The God Delusion | 
 enlarge | Author: Richard Dawkins
Publisher: Mariner Books
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
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Rating:  1250 reviews
Sales Rank: 271
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 464
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.4 x 1.3
ISBN: 0618918248
Dewey Decimal Number: 211
EAN: 9780618918249
Publication Date: January 16, 2008
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Product Description
In his sensational international bestseller, the preeminent scientist and outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins delivers a hard-hitting, impassioned, but humorous rebuttal of religious belief. With rigor and wit, Dawkins eviscerates the arguments for religion and demonstrates the supreme improbability of the existence of a supreme being. He makes a compelling case that faith is not just irrational, but potentially deadly. In a preface written for the paperback edition, Dawkins responds to some of the controversies the book has incited. This brilliantly argued, provocative book challenges all of us to test our beliefs, no matter what beliefs we hold.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1245 more reviews...
 Dawkins imagines no religion. September 19, 2006
G. Merritt (Boulder, CO)
2425 out of 2981 found this review helpful
"As a scientist," Richard Dawkins writes, "I am hostile to fundamentalist religion because it actively debauches the scientific enterprise. It teaches us not to change our minds, and not to want to know exciting things that are available to be known. It subverts science and saps the intellect" (p. 284). In other words, the greatest crime of fundamental Christianity is to think without asking scientific questions. For those readers already familiar with Dawkins' work, it will come as no surprise that this book is nothing less than brilliant. Pity those readers, however, who either won't read this book (they should) or who will find nothing positive to say about it, because this is the work of one the greatest thinkers of our time.
In THE GOD DELUSION, Dawkins, the celebrated evolutionary biologist, Oxford Professor, and author (The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Author, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design, A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love, The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution), gives us a carefully-reasoned yet entertaining treatise on atheism that is equally eloquent and provocative. His basic argument is that the collective irrational belief in "The God Hypothesis" is not only wrong ("intellectual high treason"), but pernicious in its resulting intolerance, oppression, bigotry, arrogance, child abuse, homophobia, abortion-clinic bombings, cruelties to women, war, suicide bombers, and educational systems that teach ignorance when it comes to math and science. Sure to provoke his adversaries, Dawkins not only portrays the "psychotic" God of the Old Testament as "arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully" (p. 31), but also challenges, quite convincingly, every major argument for God's existence, and shows that the Founding Fathers considered religion to be a threat to democracy. Thomas Jefferson, for instance, claimed "Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man" (p. 43). Benjamin Franklin said "Lighthouses are more useful than churches" (p. 43). A 1796 treaty signed by John Adams declares, "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion" (p. 40). Adams also said, "this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it" (p. 43). Even conservative icon, Barry Goldwater, threatened to fight fundamentalists "every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans" (p. 39).
While Dawkins is clearly out to change minds here, unfortunately, for most of his readers, he is only preaching to the choir. Nevertheless, for its erudite advocacy of science and rationalism at odds with the divisive, oppressive, injurious, and deadly forces of religion, THE GOD DELUSION is highly recommended. Further reading in this area includes Daniel Dennett's, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (2006) and Sam Harris's, Letter to a Christian Nation (2006) and Christopher Hitchins' recent God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.
G. Merritt
Read the Reviews! October 28, 2006
Harvey Ardman (Rockport, ME USA)
790 out of 1024 found this review helpful
I've just finished reading the 141 reviews above mine, and I think they're utterly fascinating--almost as interesting as the book. And the scores--the numbers who find each review helpful--are equally remarkable.
Some reviewers, delighted to find their opinions supported by Dawkins, use the opportunity to bask in their superior intellects and display their generous contempt for those who disagree.
Other reviewers feel personally attacked by this book, fending it off as best they can so they can retain their illusions, which are obviously valuable and meaningful to them.
Actually, you don't even have to read the reviews to see which is which. Just look at the numbers. If you see very few finding the review useful, you'll know the review was written by someone opposing Dawkins' ideas. And if the majority find the review helpful, that means it agrees with Dawkins.
This tells me that most of the people who are bothering to read the reviews are already pro-Dawkins--and it bodes ill for his hopes that his book will convert the believers.
It won't convert many believers, not because it is wrong--it isn't--and not because it isn't well-written--it is--but because whatever else you can say about faith, it isn't easily extinguished. For those who have it, it is the only life raft on a limitless ocean. Those who don't have learned how to swim, or plan to.
The most annoying reviewers, from my point of view, are those whose remarks demonstrate they haven't read the book (such as the fellow who insists Einstein was a believer), or those who feel Dawkins doesn't have the Biblical knowledge to back up his conclusions.
He doesn't need any Biblical knowledge. None of us do, when it comes to the question of belief. Memorizing the Bible neither adds nor subtracts from our ability to feel faith.
And that's the bottom line for me. I am unable to accept an assertion of any kind supported by nothing more than faith. I need some kind of truth, some kind of evidence.
There are or might be moments when I am jealous of those capable of faith. I would love to believe, when a loved one dies, that he or she is going to a better place and that we'll meet again some day. What a lovely, comforting thought. Would that it were true, or that I could believe it. But I don't--and it makes this life and every moment in it more valuable to me.
I once asked myself how a person totally unfamiliar with religion, might choose among the world's offerings, might decide to adopt one of the world's thousands of religions. I could find no way. They all claim they're right and all the other religions are wrong. But are any of them right?
Now I'm thinking similar thoughts about God. I saw a website recently that compiled the names of all of the gods, worldwide and throughout history. They found 3800 different gods or supernatural beings. If I were inclined to believe, which one would I choose and why?
Dawkins points out that we're all atheists. We don't believe in Amon-re, Zeus, Thor, Apollo, Odin, etc., etc., etc. He just goes one god further.
This May Be the Book of the Decade September 25, 2006
A Discerning Reader (Cedar Rapids, Iowa)
413 out of 609 found this review helpful
Richard Dawkins, as many of you know who are reading this review, is an evolutionary biologist who has written extensively on evolution, genes, memes, science, and beauty from his perch at Oxford. The God Delusion is a fantastic (and succinct, for Dawkins) and organized look at why belief in God and belonging to a religion are both outdated and dangerous. His scientific training gives him authority to talk about science and reason, both of which are flippantly ignored by religion.
While throwing in all kinds of great quotes and historical insights (Thomas Jefferson, Einstein, etc.), Dawkins lists why people believe in God and religion, why they shouldn't believe in God and religion, and how these two issues are actually harmful to our children and society as a whole. Sam Harris' End of Faith is more pugilistic, but Dawkins writes so compellingly and lucidly about these subjects that I thoroughly enjoyed them both.
The reader quickly learns that research and historical criticism, when applied to the Christian scriptures, teach us that both the Old and New Testaments are obnoxious propaganda pieces that reflect neither a decent moral code nor any semblance of historical accuracy. We absolutely don't need religion to teach us how to be ethical and moral, and Dawkins cites studies to show atheists are just as ethical (and maybe more so) as those claiming to believe a mythological bible.
In short--this is vital reading for all of us living in the 21st century. Following this book's advice could help avert much of the religion-spawned violence we see throughout the world today, and we will all feel so vitalized, honest, and clearheaded when we've thrown away our own personal baggage of God and religion.
Religion as a danger, not just an irrelevance October 1, 2006
A. J. CORNISH-BOWDEN (Marseilles, France)
121 out of 166 found this review helpful
Very few scientists are religious, and highly successful ones are the least religious: a study in 1998 suggested that only about 7% of members of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA believe in a personal God. There are some, of course, who mention God from time to time as a poetic way of personifying nature, and Einstein is often claimed as a religious man on the basis of remarks of this kind, notwithstanding his perfectly clear statement that "the idea of a personal God is quite alien to me". Today nearly all working scientists can identify with the mathematician Laplace, who said that he had "no need of that hypothesis" when asked by Napoleon why he did not mention God in his book. Richard Dawkins, however, goes much further than this; for him, belief in a personal God is not just an unnecessary hypothesis, but a major source of evil in the world. No wars, he says, have been fought in the name of atheism, but many have been fought in the name of God, and much of what we call ethnic persecution is in reality religious persecution. Belief in God, therefore, is not just something to be politely set aside, but something to be actively opposed. A large part of the book is devoted to justifying this position, much more radical than the vague agnosticism that nearly all of his academic colleagues will readily agree to.
Lke an earlier famous atheist, Bertrand Russell, Dawkins has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Bible that goes far beyond that of most Christians. He quotes chapter 19 of Genesis, which tells us that the "uniquely righteous" Lot offered his two virgin daughters to satisfy the lusts of the men of Sodom who arrived at his house wanting to sodomize the angels who were visiting him: "do ye unto them as is good in your eyes". Likewise he produces ample evidence of what has long been obvious to any intelligent reader of the Bible, that it is simply impossible for every word to be the literal truth, because it abounds with internal contradictions. Dawkins is perfectly aware, of course, that the more sophisticated Christians recognize the absurdity of belief in an old man with a white beard up in the sky; that they readily accept that there are many inaccurate statements in the Bible and that the God of the Old Testament is very hard to hold up as a role model for humanity; and that they do not advocate applying the penalty of death prescribed in chapter 20 of Leviticus for cursing one's parents. For most such Christians the Old Testament is an embarrassment, but Dawkins is not convinced that the New Testament is as much of an improvement as is sometimes claimed, and describes "atonement, the central doctrine of Christianity, as vicious, sado-masochistic and repellent". The more general problem is that once you accept that there is much that is repellent in the Bible how do you justify picking out the bits that you like and ignoring the bits you don't like?
If Dawkins were merely trying to demonstrate that religious belief is irrational, there would be little point to his book: most of his academic colleagues accept that already and need no further convincing, and his religious opponents will not read the book anyway, except perhaps in search of passages they can use against him in their hate mail and websites. Nonetheless, people who are broadly in agreement with him do need to read the book, because of his contention that religious belief is not just irrational, but is also dangerous. He gets angry when he reads of "a Muslim child", aged four, when what is meant is a four-year-old child of Muslim parents, or when religious massacres in what used to be Yugoslavia are euphemistically called "ethnic cleansing". His aim, therefore, is to make his readers angry as well.
Dawkins is, of course, famous as an evolutionary biologist, and he also discusses the appearance and survival of religious beliefs from an evolutionary point of view. In the words of the novelist Barbara Trapido, "People have no sooner got themselves born than they start to imagine the gods want them to flatten their heads, or perforate their genitals, or arrange themselves into hierarchies based on the colour of their skins. The gods require them to avoid eating hoofs, or to walk backwards in certain sacred presences, or to hang up cats in clay pots and light fires underneath them." For this sort of thing to make evolutionary sense there must be a survival value for the individual in religious belief. What can it be? Dawkins explains it in the same way as he explains the habit of moths of burning themselves to death by flying into candle flames, not as something beneficial in itself but as an unfortunate by-product of behaviour that in nearly all circumstances is indeed beneficial, namely flying towards a light source. For religion, he suggests that it is nearly always beneficial for small children to believe what their parents tell them, with the consequence that they believe not only in the dangers of playing with fire, but also in whatever nonsense their parents tell them as well.
Religion Unclothed September 24, 2006
The Spinozanator (Waco, Texas)
93 out of 132 found this review helpful
There is so much here to agree with, it's fun to read. Seldom have I come across a book that presents such a matter-of-fact scalding of the absurdities of religion. "God Delusion" is simply an excellent book for those who share its views - or for anyone who has doubts and wonders what the "infidels" are thinking. But our old friend Richard Dawkins is probably preaching to the choir. If any devout believer actually condescended to try this book (like they were stranded on a desert island and there was nothing else to do), they would likely be quickly offended by the contents on any random page. I'll bet not 1 out of 100 fundamentalists would finish this book.
"I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose" - Clarence Darrow. That statement would possibly also sum it up for Dawkins, were it not for his chosen profession. Professionals in evolutionary fields have to put up with obstructionist tactics by religious groups far more than any other area of science. Evolutionary theory is the backbone of all biological sciences, yet propaganda efforts to prevent the teaching of evolution in schools have goaded Dawkins into fighting back.
Different people around the world have written their own versions of God's book, each of them infallible, yet not in agreement with each other. The franchise leaders agree on mainly one thing - that they will not tolerate each others' brand. All brands are strikingly uncontaminated by evidence.
The myth of Hell is a good example of the primitive thinking extant when these holy books were written. It represents all the meanness, revenge, cruelty, and hatred man is capable of imagining. The writers certainly created God in man's own image. The Christian and Muslim communities wholeheartedly believe these prophecies, which announce that the vast majority of humanity will follow the wrong road and end up in the gruesome torture chamber of Hell. God knows who's going in advance. Wouldn't a truly benevolent and omnipotent God let bygones be bygones and forgive those who, through merely an error of birth, adopted mistaken religious beliefs?
The books were all written during the bronze age, or at least reflect that tribal mentality. Many of the believers insist on taking their book literally. They tend to think humanity is basically bad and that following their brand represents the only hope that people will act ethically. They all advocate faith as the greatest virtue - that is, believing things that otherwise might get you medicated. Finally, all these believers of every brand get a free ride from criticism just because it's religion.
Whenever earlier humans lacked understanding, they created a "God of the Gaps" to fill the vacuum - the wider the gaps in knowledge, the greater the need for miracles ("GOTG"). Each forward step by science has further distanced the hand of God from perceived involvement in natural events. As humanity's deficits in knowledge have been replaced by scientific understanding, a GOTG has found fewer nooks and crannies where it can reasonably thrive.
The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States contain not a single word about Christianity, Christian principles, the Bible, or Jesus Christ (or Islam). The Christian clergy of the Revolutionary period tried again and again to have references to Christianity inserted directly into the US Constitution, but they were refused every time by the Founders. Two items that may have influenced them were the Puritan practice of executing witches and King George III's absolute mandate that his subjects worship in a manner approved by the Church of England. The Founding Fathers wisely established a wall of separation between church and state. It allowed freedom of religion and freedom FROM religion. The National Motto was not changed to "In God We Trust" until 1956. The phrase "under God" was not added to the Pledge of Allegiance until 1954.
I could natter on and on about the book, but this review is already too long. Like Sam Harris in "The End of Faith," Dawkins takes no prisoners. I couldn't agree more.
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