The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
|
List Price: Our Price: $6.54 You Save: $9.41 (59%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $4.94 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The God Delusion
Book Review: The God Delusion: A handbook for lifting our religion disease
Summary: 5 Stars
2/8/08
Amazon Book Review by Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC
TITLE: The God Delusion: A handbook for lifting our religion disease
TEXT: Having read several of his books, when Richard Dawkins, on his American book tour for his latest book , "The God Delusion" arrived at Politics and Prose, an independent bookseller in NW Washington, DC, I eagerly attended his lecture there and had him sign a copy of his book. His talk was enthusiastically embraced by the overflow crowd, many of whom confessed to leaving various faiths for atheism.
As I prepare to enter my 78th year, I find numerous obituaries of people who didn't make that milestone and feel sublimely lucky to have done so in relatively good health.
Philosophers of every stripe have enjoyed giving counsel on how to prepare for death. Books are rife and varied, so one has enough choices. In fact even if you started reading these tracts early in life you likely wouldn't cover them all. One major source of such advice of course is the world's plethora of religions. These diverse sects stress "Getting right with God". So I went to my search engine using that phrase and WOW, the list was long and detailed. One fella named James Petzold has been at it since he was 22 in 1972, when his girl friend rejected him. Hey, that's when he got serious, no screwing around with eternity which he describes in a turgid litany of his path to Jesus and God. Happy ending? You betcha: His group, "Precious Testimonies is supported financially by those God directs to sow into this ministry. We ask each person reading this to please ask God on an on-going basis if He would have you sow a financial gift to this evangelistic outreach of His - trust that He will clearly communicate His will to you in the matter - then simply be obedient. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions about the current financial needs of this outreach, or any other questions you may have. For convenience, you can simply click on the secure Pay Pal donate button below if you want to donate by credit card. Otherwise, you can send your precious gift to: Precious Testimonies, P.O. Box 516, Jenison, MI 49429.
Well, folks, to each his own. If the psycho babble of the religious fantasy mongers pleases you, then stop reading this right now and certainly don't buy Dawkins' book as it will frighten you..
For many years I have been "unchurched" although when, as a widower, I remarried 14 years ago my bride and I were delighted to call upon a clergyman relative from each of our families to bless our union. These two are wonderful people, each with a sincere and abiding faith in their religion, whose moral compasses come not from their religious beliefs but from the intrinsic goodness of some humans as compared with the intrinsic evil in others. Moral codes come not from religion but from the transactional experience of human evolution, despite the claims of the faithful.
I have been a practicing atheist for years. Just what are the standard religious options? As Oxford Don and Darwinian exponent, Dawkins writes in "The God Delusion", "A theist believes in a supernatural intelligence who, in addition to his main work of creating the universe in the first place, is still around to oversee and influence the subsequent fate of his initial creation.... He answers prayers, forgives or punishes sins; intervenes in the world by performing miracles; frets about good and bad deeds, and knows when we do them (or even think about doing them). A deist, too, believes in a supernatural intelligence, but one whose activities were confined to setting up the laws that govern the universe in the first place. Pantheists don't believe in a supernatural God at all, but use the world God as a non supernatural synonym for nature, or for the Universe, or for the lawfulness that governs its workings. ....Pantheism is sexed up atheism. Deism is watered down theism."
I evolved from being a "reverent agnostic" as I became aware of these various standard gradations of belief. So where is agnosticism? Again Dawkins comes to our rescue by describing that position as "fence sitting". Any doubts about the fact that no God exists, he says, have been reconfirmed by the advance of scientific knowledge and overall human experience.
In fact, Dawkins has provided us with a jaunty, yet scholarly, credible textbook which will allow thinking people of any age to throw off the bonds of Original Sin, everlasting life, and the obtuse visions of the various hucksters whose religions' divine origins he thoroughly demolishes.
More importantly, looking at the inevitable end of our life on Earth, it has become very possible for me to be buoyant in the knowledge that I have done my best and that whatever happens to my molecular leavings will be followed by some human beings who will likewise try to help the world be better. However, I am definitely in the minority, but proud to be there. Dawkins reports that polls show that 95% of US citizens believe they will survive their own death. To me that is the ultimate act of human cowardice. I would add an 11th to the 10 commandments, "Thou shalt Not Believe In the Afterlife", as belief in eternal life or heaven (or hell) is akin to taking LSD or some other life threatening drug.
Dawkins' comprehensive look at its history shows conclusively that religion has done enormous harm and possibly will lead us all to the ultimate downfall of life on this planet. As the several major, powerful, equally evil sects collide, the chance of our failing to allocate resources, trim pollution and curb population growth to a level of long term sustain ability dims daily. Avoiding this pending apocalypse will involve outgrowing the sway of organized, corrupt secular religious power. I encourage a simple, but decisive first step: Become an agnostic, which would be like taking the 2nd of the 12 steps in the Alcoholics Anonymous recovery program with a new twist: Come to believe that there is no power greater than other human helpers that can restore us to sanity.
Book Review: Consciousness raising, but is it powerful enough to change your beliefs?
Summary: 5 Stars
There appears to be a discord between who Mr. Dawkins wrote this book for, and the manner in which he conveyed his thoughts. In the preface, Mr. Dawkins asserted that his goal in writing this book was to raise consciousness, especially of those "people who feel vague yearnings to leave their parents' religion and wish they could, but just don't realize that leaving is an option." Mr. Dawkins also repeatedly asserted that as the consciousness is raised, which is particularly the case in the highly educated and intellectuals, the need to solicit religion for answers to life's basic inquiries subsides significantly. Therefore, it wouldn't be a stretch to assume Mr. Dawkins believes at least a majority of religious people are neither intellectuals, nor highly educated. Mr. Dawkin's further asserted, "the religiousity of today's America is something truly remarkable." From that statement we can surmise one group of his target audience is Americans, one in four of whom didn't read a single book in 2006 (Associated Press/Ipsol poll of Americans' reading habits). This group also has an average reading level of 8th to 9th grade (University of Utah Health Sciences Center). All of this begs the question why Mr. Dawkins refused to "dumb down" his rhetoric. Afterall, many of the people he hopes to influence are neither highly educated nor avid or very skillful readers. Yet, he stubbornly retained his professional prose in presenting his ideas, as effective and eloquent as they were.
Mr. Dawkins also failed to present a conclusive explanation of why humans appear to be "psychology primed for religion" (religion chip in the brain). Mr. Dawkins proposes that as children we are programmed to defer to, and accept direction from adults. Rather than experience how dangerous it is to venture near a cliff or swim in crocodile infested waters, we can avoid them altogether by accepting the consequences of such potentially harmful acts from adults. The propensity to accept religion, therefore, is a misfiring of such a tendency, or a byproduct of such a phenomenon; accept instructions of a higher power because it benefits you. Reject them and suffer the dire consequences. While on the face of it, this seems like a strong hypothesis to explain why the human psyche is so receptive to deity, further examination of Mr. Dawkins' idea brings to light issues that may have been overlooked. For starters, the idea that children act in deference to adults is a stretch. From a very young age, e.g. 1-2 years old, children often act in defiance of their parents, primarily to establish their own identity. There is even a term for this stage that most parents are all too aware of: Terrible twos. This defiance magnifies in the teenage years. It is not until well into adulthood when descendants finally realize their parents have some useful advice worthy of serious consideration. Most protections afforded to children are, therefore, not a consequence of children accepting and following directions from parents. Rather, they're the result of parents facilitating and steering children, often forcefully into situations that helps them avoid danger, e.g. young children can rarely spend time without adult supervision. They are not allowed to consume alcohol (a rule that is commonly ignored), and they must be put into car seats before being transported in a vehicle. Try advising a child of the consequences of not using a car seat, and see how accepting he or she will be of your very useful advice.
According to German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, all humans possess "the will-to-life", defined as an inherent drive within us to stay alive and reproduce. The will to life has at its core the principle of immortality, and at its root the "selfish gene". From ape to human, we took a giant leap forward in developing consciousness and suddenly became keenly aware of our vulnerability and mortality. The idea that death spells the end of us was swiftly rejected and replaced with (apparently, we developed a healthy imagination early on as well) idea of an imaginary friend(s) who would guide us to immortality through the afterlife. In essence, we created God(s) because we rejected death as an end, and also as a means to cope with all the random and undesirable sh*t in our nasty, brutish and short lives (Thomas Hobbs), especially during an era without Dulce De Leche Hagen Daaz (anyone who's tried it knows what I'm referring to).
Once consciousness developed, no longer would the immortality of the selfish gene suffice. Death is a state that is neither consciously, nor subconsciously desirable to a conscious being. Humans are social animals. Without the afterlife, death is perceived to offer a state of eternal solitaire. Most humans free of serious mental and/or physical pain also find joy in living life. Death deprives us of all of the joyful events, such as love and watching our kids grow up. Religion nicely reconciled the immortality need of the consciousness with that of the selfish gene, and religious ideas a few thousand years ago didn't seem as preposterous as now, e.g. earth is 6,000 years old. Consequently religious ideas took root early on and their influence has continued to persist, although we can argue with all of the scientific discoveries about the origins of the universe etc., the influence of religion is on the decline. How receptive would our minds be to religion if we'd transformed from ape to Homo sapien accompanied by the knowledge and technology available today?
Despite these flaws, there is no denying that Mr. Dawkins succeeded in presenting arguments that raise the consciousness regardless of whether the reader agrees with his arguments or not.
Book Review: A Book for Every Thinking Person's "Must Read" List
Summary: 5 Stars
One will readily expect the perceptions and reviews of Richard Dawkins' THE GOD DELUSION to fall along what might euphemistically be called "party lines." Blue Staters, rationalists, and the college educated (especially in mathematics, engineering, the sciences, and technology) will find it thought-provoking and intellectually stimulating even if they disagree with the author's views. Red Staters, religious fundamentalists, and readers (if any) with less than a college education will be repulsed, likely to pit it against the Bible and regard Mr. Dawkins' as already marked for hellfire and eternal damnation. In the broad sweep that is religion, few minds will be changed, but was that really the author's objective? I think not.
Mr. Dawkins offers clues to his game plan fairly early on, arguing that atheists have no reason to be apologetic. He argues vigorously against the, "I'm an atheist, but..." position offered by many, treating it as an unnecessary concession to the forces of blind, irrational faith who would never reciprocate. Mr. Dawkins sets out as well to convince agnostics (among whom I've long considered myself) that their position is an unfounded hedge, hoping to convince them that outright atheism is the only logical conclusion to be drawn from so many arguments. His arguments are direct and persuasive, and I for one will confess to being swayed far closer to his position than previously.
THE GOD DELUSION is thorough in its approach and exceedingly well structured. Presenting his case like a lawyer in an extended closing argument, Dawkins moves from chapter to chapter setting up his opponents' many historical arguments for the existence of God and religion and then demolishing each of them by force of reason and scientific argument. He does this in a direct and highly readable, almost colloquial style, while injecting a sense of wry humor throughout that serves admirably to lighten the discussion. Dawkins demonstrates a remarkable scientific, philosophical, and even pop cultural range, with multiple references to the incomparable, much missed Douglas Adams. To my great surprise, he draws as well on theories from Lee Smolin (multiple universes emerging from black holes in a Darwinian, evolutionary style) and Julian Jaynes (theories of the origins of human consciousness in the bicameral mind), both of whose books I read some years ago and had thought long since forgotten by most. Equally enlightening for me were Dawkins extensive quotes from America's Founding Fathers, making it eminently clear (despite so many right wing conservative statements to the contrary) that the United States was not formed as a Christian state, nor that of any other religion. To the contrary, the Founding Fathers appear, by their own words, largely to have been atheists, or at least atheistic leaning agnostics.
Review readers should note that Dawkins does not simply confine himself to the question of existence of a higher being. He addresses issues of altruistic behavior and morality from an evolutionary perspective, debates the relative merits of religion over the course of human history, and presents (in Chapter 9) a devastating argument against the worldwide forced inculcation of children into religious belief by their parents. Quoting Victor Hugo at the opening of that chapter, "There is in every village a torch - the teacher; and an extinguisher - the clergyman." From my own life experience, seldom have truer words been spoken.
With well over a thousand reviews posted on Amazon alone, I see no reason to summarize the book's content or arguments. In fact, the only way to do real justice to the author's positions is to read it in its entirety - no summary can adequately convey Dawkins' step-by-step demolition of those who argue on behalf of God, faith, or religion. For those who have doubts in these areas and those who are left queasy over the clear and present danger religious fundamentalism poses to democratic American institutions and its role in international terrorism and the threat of broad scale war, THE GOD DELUSION is an excellent palliative. Large swaths of post-millennial America are moving increasingly toward theocracy, a trend viewed with alarm by most of the rest of the educated, Western world. One need only look at the disturbing comments from Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin (expecting to see the Messiah return in her lifetime and incorporating the end of days into her admittedly limited foreign policy views) to see just how close to reality this is becoming.
For those who consider themselves even minimally open-minded on the subject of religion and the existence of an all-powerful being ("whatever you conceive him to be, hairy thunderer or cosmic muffin" in the immortal words of the National Lampoon), THE GOD DELUSION is a book well worth reading and contemplating.
Book Review: This is the book that awoke a movement
Summary: 5 Stars
This was the book that awoke me as an active atheist. Before I read it in 2007, I was basically a quiet and closeted atheist, and in fact, fell with believers on many issues such as a strong dislike for gay marriage(why?), ambivalence on the issue separation of Church and State and so on.
In the same way that Evolution by Natural selection raises our consciousness about how complex things can arise from simple processes, this book raised my consciousness about the real effects of unchallenged religion in our civilization. It caused me to look at my own beliefs, held since my days as a Christian 20 years ago and decide which ones really belong and which don't.
In reading this tome, I realized that religious people who repeatedly fail to assert any proof of their god and fail to find any basis for their alternative theories regarding the complexity of life or have instead merely taken their fight to the courts, more or less demanding to be heard.
This is akin to people demanding that the theory of a flat Earth be taught along side the theory that the planet is more less a sphere rotating about its axis and revolving about the sun.
Just as in the case of introducing a 'creationist' theory to be taught along with Evolution by Natural selection, we're left to wonder which theory to use. There are countless such theories. The Christians want their pet theory, which is the Jewish equivalent of Zeus flying around using magic and spells to help evolution along. There's even a variant in which god did it all 6,000 years ago. The Christians aren't even sure how much of the current real science they will accept. What would we teach along side evolution? That god helps it along (whenever science fails to explain a step, in which case expect many reprints of the text) or that god did it 6,000 years ago and Jesus might have been running from raptors while giving sermons.
He makes his argument from improbability, which I view as strong. Some people don't find this argument compelling, but it is a very strong argument because it forces fundamentalists to be specific. Be specific, what is your proposition anyway?
The primary complaint from creationists is that the diversity of life is too fantastic to be explained by a natural, non-intelligent process--although any reasonably educated person can quickly find many examples of enormous complexity arising from simple sets of rules, but that's beside the point--They simply assert that it must have been designed (Paley).
However, the designer, presumably at least as complex as any one of us and likely much more compelx is simply assumed to exist. Voila! Dawkins demonstrates how silly this is by repeatedly asking 'who designed the designer?' Most fundamentalists will ignore the question or try to move it into a region where the question isn't valid, but he won't allow it.
(John Allen Paulos offers even stronger defenses to this fundamentalists technique of moving god anywhere he'll fit to be able to carry out his magic without the need to answer any questions, in his book Irreligion).
Fundamentalists see other needs for god though, and Dawkins touches on these as well. Among these are 1) the origin of the Universe and 2) morality among many others.
Dawkins discusses these points, and I think does a good job of making a strong case that, for each of these, there is more than ample means of explaining them without introducing Zeus.
He explains the origins of morality as a natural consequence of and requirement for, survival of large groups such as humans and other mammals. Morality varies and has varied in humans. What was moral 150 years ago certainly isn't moral now. Morality shifts and evolves itself. It's natural, but it's evolved to such a degree at this point that it's clear the old testament is quite dated.
The bible is full of all sorts of immorality and genocide, infanticide, the killing of apostates, non-believers, animal sacrifice, and so on. Indeed, by our modern definition of what it means to be moral, much of the early biblical texts would need to be fully excised. We do not, he concludes, get our morality from the bible. Instead, we get our morality from culture in an ever shifting zeitgeist--which more or less is cultural advancement--and we then look at the bible through that lense.
Dawkins is a fantastic writer and an all-around genius who is matchless, in this format. Professor Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist who published the ground breaking text 'The Selfish Gene' in around 1976. He's also authored several other books on evolution.
Book Review: the choice: an appreciation for our biology, or delusion?
Summary: 5 Stars
Growing up in Congregationalist New England, by eleven I was able to lose interest and wander away from Sunday school and "church", itself just one of those pluralist social settings like the PTA and Cub Scouts. I backslid briefly from my agnosticism part way into my undergraduate years into deism (like Anthony Flew), but that was not completely convincing, and I have been an unwavering atheist ever since, even here below the Mason-Dixon line. I mention this only because like Dawkins, I was never associated with or culturally close to firebrand fundamentalism or hard-sell evangelism. As much as I enjoy reading those engrossing books from former clerics like John Loftus and Dan Barker, their background is so different from mine as to be almost an alternate nationality. It is refreshing to read a critical analysis of religious pursuits from someone who was never immersed in the most acerbic dogmas.
Prof. Dawkins is one of the kindest, most considerate, charming, witty, even-tempered, mannered, cordial, courtly, and articulate people of celebrity that I have encountered and all these sterling qualities shine through in this book. He is stern and unequivocating in criticism in parts, but always with reasoned explanation. It is unsound for any reviewer to charge this tract as polemical.
He does not mention all the philosophical arguments for God or debunk the ones he mentions as thoroughly as others have, but he approaches the topic from the perspective of an evolutionary biologist and that lends itself to an exquisitely timely approach to the topic. Beyond the explanatory dismissal of biology from theist young-earth creationism and intelligent design, he reinvigorates among those of us in the choir the "joie de vivre" for all the biochemical things that must happen for us to be here in the first place. We have the ability to understand the stunning majesty of these processes and yet many would throw away their lives in the effort to prohibit others from using organic blastocysts to aid fully developed humans from severe impairments. Others commit themselves to preventing young women from excising from themselves neurologically undeveloped fetuses that otherwise after birth may not be properly cared for. Consequently two humans may be deprived from enjoying the fruits of a full life to its maximum potential. And for what reason? Because in some way these actions violate tribal treatises written for struggling predominantly desert settlements hundreds of years before the western Enlightenment? As Dawkins and so many others point out, such absolutist attachments to archaic literature for existential sustenance and normative and ethical guidance reveal a complete incompetence in critical faculty. As an atheist for most of my life, writers like Dawkins and Sam Harris shame me for not having been more vociferous in countering those who would infuse public policy with prohibitions, infringements on civil liberties, and rank militarism out of zeal for irrational dogmas.
For those theists, moderates especially, who are so concerned by atrocities committed by ideologues who were presumably and incidentally atheist, I might remind you that the threats to civilization are now decidedly more from sources of radical theism. Just ask indigenous Europeans who are besieged by a growing number of Muslims who are growing ever more insistent that the constitutional common law be replaced by Islamic 'Sharia law', wherever possible. Whenever, the radical dogmatic side of religiosity shifts back to more secular ideologies as was the case in the mid-20th century, we can respond accordingly.
I agree without reservation with every theist, moderate and fundamentalist alike, that individually everyone is entitled to embrace her chosen beliefs (or retain the beliefs imposed on them). But in a rational society, no beliefs, no matter how sacrosanct to cultural institutions, are impervious to logical critical scrutiny. A free society cannot function well for long, if all ideas circulating in intellectual competition cannot be analyzed for accuracy and efficacy from a variety of different perspectives and from anyone capable of doing so.