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The God Delusion | 
 enlarge | Author: Richard Dawkins
Publisher: Mariner Books
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
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Rating:  1321 reviews
Sales Rank: 202
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
ASIN: 0618918248
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 1316 more reviews...
 Dawkins imagines no religion. September 19, 2006
G. Merritt (Boulder, CO)
2484 out of 2926 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 Hitchens' recent God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.
G. Merritt
This May Be the Book of the Decade September 25, 2006
A Discerning Reader (Cedar Rapids, Iowa)
427 out of 547 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.
 An exercise in question begging September 18, 2007
Dianelos Georgoudis (Greece)
394 out of 606 found this review helpful
I am hugely disappointed in this book because Dawkins is a top scientist and moreover the author of one of the seminal books in my life, "The Selfish Gene". But his stroll into the field of philosophy of religion has here resulted in a book that's bellow mediocre. The fact that this book proved so popular only evidences how little critical thought there is around, including in atheist circles.
The single biggest error in the book is that it misstates the question as an opposition between theism and science, when the opposition is between the ontological views of theism and naturalism. This is such a fundamental category error that any subsequent discussion is rendered not only irrelevant but also misleading. The trouble starts at page 2 where Dawkins writes: "'the God Hypothesis' is a scientific hypothesis about the universe", which, I dare say, would be news to almost all theists.
So why does Dawkins believe that the theistic hypothesis is a matter for scientific investigation? Because he assumes that naturalism is true and in naturalism any ontological hypothesis can be investigated scientifically (Dawkins thinks). But naturalism opposes theism (naturalism and theism cannot be both true) so by assuming naturalism Dawkins begs the whole question. And, by the way, he does not explain why he thinks that naturalism is true. Apparently his justification goes something like this: the vast majority of scientists are naturalists; science has proven its truth beyond doubt; therefore naturalism is true.
A second example is his much ballyhooed "Ultimate Boeing 747" argument for the non-existence of God. It seems Dawkins is so certain that theism is not only false but also trivially false that he fancies himself able to present a killer argument against the existence of God, one that academic philosophers were not smart enough to spot. What's his argument? Well, Dawkins reasons that if God were an explanation for the existence of our complex universe then God would be an even more complex and improbable entity, which moreover would need an even bigger explanation for its existence. As Plantinga notes in his review of the book this argument is so primitive that it would receive a failing grade in a sophomore philosophy class. After all the only reason to believe that an intelligent mind is complex is to assume that it must work on the mechanical principles that a naturalistic understanding of reality posits. But to posit naturalism as an implicit premise is - again - to beg the question. Moreover Dawkins fails to see that an explanation works on its own merits; it's not like an explanation works only if you have an explanation for that explanation too - if that were so then no explanations would be possible at all.
But where Dawkin's systematic begging the question becomes painfully obvious is in his discussion of the so-called anthropic principle. This plausible principle states that reality must be such as to produce any phenomenon we now observe, and specifically must be such as to produce humans like us. Now an as yet unanswered scientific question is the origin of life (which must not be confused with the origin of the species), i.e. how come the enormously improbable phenomenon of life has started on Earth, which is a necessary condition for the natural evolution of the species to subsequently take place. Now instead of clearly stating that science does not yet know the answer and leave it at that, Dawkins notes that some theists claim that the answer is some supernatural action by God which started life on Earth. So he must find an alternative explanation and he thinks that the anthropic principle fits the bill. Here is his reasoning (page 136): "The great majority of planets in the universe are ... not suitable for life. ... However small the minority of planets with just the right conditions for life may be, we necessarily have to be on one of that minority, because here we are thinking about it." So, from the premise that life can evolve by itself (i.e. on naturalistic grounds) given the right planet it follows that our planet has had these right conditions. But of course whether life can or can't evolve by itself on *any* planet is the very question under discussion, so here - again - Dawkins begs the question.
He goes on to discuss the far more serious problem of the apparent fine-tuning of the fundamental physical constants of the universe. It turns out that if these constants (e.g. the value of the strong force) were even a little off then life as we know it could not evolve, so some theists argue that this evidences God's design. Dawkins coyly fails to mention how fine that apparent fine-tuning is: if the combination of physical constants were off only 1 part in 10^100 then life would not have evolved. So how does Dawkins explain that strange state of affairs? He writes (page 145) "Once again, the anthropic principle does its explanatory duty". So, we are here, naturalism is true, therefore there must be some naturalistic explanation for the whole thing. What explanation exactly? Why, just hypothesize anything no matter how implausible or lacking of evidence as long as it is naturalistic. Amazingly powerful that anthropic principle. Anything out there that naturalism cannot explain? Well, as naturalism is true the anthropic principle will always do its duty as the explanation of last resort. A one-size fits all question begging magic wand.
There is no space to mention the many other fallacies in "The God Delusion". It basically just recycles the theme that theism is false because naturalism is true, and that naturalism can't have any problems because after all it is true. What's really amazing is that so many people would be inspired by such a superficial book. It seems you don't need to be a religious fundamentalist to be able to switch off your capacity for critical thought and to full heartedly (or foolish heartedly) embrace non-explanations.
The Dawkins Delusion October 23, 2006
John Barone (New York)
169 out of 392 found this review helpful
From his treatment of the question in The God Delusion it is apparent that the delusion from which Richard Dawkins suffers is that he understands Western Philosophy. His sarcastic question,"But Mommy who made God" was answered by Aristotle 2400 years ago in his "Metaphysics". According to Aristotle God is the uncaused cause, the unmoved mover. Thomas Aquinas followed this up in the 13th century by stating that God is that being whose essence is to exist. The point being that a contingent universe such as ours must be rooted in a Being which exists of necessity . This is not a trivial argument. But Dawkins treats it as if it were. He opposes it with formally invalid reasoning and trivial counter examples. He doesn't even understand the ontological argument and apparently is unaware that there is a modern version of it of considerable interest. When he's not shooting at sitting ducks like religious fundamentalists and Islamic fanatics he's taking snide sophmoric pot shots at more distinguished colleagues such as the late Stephen Jay Gould. (Get over it Dawkins, the man is dead.)
Don't read this book. If you are a sincere atheist and want to read a serious atheist philosopher try Mackie "The Miracle of Theism". Dawkins is either a fool or a con man. He's a fool if he believes the drivel he writes or else he's just trying to make a quick buck off of a gullible public.
Dogma vs. Dogma October 23, 2006
Bruce Alan Wallace
146 out of 261 found this review helpful
The secular, objective study of religion has been pursued since the late nineteenth century by comparative scholars such as Friedrich Max Müller, philosophers and psychologists including William James, and sociologists and other erudite scholars such as Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Joachim Wach. Over the past decade a new spate of books have been written by scientists and philosophers including Edward O. Wilson, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins who are approaching the topic as if they were inventing the scientific study of religion. None of these writers is professionally trained in the study of religion, but they all share a powerful bias against religion and a woefully inadequate knowledge of any of the world's spiritual traditions. In other words, for all their claims to be "scientific," their research into this field is unprofessional and their entire approach to the subject is one of extreme prejudice. It is as if these interlopers in the field of religious studies were treating this discipline as a public restroom in which they enter only in order to relieve themselves and write graffiti on the walls. For anyone who is already an atheist, their work will simply reaffirm their current beliefs; for anyone who is religious, their work is offensive and uninformative; and to those who are agnostic, such books are a mere distraction from serious critiques by reputable scientists and scholars. But for those who are fascinated by graffiti, read on!
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