Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion"

Title: The God Delusion

Author: Richard Dawkins

Publisher: Bantam Books, 2006

Pages: 406 pages

Original Language:English



While I was recently very dissapointed by Richard Dawkins' ignorance towards sexism and its prevalence within western society - which you can read about at skepchick's blog in The Privilige Delusion and her later posted FAQregaring the case- I still love Dawkins in his argumentation for atheism no less (well, maybe a little bit less..).

He is great at explaining biological processes and getting the bigger picture across but he's still at his best at explaining why he hates religion

so much.

I don't think I'm doing injustice in calling his feelings towards organized faith "hatred". Yet, one of the reasons why I love this book so much, is his analyzing structure that is very factual and tries to win the argument by logic, not by shouting.

So let's go back to the times when Dawkins was not shocking with his ignorant white privileged "woman-in-the-western-world-you-can't-have-it-bad!-don't-complain!"-slurs but merely by strong atheist thesis that aim at changing the public eye on atheism and religion.

Some of the "consciousness-raising" messages he writes about:

• Atheists can be happy, balanced, moral, and intellectually fulfilled.
• Natural selection and similar scientific theories are superior to a "God hypothesis" —the illusion of intelligent design— in explaining the living world and the cosmos.
• Children should not be labelled by their parents' religion. Terms like "Catholic child" or "Muslim child" should make people cringe.
• Atheists should be proud, not apologetic, because atheism is evidence of a healthy, independent mind.

You don't have to agree with everything said in this book. But even then it will give you some interesting facts and something to think about. How about the study where US Americans were asked whether they would vote for a Black/Female/Gay/Atheist president? While it's not surprising to hear that the majority of US citizens would vote for a Black president (as they have done), it is rather shocking to hear that least people would want an atheist president of all these choices. The only attribute that had more negative association was "muslim". You wouldn't want to think of how they'd judge a muslim-gone-atheist, scary!

While the majority would in theory vote for a catholic (95%), a Black man (94%), a Jew (94%), a Woman(88%), a Hispanic (87%), a Mormon (72%), someone married three times (67%), someone 72 years or older (57%) and for a Homosexual Man (55%) - the majority would NOT vote for an atheist (45%).

Of course the "God Delusion" is not mainly about why atheists have such a bad reputation in society, but about why would should stop putting religion on a special pedal. Why is it not okay to criticize someone's religious beliefs logically but everything else?

I've now read it for the second time and while there are two or three small bits I disagree with, they're not directly to do with his arguments against religion and God. Most importantly for me: his arguments against God and against religion can be views separately. So while I'm an atheist and don't believe in either, I'm mainly concerned with the wrong-doings of religion, not whether there is a God or not, because as long as nothing follows from there being something bigger than us, it ultimately doesn't matter for society. This is a personal matter, I believe. Organized religion is not. It concerns all of us.

Music that goes well with reading this:

= 89/100

* Here is a nice graphic showing the results of the 2007 poll.