The God Delusion,   ISBN:9780618918249

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It's been several months since I read "The God Delusion" so it's difficult to comment on specific details of the book. For good or bad, I'm going more on my emotional reaction at this point. I'd like to begin by saying that I loved it and had a hard time putting the book down. I found myself agreeing with Dawkins' arguements time after time,(i.e., I am a Darwinist). I found myself getting quite angry at the narrow-minded fundamentalists (e.g., intelligent design proponents)who delude themselves by believing half-baked pseudo science and then want the fallacious dribble taught as real science to our high school aged kids. I got even more angry as Dawkins offered his littany of human suffering caused directly or indirectly from virulent religious doctrines and the resulting emotional over reaction by zealous believers. Why don't these people see that what they believe is almost totally devoid of objective rational and empirical support? (I say "almost" because occasionally even a blind pig finds an acorn.) Dawkins is quite right IMHO that one's beliefs should be based on some measure of evidence rather than on faith alone. But why does he gain few if any converts to his cause? Herein lies the rub for me.

Because of my profession as a psychotherapist I know a bit about how people think and why they believe what they believe. This apparent problem of people blindly believing what the rest of us, the more reasonable and rational of us no less, consider misguided or worse is really complicated. As Thomas Kuhn the historian of science put it years ago, "All theories are value laden." In other words, our beliefs (personal theories about how the world works)are derived in part by our underlying, often largely unconscious, deeper belief system. And we tend to assume that these underlying beliefs are true and therefore seldom challenge them. So what one person (me) considers to be obviously fallacious pseudo science, another considers to be equally obviously true science.

Thomas Kuhn put forth this idea in his book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" and used it to explain why, for example, the leading western scientific minds of the middle ages firmly believed that the earth was at the center of the solar system. Their observations led to this conclusion quite nicely. But, we today cannot imagine how they could have been so deceived. The problem, as discussed by Kuhn, is that we operate under a different paradigm than they and therefore we cannot interpret the data the way they did. That paradigm is equivilant to the differing underlying belief systems that we have as individuals.

What Dawkins and others who write similar books hope for is what Kuhn calls a "paradigm shift" to occur in the mind of the reader. The reader becomes convinced by the author that the reader's view is wrong and the author's is correct. This is unlikely to say the least because the reader's very deeply held beliefs will not permit them to see the "data" the way Dawkins wants them to see it. Almost universally a non believer will see Dawkins' arguements as unsound if not "deluded" just as Dawkins sees their points of view to be crazy.

Unfortunitely, for those of us who like to see ourselves as more rational than the other guy, we carry the same kind of deep subjective biases as the other guy. Our beliefs are just as "value laden" as his or hers and may not be held for rational reasons at all. This ultimately leaves little objective ground on which to stand. And it may be that, a hundred years from now, 22nd century scholars will look back at our science and wonder how we could be so blind.

So, in conclusion, read "The God Delusion" because you already love it or because you already hate it. There is almost no chance that you will change horses in midstream, no matter how good the arguement might be to a believer or bad it might be to a non believer.

Post Script:
I read several other reviews of this book after writing this one. I have to agree with several other reviewers, Dawkins comes across as a very angry person in this book. This tone is unfortunite and unnecessary. Prof. Dawkins is an intellectual and academic of the first order and his expertise in his field is unquestioned by his peers. One reviewer commented that he comes across as a "fundamentalist athiest" and I must admit that I agree with that characterization. His anger seems to take him to a level of intolerance of religion and people of faith that I found personally troubling. Intolerance is one of the hardest things for me to tolerate.

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This book has some interesting stuff in it, like Dawkins' discussion of the cosmological anthropic principle. The man's sincere reverence for the evolved intricacy of the natural world is also moving. However, this is not a rigorously argued book on the level of Dawkins' masterpiece The Selfish Gene, but an ill-tempered polemic. Dawkins clearly feels that all religious people are dangerous idiots. Some of them surely are, but this hyper-atheistic diatribe is no less obnoxious and possibly even more smug than anything Billy Graham could have come up with for the other side. The flat earth creationists and the flat earth atheists, self-styled martyrs all, deserve each other. Readers who are interested in a serious evolutionary account of religion might want to check out Darwin's Cathedral by David Sloan Wilson, or Scott Atran and Ara Norenzayan's articles on the subject. More sympathetic to a religious perspective but still informed by evolutionary thinking are Robert Wright's The Evolution of God and Frederick Turner's Natural Religion. Most people other than hardcore Dawkins fans and fundamentalist Christians looking for straw men to knock down will want to skip this one.

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This book totally changed the way I see all religions and the reverence given to religious people. I have never been a religious person, I was raised 10% Catholic and 90% critical thinker. But I tolerated all religions with a kind of indifference and amusement that people can base their life on a book they hadn't even read! Show me one Catholic that has read the Bible start to finish and I'll show you a pink unicorn. :) I was embarrassed to admit that I just didn't believe in the supernatural.
Now I feel a freedom to say what I believe to be true, just like everyone else. Just saying I don't believe in spirits, angels, fairies, demons, ghosts, god, elves or Santa, doesn't mean I'm insulting those that do, its just my opinion. I feel my thoughts and opinions have always been suppressed by this notion in society that magical beliefs have to somehow be treated with a sacred respect, but mentioning the scientific method is 'being disrespectful'. Humans have left go of many gods, from Thor the Norse god to Ra, Zeus and Neptune, and we will leave go of these ones too. I just hope that gradually rational thinking takes their place and not more magical beings.

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Richard Dawkins is a heretic. For years, My faith has been under attack by Atheists from all over the globe for centuries! We Catholics aren't doing anything to hurt others. Richard Dawkins's words are full of hatred.

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First, I very much have enjoyed what I have read so far, which is about half of the book, and I fully intend to read the rest this week. Secondly and up front, I admit I'm a Christian and VERY solid in my beliefs. That said, I picked up this book simply because I respect the opinions of others and do not simply shut out the opinions of others or their works. Especially worthy is this book by Dawkins, whom seems to be the "Athiest Guru" of late. I will not make this a lengthy review but simply wish to say that Dawkins is a very intelligent man and has laid out his case pretty smoothly thus far. I don't agree with him and I've found a few holes in his thinking, but that is what you would expect a Christian to say anyway. The thing that has irritated me though while reading this book, is not the fact that Dawkins basically is saying that there is not God, nor can there be, nor can anybody prove it. This is a free world and he is welcome to that opinion and I respect him for it. He is very unmovable in his opinion. What DOES irritate me greatly is there have been multiple times in the book, close to 30 now, where he has said that if you DO believe in a god, no matter which one, you are, unintelligent, unsophisticated, and unlearned. Those are his exact adjectives, used multiple times. I myself hold a doctorate degree and know plenty of other well schooled individuals who believe in the God of the Christian bible. I assure you, we are not dolts. The condescension is unbecoming of a gentleman and scientist and it debases his argument. So, if you can get past the pomp and arrogance, it is at least an interesting read, which is why he gets 4 and not 5 stars.