Customer Reviews
The God Delusion - By: martinblank, 06 Jan 2009 
'The God Delusion' - perhaps the clue isin the title. Opening this book & finding the author happily concluding that religious belief is reasonable would come as something of a surprise. 'You are all quite right to believe as you do' would be a dull book.
We should as adults be able to differentiate between the question of ultimate causes (which is marvellously contradictory) & the origins, influences, aims & claims of Abrahamic prophets & sects now & throughout a couple of thousand years of recent history. Dawkins supposes that we can make such a distinction. In doing so he also supposes that readers are open to combative rationalist discourse (or at least interestedin what this might consist of). The book really has nothing to offer anyone not wanting combat, reason or atheism.
Any number of books on geology, physics, dinosaurs, the universe, or the history of peoples, science & the planet can be had for beansin an open society. You would think - sometimes - that Dawkins made up atheism yesterday simply to rile the religious. But this is not so. On the other hand, atheists might find Dawkins a little annoying too. 'Just set out the facts plainly, Richard, & do it a bit more quickly.'
We should regardless be able to distinguish between the fate of millions of our fellow beings & the pomp, comfort & status enjoyed by corporate religious leaders within their various establishments. Dawkins is not asking a great deal here. Do the major religions enjoy state protections & convenient media obfuscations that kickin when the various factions start killing one another? Well, yes, they do. Is theology a genuine discipline? Only if Star Trek is as well. Dawkins ranges far & widein his quest to take down arguments for religion. He is constantly & highly erudite but sometimes a tad discursive while doing so. I fear some readers will simply lose the Dawkins thread.
No amount of sophisticated argument & learning is relevant when the appeal & immediate cause of coercive child indoctrinating religion is simplicity allied with whereabouts of birth & to whom we are born. In this Dawkins can be of little help, pullingin moths, candles, natural selection & memes, which is all very interesting but not likely to play to a packed house every night. There is a lotin & to 'The God Delusion' - none of which is likely to thrill a committed non-thinker.
We existin a hard to fathom circumstance, what does this mean? Need it have any meaning? Dawkins guides us through the arguments for & against. Some of these are rather old arguments. But this is also atheist polemic. Dawkins is stating a case, at times majestically. The Bible does the same thing without the majesty. The other difference is Dawkins leaves you free to decide without supernatural penalties attached.
Still, a book is a book, the world progresses when questions are put & answered, to oppose Dawkins without refuting him is an unwitting confirmation of his central theses, & you still know what you're getting when you buy a book by a famous atheist entitled 'The God Delusion'.
Post-speciesist Piffle - By: S. CREAM, 05 Jan 2009 
"I do not, by nature, thrive on confrontation." Well, that's Dawkins' contention as he opens chapter 8 at least. Later onin the same section of the book, the author claims that the phrase "American Taliban" was begging to be coined. Begged by whom? The frothing at the mouth reactionaries who toss schoolyard insults at those they do not agree with?
Peter Singer, high priest of the deeply lunatic fringe of the animal liberation movement who argues amongst other perverse ideas that zoophilia is not unethical if there is no harm or cruelty to the animal, is claimed by Dawkins to be "...the most eloquent advocate of the view that we should move to a post-speciesist conditionin which humane treatment is meted out to all species that have the brain power to appreciate it." It would be interesting to engage this ethic with the good professor using a hypothetical plague epidemic carried by rats.
Pondering the issue of abortion, the author compares the suffering of a cowin a slaughterhouse to a developing human fetus that has been terminated. Apparently the value human life is comparative to cattle. When they took Bessie to market they may very well have killed the next Marie Curie?
I share Richard Dawkins' atheism as devotedly as he no doubt does, but I cannot countenance his moral equivalency. I am far more afraid of Islamofascism (which to his credit he attacks but does not venture to call by that title) than American Christians who wish to take Harry Potter out of the library.
My values are Humanist, but I am an unabashed 'speciesist.' The philosophical world, the sciences, & the 'Zeitgeist' that indicates we are capable of becoming more compassionate, kind & humane, come from the human condition not from the activities of say a herd of reindeer.
Not Dawkins' best work by a long shot, this book is a haphazard invective of muddy moral musings & unbalanced argument against religious faith.
Aggressively atheist and more than a little smug. - By: T. West, 29 Dec 2008 I am an Agnostic who leans towards atheism, & was recommended this book by a friend over a year ago, so I made sure it was on my Christmas list (oh, the irony).
I only read about two chapters but found the hectoring tone very off-putting, & there was a degree of smug hubris not presentin the books of other science writers. Much of what I read was anecdotal & delightedin sharing oh-so-clever & bullish ripostes to religious people who took issue with his strong stance. This didn't convince me of anything other than that Dawkins is an insufferable git.
A passage that made me abandon the book completely was an infantile & sarcastic commentary on Freeman Dyson's acceptance speech for the Templteton prize,in which he refers to the possibility of a higher conciousness. I had heard of Dyson long before Dawkins & he is credited as being one of the 20th century's finest minds, so to hear Dawkins sneer at the great man was a little galling.
This book is delibrately confrontational & downright rude to a lot of people, implying that they are ignorant buffoons. I have no love for the church & place my trustin science, but have known deeply caring Christians who live by the teachings of Jesus to better themselves, & are still open-minded & speak intelligently on a wide number of subjects, although the screaming-mad hate-mongers of all religions do get a well-deserved pasting, so it's not all bad.
That would be fine, but Dawkins himself seems to have spawned an unforgiving & cold look at faith, which could be labelled as fundamentalist Atheism.
This book makes for quite unpleasant reading, although I now know from seeing him on TV & the internet that he can be more tactfullin conveying his views when he wants to.
Get a life - By: A Reader, 29 Dec 2008 
What kind of a retard would write a book like this?
Get a life Dawkins.
A deflating fait accompli - By: Nigel Collier, 03 Dec 2008 
On Richard Dawkins's spectrum of belief, I'm a 6...that is, strongly suspecting that a supernatural God who designed & still presides over the world doesn't exist. I find much of interest & practical usein some 'religious' teaching & literature however. The God Delusion is a fait accompli - it has no reasonable counter argument. Every theist should read it & be made to either refute it or give up their Religion, or at the very least concede that their Religion should not receive special treatment or recognitionin a secular world.
It is deliveredin a sometimes facetious, sarcastic & sneering tone - no doubt the result of years of wearily having to rebut & pick apart specious arguments from religious zealots - at whom I suspect this book is chiefly targeted. But it is a tone which does not enhance his argument for me. Dawkins' attempts at irony don't come across so much as Mark Steel/Blackadder as more like an older brother taking some pleasurein revealing to us that there's no Santa Clause.
It's impossible to deny or avoid the proposition that the scientific, measurable, predictable, reproducable proof suggests there is absolutely no evidence for the existence of a supernatural God. God is an idea, & the world's various organised Religions are simply membership clubs -in some of which 'God' exists as a kind of prozac &in others He rules by something akin to Stockholm Syndrome. If the members of these clubs each kept to themselves then it would be OK but what irks Dawkins is the fawning special treatment lavished upon organised Religion; the kid gloves with which polite society dictates, uniquely, we must treat the subject of Religion which has no more concrete claim to protected status than do fairies or the manin the moon.
He views humankind too reductively at times - we are 'just' one unique species of mammal who got lucky amongst an abundance of fauna on a planet which got lucky amongst the abundance of the universe. We know now that the universe doesn't revolve around the earth & that the earth doesn't revolve around humankind, but that doesn't mean we are just making up the numbers.
I got the feeling thatin some things he was even handed butin others took scientific deconstruction to silly conclusions. If you're opposed to abortion of foetuses (as opposed to the moment of birth which Dawkins is suggesting as a rubicon) for example then, if you're being consistent, shouldn't you go the whole hog & be opposed to the foregoing of any opportunity for sex since procreation is the ultimate purpose of that activity? And if you're pro-destruction of foetuses for IVF (the ultimate goal of which is also procreation) then aren't you a hypocrite if you're anti destruction of foetuses for birth control or personal convenience? No.
If you interpret some parts of the bible as allegory, some as historical record & still others as the results of political agendas at the time of editing then again aren't you being disingenuous - cherry picking those parts on the basis of how they fit with your own world view? Not necessarily...you could be simply differentiating between the bits which are allegory, historical record or political expediency. His use of the term 'lebensraum'in reference to the Ancient Israelites empire building is silly, & his eulogy of Douglas Adams is directed personally to the deceased author, which is inconsistent with the whole basis of the book.
Though it is just a bit too clear-cut, black & white, 'with me or against me' at times, it's mostly even handed and, from what I can see, bulletproof.
