The God Delusion | Richard Dawkins | A Logician looks at religion

The God Delusion | Richard Dawkins | A Good Read

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The God Delusion

	The God Delusion Richard Dawkins Mariner Books, 2008 - 464 pages average customer review:based on 1166 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A Logician looks at religion

Despite his "lifelong love affair with science", Richard Dawkins in this book is primarily a logician. He's brilliant, but not infrequently goes into the hypothetical and abstruse using acronyms like NOMA, TTSS, IVF, 747, and so on. He speculates on the genetic and evolutionary roots of religion and explains how religion is a byproduct of the survival benefits of a child's tendency to obey and respect parents and elders and the child's tendency to ascribe causes to all events. This gullibility is exploited by leaders.

He's well read and quotes from sources from many fields. For example:
Luther:
"Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of his reason."
Senica:
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."
Einstein:
"I do not believe in a personal God...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."
Jesus:
"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children, and bothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. "
Sam Harris,
"Of the twenty-five most dangerous cities 76 percent are in red states, and 24 percent are in blue states. In fact, three of the five most dangerous cities in the U.S. are in the pious state of Texas. The twelve states with the highest rates of burglary are red. Twenty-four of the twenty-nine states with the highest rates of theft are red. Of the twenty-two states with the highest rates of murder, seventeen are red."

His marvelous way with words can be seen in many passages, such as this one: "To be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and "improved" by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other over nine centuries." This entertaining book explains religious ideas from the perspective of an avowed atheist. .

I originally listened to this book on CD, but shortly after getting started ordered a hardcopy. There are many wonderful ideas that I wanted to underline and review. If many Americans read this book, our country will become a more tolerant and just -- dependent on law and reason rather than discrimination and superstition.

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A Good Read

I just finished this book. Though there were few concepts that were new to me, the reaffirmation is comforting. His writing style is rather light and witty. I appreciate this given the sensitive nature of the topic. Honesty, even it is unpleasent to the opposition, is the best policy. Therefore in some places, Dr. Dawkins gets deadly serious.

I doubt that many people of faith will read this book. My hop is that some that are teetering on the brink might and be enlightened and avoid a plunge into the abyss of willful ignorance that is religon. Dr. Dawkins does a credible job of presenting the case against anti-science.

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