Eye opener even for current non-believers

books:


	• The God Delusion Richard Dawkins Houghton Mifflin, 2006 - 416 pages average customer review:based on 1200 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

WEAK AND SPECIOUS ARGUMENTS

Richard Dawkins utilizes a lot of solipsistic rhetoric and speculation on which he bases his premise: that God is scientificially illogical and thereby can not reasonably exist. Yet, he does not argue cogently from point to point, but keeps returning the arguments of Darwinian evolution and statistical probability.

Let us remember though, that empirical reasoning is a useful human construct that allows us to impose some degree of order on the cosmos in order to shape our understanding of it. However, empiricism itself recognizes that its suppositions are useful until new evidence presents itself.

Much of Dawkins' arguments are based on supposition, speculation and self-serving theories that don't really don't have much of a basis in fact. He tries to draw tenuous analogies to weak hypothesis that simply aren't very convincing overall, and don't tie together well enough as a treatise to support such a bold title.

Some of his points are amusing, and some standing by themselves, are valid, but comparing Cargo Cults to Christianity and Scientology is really a stretch.

Mr. Dawkins bases his arguments on the implicit premise that human reason is practically flawless, and that we know everything useful and important that could possibly be known. Otherwise, how can we know that his arguments are in fact correct? Simply because you can't bottle the essence of God and analyze what he is comprised of and determine how he functions in a laboratory, it is illogical and foolish to expect Him to exist?

Comparing what you know to what you don't is admittedly useful, but the analogy breaks down when you try to apply the scientific method to determine or refute the existence of God. We're trying to apply our limited human understanding to fathom the infinite. It's a noble and worthy effort, but ultimately, in spite of his eloquence, the arguments Dawkins has presented against the existence of God simply aren't terribly compelling.

Unlike Martin Luther, I don't see faith as reason as adversaries, but rather as complementaries - as each has the potential to mitigate the hubris of the other. I do not deny the existence of God - but I don't accept many of the things that are attributed as having come from Him.

I don't deny the existence of Mr. Dawkins, either - even though I don't believe in Atheists. If his perceptual framework as a biologist leaves him no room for belief in a deity, I haven't any issue with that.

But using the framework of his scientific disciplines to try and convince me that my Theism is equivalent to the superstition of an unenlightened aborigine? He's welcome to try, but I remain unconvinced that he's right.

He believes that there is no God. I believe that there is. So what? Neither of us is right, neither of us is wrong. It's not a competition.

He argues that faith is irrational, as is romantic love. Ah yes, and so are art and music.

Yet, it is a little bit of these types of irrationality, well-directed and channeled through friendship, romance and artistic pursuits, that enrich our lives and continue to bring more beauty into our world.

I would think that a hyperrational, non-intuitive world in which all the mysteries had been solved or rebuked wouldn't be worth living in. Could we use more rationality? Absolutely. But do we need to eliminate or discard everything that scientific method can't create or empiricial reason can't resolve? If we did, we'd lose our compassion, as well.

That's what I perceive as Richard Dawkin's line of reasoning carried out to its ultimate, absolute conclusion. If we're not arguing about whose faith is right, then we're trying to argue that faith itself is wrong.

A much better book in this vein is Sam Harris' "The End of Faith". It presents arguments against blind faith which are much more thoughtful and well-reasoned than Dawkins' polemic.

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Eye opener even for current non-believers

First of all, I can't help but wonder how many of the one star reviewers actually read the book. Saying the author is going to hell is NOT a review.

Anyway, maybe I should judge, because i don't plan on getting into detail about the book. I will say though, that this book is not only a great read, but a truly eye opening and interesting read.

If you have doubts about the religion that was forced upon you...read this book!

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The Dawkins Delusion

I purchased this book after an atheist coworker of mine told me that Richard Dawkins had the real truth about Christianity and the existence of God. I thought sounded ironic that a man who refused to put his faith in a higher power would easily put his faith in an English scientist. I also believed that if Dawkins were to believe that he held all the answers (he doesn't seem to believe so) that would make him just downright arrogant.

Don't be fooled here. Richard Dawkins does believe in God. Well, he believe in a God. The God he believes in was a man named Charles Darwin. In the same way fundamentalist Christians accept everything written in the Bible Dawkins accepts everyone of Darwin's writings.

Dawkins presents an extremely slanted argument in his book. Those scientist and other well known people who are atheists he uses adjectives such as "enlightened" and "intelligent". Those who believe in God, no matter how much schooling they have received are labeled with such adjectives as "superstitions" and "hysterical".

That's not to say that Dawkins doesn't make some valid points. Christianity is filled with bigots who use scripture to justify their hatred of homosexuals and others that are to be called `sinners'. Christians are filled with people who are willing to kill in matters that are none of their business (abortion) and that many young boys have fallen prey to some Catholic Priests. As true as these may be that does not mean that God doesn't exist.

Even though I disagree with Dawkins and his disbelief in any sort of supernatural God, I concede that this is a well written book with some interesting arguments. Do I agree with those arguments? Nope. And I compare those who argue that God doesn't exist because they read this book to those who make their political points based on something they heard Rush Limbaugh say on the radio. People should make up their own minds.

The truth is that if you combine all the intelligence of every human being who has lived, is currently alive, and will live you would probably still come up with less than one percent of the total knowledge of the universe. To say there isn't a God is as dogmatic as saying there is a God. It's all about faith.

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It's a myth, buster!

The Gerswhins got right to the point when they wrote "The things that you're liable to read in the Bible, they ain't necessarily so." Likewise did Augusten Burroughs when, in one of his books, he wrote something along the line of "Jesus is just Santa Claus for adults". With those pithy examples in mind, Richard Dawkins' THE GOD DELUSION would pack more of a knockout punch if the author had trimmed down his exhaustive prose and gone instead for a blunter, more direct style. There are hard nuggets of truth buried among the pages and pages of scientific and psychological examinations for why people believe what they do and how those beliefs continue to spread - perhaps like viruses - even in the face of conflicting evidence. (For example, Dawkins relates that our universe - perhaps one of many but we just don't know yet - contains about 100 BILLION galaxies; with so much real estate to manage, it does seem a trifle unlikely that God - or any Supreme Being - would have time to pop into your head and tell you to pick the job at Starbucks over Target, for example, or answer any prayers from the hundreds of millions of folks who pray on a daily basis.) Readers just have to dig for the kernels and keep slogging long and hard through Dawkins' "viewed from every facet" approach to demolishing religious irrationality. Still, the book does make the point that man created God (and gods plural, especially the ones no longer worshipped liked Osiris, Zeus, Thor, Apollo, Athena, Isis, etc. - let's just take it one further to the big "G" himself and get it over with...) and not the other way around, and that if we're to worship anyone, it's Charles Darwin for formulating the ideas of evolution and natural selection. Sam Harris' THE END OF FAITH goes more for the jugular and so packs a much stronger wallop than THE GOD DELUSION - especially in Harris' damning howler of a chapter on Islam - but Dawkins' gentler approach eventually causes for greater reflection on the persistence and terrifyingly real dangers of religion in our modern world.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

A preeminent scientist -- and the world's most prominent atheist -- asserts the irrationality of belief in God and the grievous harm religion has inflicted on society, from the Crusades to 9/11.

With rigor and wit, Dawkins examines God in all his forms, from the sex-obsessed tyrant of the Old Testament to the more benign (but still illogical) Celestial Watchmaker favored by some Enlightenment thinkers. He eviscerates the major arguments for religion and demonstrates the supreme improbability of a supreme being. He shows how religion fuels war, foments bigotry, and abuses children, buttressing his points with historical and contemporary evidence. The God Delusion makes a compelling case that belief in God is not just wrong but potentially deadly. It also offers exhilarating insight into the advantages of atheism to the individual and society, not the least of which is a clearer, truer appreciation of the universe's wonders than any faith could ever muster.

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