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    The God Delusion
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    The God Delusion
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    The God Delusion
    Ebook561 pages10 hours

    The God Delusion

    By Richard Dawkins

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMariner Books
    Release dateJan 1, 1987
    ISBN9780547348667
    Author

    Richard Dawkins

    RICHARD DAWKINS is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was the University of Oxford's Professor for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 until 2008. He is the author of 15 books includingUnweaving the Rainbow, A Devil’s Chaplain, and The God Delusion.Dawkins lives in Oxford.,

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    Reviews for The God Delusion

    4/5

    4,478 ratings140 reviews

    What our readers think

    Readers find this title to be a valuable and enlightening read. It provides a rational and scientific perspective on religion, answering questions and opening eyes. The author, Richard Dawkins, delivers the facts articulately and with confidence. The book is praised for its insightful and thought-provoking content, regardless of the reader's religious beliefs. Overall, it is considered a must-read for those who have doubts about god and religion.

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    • 3/5

      Dec 19, 2018

      Argh, accidentally removed this book from my shelf. I can't remember what I said about it to begin with: something about the value of taking a moment to consider what you believe from an outsiders' point of view, and probably some idea about Richard Dawkins' non-belief in God seeming rather like a belief to me.

      I know that view irritates many atheists a lot. I am a member of a faith which also welcomes atheists, although I don't know any UU atheists personally. I'll have to ask how they feel about it. It just seems silly to me to claim, when you have strong opinions like Dawkins, that you don't believe in anything -- you clearly do. Faith is the wrong word because of the connotations of religion, I'll agree that, but Dawkins definitely has a belief system, which he is more evangelistic about than any religious believer I know.

      Another thing my faith welcomes is doubt. Reading The God Delusion, back in 2007 or so, was interesting in that sense, because for me it's okay to challenge my faith. I think Dawkins comes across as quite arrogant, in this book, and very confrontational, but it's worth listening to him rather than dismissing him on the basis of a tone argument.
    • 4/5

      Dec 19, 2018

      It took a bit to slog through it at times, but in the end I'm glad I took the time to read it.
    • 2/5

      Dec 19, 2018

      I want to say so much, but I feel that perhaps enough has been written in response to this book. Perhaps one day I will write a much lengthier review.Without a doubt, Dawkins has charisma. His writing style is bity, quick, and on the occasion, funny. My knowledge of Darwinian evolution is limited, and if you are like me, then this book will clarify some of the keys to evolution. I cannot give an honest critique of his scientific persuasion because I am not qualified. However, I do understand theology and philosophy more. And here is where Dawkins really falls apart. He doesn't allow room for any theological assumptions, which many will say is good; however, he doesn't treat science in the same way, and why should I expect him to. That's why I say BE CAREFUL. Just because someone SOUNDS authoritative does NOT make him so. He creates and BELIEVES certain assumptions about Darwinian evolution. Dawkins discusses different and popular ideas of the "scientific" beginnings of the universe; however, he fails, just like Creationists, to prove or disprove his "findings." He brushes the possibility of God aside because it isn't probable. Well, the same could be said for his evolutionary thinking.His sociological explanation for why religions are bad is interesting, but again, he fails to be objective. By the time I read this part of the book, it became evident that Dawkins isn't concerned about evidence or objectivity (which scientists seem to hold as their life source). Although he makes an interesting argument (a little religion leads to extreme religion), he fails to scrutinize science under the same microscope. One only has to go back 60 years to the atom bomb or the Holocaust to see my point. Dawkins would most likely say that I am missing the point, and that science was being used alongside of religion and politics. But I can say the same thing to him about religion. Nothing in this world can be so separated as not to be tainted by our human desires or "sin."
    • 4/5

      Dec 19, 2018

      I've read some of Dawkins work in the past and also skim through his Twitter page once in a while. It's very clear the stance he has taken on religion and it's purpose in society but I thought I would take a stab at his book The God Delusion since I've heard it referenced frequently over the years. Overall I was impressed with his arguments and the way the book was structured. I admit that I come from a background of little religion and work in a career related to science and fact, so perhaps I am biased from the outset but I find that it's extremely hard to argue much of what is written in this book by fact alone. I enjoyed the facts and arguments that Dawkins presents in this book and also note that Dawkins still makes reference to religious texts as being an important source of literary history. I would definitely recommend this book to others.
    • 4/5

      Dec 19, 2018

      Some of it is quite baffling, but essentially got me 'over the line' completely with atheism. A worthy read, even if you are a believer; if nothing else Dawkins and other scientists bang the 'evidence' card endlessly which hopefully wakes us up to questioning both the stories we hear and the facts we believe.
    • 2/5

      Dec 19, 2018

      Zoologist Richard Dawkins made his name originally for his lucid popular science writing in the fields of biological and cultural evolution - his wonderful works The Selfish Gene and The Extended Phenotype are still compulsory reading in this fascinating field - and more latterly for increasingly intolerant, grumpy tracts inveigling against religion. The God Delusion is the latest - and grumpiest - in the second category. It's hardly surprising that Dawkins - an evolutionary biologist, after all - should object to religious accounts of the creation of the universe. But that he should do so as trenchantly and repeatedly as he does makes you wonder: Is it just because this stuff sells, or doth the lady protest too much? Is Richard Dawkins perhaps trying to convince himself as much as anyone else? Science, he says, "flings open the narrow window through which we are accustomed to viewing the spectrum of possibilities". It is, to quote the late Carl Sagan, "a candle in the dark". It's the path to the truth. Without science, the universe has no meaning. Of course, these are all things which a religious person (which I'm not, by the way) might say about God. Dawkins says God is nonsense (there are shades of that famous exchange in graffiti: "`God is Dead' - Nietzsche. `Nietzsche is Dead' - God"), but in wishing to annex the epistemological high ground, Dawkins has engaged a piddling match which he simply can't win. The scientific method, being inductive, can no more reveal the truth about the universe than a holy scripture can. That's a formal logical proposition, by the way, and not some woolly post-modern nonsense. Brilliant philosophers and scientists, from the Descartes at the dawn of the Enlightenment to Hume at the end of it right down to post-war 20th Century writers like Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn, have all grappled with exactly that problem: How *do* we categorise science; an endeavour which seems to move unerringly toward the truth without ever having the tools to achieve it? For all that, Dawkins is persuasive that we shouldn't forgo our own considered judgment for that of wise men in funny clothes who claim to be learned in obscure scriptures - then again, this is hardly news to anyone with a tertiary education. But in claiming science as the *true* candle in the dark, Dawkins sets his scientific brethren up to be no better: wise men, only dressed in lab coats and not habits, learned in obscure "scriptures", to whom we should defer our own judgment (if you think I'm overstating this consider: do *you* understand quantum theory, or even know what it is? Fluid dynamics? Aerodynamics? If not, and you still ride on aeroplanes, then on what basis, other than faith?). This observation, which owes something to the historian Thomas Kuhn, infuriates Richard Dawkins, but I don't see any way around it. Kuhn argued, persuasively that the development of science and the particular currency of given theory is far more contingent on ostensibly irrelevant social and environmental circumstances than scientists care to acknowledge: a scientific paradigm provides not only answers to conundrums, but the questions, too, so its objective validity is impossible to measure from within the paradigm (or for that matter, from without). The irony is that Richard Dawkins (who has avowedly rejected Kuhn's work elsewhere) drifts ever closer to it in the latter pages of The God Delusion - even citing favourably Ludwig Wittgenstein - without ever acknowledging the logical trap he's falling into. That it's been a runaway best seller is indisputable; exactly why is harder to fathom: it's not as if it's bringing anything new to the table: Dawkins rehashes exactly the same old Philosophy 101 arguments that we all remember from those golden years at university, when there was time to argue the metaphysical toss, and self-righteously baiting self-righteous Christians passed for some kind of sport. It's a sport that Richard Dawkins appears not to have grown out of. Nor has passing time or increasing maturity tempered his tone. But wailing dogmatically about the perils of dogma isn't going to persuade anyone who isn't already part of the congregation. Nor is it even the most considered entry on the topic in the last year: Dan Dennett's "Breaking The Spell", published not six months previously, is a more erudite, thoughtful, intellectually stimulating and tolerant take on pretty much the same subject.
    • 3/5

      Dec 19, 2018

      Although I would consider myself an atheist, I did not actually agree with everything in The God Delusion. In this book, Richard Dawkins sets out to demonstrate that it is both irrational and dangerous to believe in a supernatural god. For the irrationality part, he bases his arguments in science, primarily evolution, offering scientifically founded arguments for why a god is highly unlikely and where human morality comes from. I certainly found it refreshing to read his rational, scientific arguments and there was nothing in this part of the book’s content with which I disagree. I was raised with a scientific mindset and I greatly appreciate such logical, analytical thinking.

      In the later part of the book, Dawkins turns to the task of demonstrating that religion is both dangerous and harmful to children. Here is where I found myself less convinced and actually disagreeing with some of what he says. On the subject of children, he claims that indoctrinating children with irrational religious beliefs is a form of abuse on par with (or even worse than) physical or sexual abuse. He offers little evidence for this, however, citing only one woman who claimed she was more traumatized by her religious upbringing than by the sexual fondling of a priest, and several individuals who seek forms of psychotherapy to recover from religious indoctrination. While I certainly agree that it is doing children a disservice to brainwash them into believing irrational things, and I don’t doubt that there are some individuals who later feel traumatized by the experience, I think it is extremely insenstive to survivors of sexual abuse to claim that religious indoctrination is a form of abuse equivalent to physical and sexual abuse. In this section, Dawkins shows only that he lacks a knowledge of the long-term psychological impact of sexual abuse, which can oftentimes be subconscious (for example, does the woman who claims she was more traumatized by religion than by being fondled have completely healthy sexual relationships?). Dawkins is a fantastic biologist, but he is not a psychologist or expert on child development.

      In an effort to demonstrate that religion is actually dangerous, Dawkins points to all the wars and other violence (such as murders of abortion providers and suicide bombers) that have been based on religious beliefs. He basically seems to be making the claim that if we didn’t have religion, there would be no basis for all this violence and so it simply wouldn’t happen. I do not think it is that simple. I think there is far more going on psychologically in the minds of fanatic anti-abortionists and suicide bombers than a simple “I believe 100% that I am doing the morally right thing.” I do not think all these people would just magically be completely non-violent if they did not have religious beliefs to justify their acts. That is, I am not convinced that religious beliefs are the root cause of all this violence, rather than simply a convenient justification. Dawkins says himself that humans have inherent tendencies to in-group/out-group behavior – so wouldn’t that be true even without religion? Additionally, I am sure there have been plenty of very positive, life-affirming actions committed in the name of religious as well. Does Dawkins believe that all those behaviors would end without religion too? It seems biased to make an argument based only on the negative impacts of religion.

      Related to this last point, part of Dawkins’ argument is that it is not possible to draw a line between non-harmful religious beliefs and extremism, because it is a slippery slope: that “even mild and moderate religion helps to provide the climate of faith in which extremism naturally flourishes.” In his view, it is the “blind faith” aspect of any religion that is the real problem. However, I think it is possible that most individuals are able to compartmentalize, and thus hold an irrational belief in one compartment while at them same time being a very rational and non-violent individual. Extremism comes when the irrational compartment takes over the entire individual. I am not convinced that this is in fact a slippery slope, or whether there are other psychological factors that influence whether someone becomes an extremist or not.

      My final issue with The God Delusion is Dawkins’ tone through-out the book. He has a very argumentative, even combative, attitude, and I think that ultimately it is not a helpful tone and could even damage the possibilities for dialogue between religious and non-religious people. Sure, I found much of his book convincing, but I was already convinced about evolution and related science. I do not think religious people will be convinced by this book, and instead will most likely be completely turned off. Calling someone irrational and arguing with them about their beliefs is more likely to cause the person to cling even more firmly to those beliefs than to convince him or her otherwise. To truly engage with religious people I think it is necessary to show them respect and to listen to where they are coming from.

      The God Delusion left me desiring another perspective on the subject of religion. I recently checked out Speaking of Faith, by Krista Tippett, from the library, and I hope that this will provide the perspective I am looking for.
    • 4/5

      Dec 19, 2018

      Not quite what I was hoping for, but about what I expected. The middle part of the book was very technical with a lot of scientific terminology. There were a few parts that I had to read a few times before I understood and I have a undergraduate degree in this kind of of science, so for the layperson, these parts might be a bit of a challenge. The rest of the book, the beginning and end, is much easier to understand - and more aggressive. Dawkin's explains why he takes the aggressive stance here and I ended up not minding it as much as I worried I would. This is something I feel I can back and support. I feel now like I have some arguments I can use when I'm subjected to a religious diatribe. Before, I knew what I wanted to defend and what I felt was plain wrong, but I was never able to quite find the words to counter with. Trying to explain my lack of religion didn't bother me much before, not until I spent a year in Africa in a community where one's religion was the first question strangers asked each other. And if you can't back up your lack of belief, well then, you are in for some nasty judgement. Due to this experience, I will most likely be spending a lot of time on books like this. I believe this was a pretty good start.
    • 5/5

      Aug 26, 2016

      It was perfectly articulated. Dawkins delivers the facts so well and he is, whether intentionally or not, hilarious! If anyone thinks he is arrogant, it's due to the confidence he displays in the fact of there being no 'god(s)'. Indeed, religious apologists are the ones whom will say he is arrogant. I could go on about this all day but a review string is not the forum. Point blank, for any apologist ready to come to reality or a fence-sitter needing that last push, this is Top 2 all-time for the most articulated and poignant dismissal of religion!
    • 1/5

      Sep 15, 2019

      A pathetic failed attempt to disprove God. This man has serious intellectual issues.
    • 5/5

      Oct 29, 2016

      It seemed like a scary book to pick up, but Dawkins seemed to answer questions i have had all my life. Rational, scientific, yet comforting.
    • 5/5

      Dec 1, 2022

      I love Richard Dawkins view the world. He sees everything through the lens of animal behavior. He doesn’t look at animals as unintelligent or inferior creatures. I enjoyed his perspective, and truly learned so much from this book.
    • 1/5

      Aug 16, 2022

      The poor man, I pity Prof. Dawkins in many ways as he truly is deluded in the worst possible way, may the Lord have mercy on him!
    • 5/5

      Jul 21, 2021

      I am a Christian; my eyes were opened, and my consciousness has just been raised.
    • 5/5

      Apr 21, 2020

      Pretty impressive. Definitely worth your time if you ever had doubts on god and religion.
    • 1/5

      Nov 5, 2019

      Glad I did nothing more than flip through it. A total waste of time.
    • 5/5

      Sep 19, 2015

      Enlightening. A must read whether you are religious or not.
    • 1/5

      Sep 4, 2015

      Hateful trash
    • 5/5

      Jul 25, 2015

      great read.
    • 1/5

      May 18, 2015

      putrid
    • 5/5

      Apr 17, 2015

      The greatest book from valuable thinker/author!
    • 4/5

      Jan 21, 2024

      A surprisingly difficult read; Dawkins is happy to go down various byways that his argument opens u. A lot of readers have criticised his style or authorial voice, finding it "condescending" or "arrogant" (even if they were in agreement with his thesis); at times, I got a sense of what they were reacting to, although it didn't trouble me particularly.

      I have slightly non-mainstream theist views (more a suspicion than anything I'd call a belief) and I was surprised to find Dawkins describing something I could agree with and reinforcing my position. There was much else I agreed with, a few things I disagreed with and a lot that, for a book published in 2006 (and revised a year later) that was worryingly prescient. (Mainly about American politics.)
    • 5/5

      Nov 26, 2023

      Should be required reading.
    • 4/5

      Aug 1, 2023

      Good, it's not great (my apologies, Hitch).
    • 3/5

      Jul 10, 2023

      Dawkins makes a lot of very valid points, and there is a ton of great information in this book...however, it's DRY. So dry. 30% through, I just couldn't take it anymore and had to switch to the audiobook. And I hate audiobooks. There are much more accessible books out there that will provide the...
    • 5/5

      Dec 18, 2022

      This book tells the truth. Everyone should read it.
    • 2/5

      Dec 19, 2018

      FYI, I regularly bounce back and forth between atheist, agnostic, and Quaker. Dawkins is the type of atheist that is aggressively angry and (seemingly) intentionally offensive to anyone who may be on the fence religion-wise. He reminds me of so many trolls I've seen in discussion boards that hovers around merely to insult those that a religious, regardless of what their view is. Were he a Christian, I would liken him to some of the most vociferous of televangelists given his overblown hatred of Jews and Muslims - thankfully for him, he hates all monotheists equally. There's very little commentary on non-Abrahamic religions.And did he REALLY say that raising a child in any religion (regardless of its liberalism of moderation) is worse than pedaphilia? This guy can seriously go fuck himself.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5

      Nov 18, 2021

      Dawkins is a hero
    • 2/5

      Dec 28, 2014

      Took me a couple of false starts (with quite long intervals) before I finished this book. Odd this, because I've read and enjoyed Richard Dawkins' earlier work, finding only the occasional niggle when he has sometimes moved from exposition of generally supported and agreed theories into inventing a theory and then writing at length as though it were a well researched one, fooling those who missed the occasional brief and well masked disclaimer, as when he first came up with the meme.

      My problem with this book wasn't the writing, which as usual with Richard Dawkins is good; nor his theme - anyone with an interest in religion and theology should read it; and not because I'm a Christian - only the simple-minded believer need be concerned about possibly being convinced. No, my problem with the book is the way he goes to such lengths to pretend to take a scientific approach, while in fact being very selective in the evidence he presents and the conclusions he draws. Of course, he does say up front that his aim is to wean the reader away from faith (any kind of spiritually based faith) and to convert them to atheism. But someone who constantly accuses religious leaders and writers of avoiding uncomfortable material weakens his own arguments by doing exactly the same. Two examples. First, far too much of his 'evidence' against Christianity is typified by selective examples of the ludicrously stupid and wrong headed nonsense espoused by (and the policies promoted by) various extremists, such as, for example, American creationists. In decades of reading and of dialogue with churchgoers, priests and theologians I've never met anyone who challenged Darwinian evolution theory as 'sound science', or who doubted the evidence from geology about the age of the earth, or from cosmology about the nature of the universe. Such acceptance that Genesis isn't literal truth isn't of course evidence that God exists, but the fact that some batty people take Genesis literally isn't evidence that God doesn't exist. Sadly, Richard doesn't tell us - or at least avoids telling us directly - that while hotbeds of creationism may persist in parts of the USA (and be espoused by a few isolated individuals or groups elsewhere), mainstream Christianity rejects their nonsense. The same is of course true about 'intelligent design' theory, equally rejected by anyone who thinks about it for long, but equally cited by RD as 'evidence' against religion.

      A second - and more significant - omission comes in Richard's comments about Jesus. As an example, he devotes a whole section to working through the allegation that "'love thy neighbour' doesn't mean what we now think it means. It means only 'love another Jew'". Oddly, he neglects to mention how Jesus responded to the direct question 'Who is my neighbour?', with the parable of the Good Samaritan. I've no doubt that Hartung and others have a plausible answer to this and to the other ways Jesus makes it clear that his message is for the world at large, including the Romans. But others have argued even more plausibly that Hartung is wrong. If one is taking a scientific approach to whether God exists, why not present both sides of the coin and let the reader judge - as Richard urges us to do in the case of children's education.

      My other (and more general) beef with Richard Dawkins' writing (in this and other work, nothing to do with Christian apologetics) is that too much of it appears to reflect a somewhat excessive (and occasionally perverse) desire to see almost every issue and topic through the prism of Darwinian evolution theory. For example the meme, mentioned earlier, is a classic example and duly reappears here. We read how meme theory explains the spread and persistence of religion (and other cultural or social things). We aren't told that while Darwinian evolution has been deeply researched over more than a century, and is accepted by all relevant scientists as valid (RD himself would insist on me saying 'until something better comes along'!), meme theory came from one of his own books as simply a possible explanation of how Darwinian evolution might apply in social and cultural spheres. His failure to mention equally plausible views from specialists who call the theory a "pseudoscientific dogma" and "a dangerous idea that poses a threat to the serious study of consciousness and cultural evolution". Memes may exist and may have the kinds of effects RD would like them to have, but the jury isn't yet even in the jury room - indeed most would say that there is as yet far from enough evidence on which to think seriously about the question, let alone judge. For the avoidance of doubt, I quite like the idea. But RD harms his case (and some of his other work) when he seeks to use meme theory to prove something else.

      Many years ago, in my earliest reading of RD's superb and fascinating expositions of scientic theories and findings, I was struck by the frequency and manner with which he used religious or biblical metaphors and similes. Knowing his proclaimed faith in atheism, I concluded that here was a man somewhat obsessed with God and perhaps 'avoiding God'. Now he has invested lots of time and trouble on an in-depth assault on religion, churches and the idea that there is - or even may be - a God. Not in any sense a clear win, no better than, at best, a no-score-draw! He may well now welcome it, but I do pray for him quite often.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5

      May 28, 2007

      Dawkins makes a compelling argument for eliminating the special treatment and respect we accord only to the institution of religion - including the indoctrination of children.

      He also argues that it is time that rational thinkers come out of the closet and quit hiding their lack of belief in god and religion.

      Highly recommended.

      1 person found this helpful