finally told myself, if I had such a bad luck to live under such a terrible god, I might not able to do anything to save myself from hell-fire, but at least, I can CHOOSE not to lick the god's shoes!!!

  So, I was a strong atheist since fourteen. I even actively debate with my Christian friends, hoping to save them from this nonsense.... without any sucessful case.........

  *****

  Saying all these, I still want to make one point for Christian. I know a lot of Christian, and some of them are my very dearest life-long friends. They are truly kind and generous, and I admire them. They are also open-minded enough, to accept me being a Buddhist, while I accept them being Chritain too. I don't think they are seriously worrying that I will be burnt in hell-fire forever since I don't believe in god. And I don't think they are evil or ignorant too.

  I think, one of the reasons why it is so difficult to talk about religion is that, my Christian friends have bundled their religious believe with the hope and believe in kindness and goodness. Attacking "god" means attacking the good-side of human nature for them. Before they can unwind these two things, it is quite impossible for them to recognize the obvious.

  And, I believe, everybody is different, taking different path, working on different stage. So, although I would really hope they can grow out of this believe, in the meantime, I still accept it. Since, tolerance and acceptance is the true moral and ethics we desperately need to promote nowadays. As Ajahm Brahm said: if we Buddhist cannot accept other religions and different secs among Buddhism, we are just hypocrite.

  If we truly follow the Buddha's teaching, we should learn to tolerate others and embrace the difference between each of us!

  May all beings be happy, peaceful and have tolerance!

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  Samsara said on Dec 30, 2009 | 4 feedbacks

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Book Details

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• English Books
• Paperback 464 Pages
• ISBN-10: 0552774294
• ISBN-13: 9780552774291
• Publisher: Transworld Publ. Ltd UK
• Pub date: May 08, 2007
• Also available as: Hardcover, Audio CD, Others and eBook
• In other languages: other languages Deutsche Bücher, Libros en Español, Libri Italiani, Nederlandse Boeken

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