The God Delusion

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The God Delusion
AuthorDawkins, Richard
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
SubjectReligion
GenreScience
PublisherBantam Books
Publication date
2006
Media typeHardcover, Audio book
ISBNISBN 0618680004 Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character

The God Delusion (September 2006, ISBN 0618680004) is a non-fiction book by British ethologist and atheist Richard Dawkins which is critical of religion.

Synopsis

Dawkins prefaces the book by stating his definition of 'delusion': "a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence, especially as a symptom of psychiatric disorder." Regarding "whether [religious faith] is a symptom of a psychiatric disorder", he is inclined to follow Robert M. Pirsig, who said: "when one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion."[1]

In Chapter 1, Dawkins notes he is not discussing “Einsteinian religion”, whereby some scientists use the word “God” as a metaphor for nature or the mysteries of the universe. He is specifically focused on belief in "a supernatural creator that is ‘appropriate for us to worship’".[2] He maintains that religion is given a privileged immunity against criticism which it does not deserve, quoting Douglas Adams to illustrate the point:

Religion ... has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. What it means is, 'Here is an idea or a notion that you're not allowed to say anything bad about; you're just not. Why not? – because you're not. If someone votes for a party that you don't agree with, you're free to argue about it as much as you like; everybody will have an argument but nobody feels aggrieved by it. ... But on the other hand, if somebody says 'I mustn't move a light switch on a Saturday', you say 'I respect that.'

Dawkins continues in chapter 2 by arguing that the God Hypothesis, which he defines as "there exists a super-human, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us",[3] is a scientific hypothesis about the universe, one that should be treated with as much scepticism as any other theory. For this reason, Dawkins argues, Stephen Jay Gould’s concept of non-overlapping magisteria cannot be used to defend theologians from criticism. Impartial agnosticism would imply that nothing can be said about the probability of God’s existence, a position that Dawkins suggests is incorrect. Dawkins further argues (following Bertrand Russell) that although "you cannot cannot disprove the existence of God"[4] it is equally impossible to disprove the existence of unicorns, orbiting teapots or tooth faires. Hence the inability to disprove the evidence of God provides no positive reason to believe. Rather, Dawkins argues that the burden of proof is on the advocates of the existence of God.

In chapter 3, Dawkins turns his attention to the main philosophical arguments in favour of God’s existence. He discusses the "proofs" of Thomas Aquinas, arguing that they are all vacuous, with the exception of the argument from design.

Dawkins continues in chapter 4 stating that evolution by natural selection can be used to demonstrate that the argument from design is wrong. He argues that a hypothetical cosmic designer would require an even greater explanation than the phenomena s/he/it is intended to explain, and that any theory that explains the existence of the universe must be a “crane”, something equivalent to natural selection, rather than a “skyhook” that merely postpones the problem. Dawkins holds out hope for a cosmological equivalent to Darwinism that would explain why the universe exists in all its amazing complexity. He uses the argument from improbability, or his "Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit", to argue that "God almost certainly does not exist".

Chapter 5 explores the roots of religion and why religion is so ubiquitous across all human cultures. Dawkins advocates the "theory of religion as an accidental by-product – a misfiring of something useful"[5] and asks[6] whether the theory of memes, and human susceptibility to religious memes in particular, might work to explain how religion might spread like a virus across societies.

In chapter 6, Dawkins turns his attention to the subject of morality, arguing that we do not need religion in order to be good. Instead, he maintains that our morality has a Darwinian explanation: altruistic genes have been selected through the process of our evolution, and we possess a natural empathy.

The following chapter continues the theme of morality, arguing that there is a moral Zeitgeist that continually evolves in society, often in opposition to religious morality, which Dawkins feels is often warped and brutish. He uses examples of religious morality from the Bible to illustrate what he sees as the barbarism of much religious morality.

Dawkins turns to the question of why he feels so hostile towards religion in Chapter 8, arguing, with examples, that religion subverts science, fosters fanaticism, encourages bigotry towards homosexuals, and influences society in other negative ways.

One of these ways is the indoctrination of children, a subject to which Dawkins devotes chapter 9. He equates the religious indoctrination of children by parents and teachers in faith schools to a form of mental abuse. Dawkins wants people to cringe every time somebody speaks of a “Muslim child” or a “Catholic child”, wondering how a young child can be considered developed enough to have such independent views on the cosmos and humanity’s place within it. By contrast, Dawkins points out, no reasonable person would speak of a "Marxist child" or a "Tory child".

The final chapter asks whether religion, despite its alleged problems, offers a “much needed gap”, giving consolation and inspiration to people who need it. According to Dawkins, these needs are much better filled by non-religious means such as philosophy and science. He argues that an atheistic worldview is life-affirming in a way that religion, with its unsatisfying “answers” to life’s mysteries, could never be.

Chapters

  1. A deeply religious non-believer ("I don't try to imagine a personal God; it suffices to stand in awe of the structure of the world, insofar as it allows our inadequate senses to appreciate it." – Albert Einstein)
  2. The God hypothesis ("The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next." – Ralph Waldo Emerson)
  3. Arguments for God's existence ("A professorship of theology should have no place in our institution." – Thomas Jefferson)
  4. Why there almost certainly is no God ("The priests of the different religious sects . . . dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight, and scowl upon the fatal harbinger announcing the subdivision of the duperies on which they live." – Thomas Jefferson)
  5. The roots of religion ("To an evolutionary psychologist, the universal extravagance of religious rituals, with their costs in time, resources, pain and privation, should suggest as vividly as a mandrill's bottom that religion may be adaptive." – Marek Kohn)
  6. The roots of morality: why are we good? ("Strange is our situation here on earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet somehow seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men – above all those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends." – Albert Einstein)
  7. The 'Good' Book and the changing moral zeitgeist ("Politics has slain its thousands, but religion has slain its tens of thousands." – Sean O'Casey)
  8. What's wrong with religion? Why be so hostile? ("Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man – living in the sky – who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of those ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time . . . But He loves you!" – George Carlin)
  9. Childhood, abuse and the escape from religion ("There is in every village a torch – the teacher: and an extinguisher – the clergyman." – Victor Hugo).
  10. A much needed gap? ("What can be more soul shaking than peering through a 100-inch telescope at a distant galaxy, holding a 100-million-year-old fossil or a 500,000-year-old stone in one's hand, standing before the immense chasm of space and time that is the Grand Canyon, or listening to a scientist who gazed upon the face of the universe's creation and did not blink? That is deep and sacred science." – Michael Shermer)

An appendix gives addresses for those "needing support in escaping religion".

Reviews

Reviews in notable magazines

The physicist Lawrence M. Krauss, writing in Nature, says that although a "fan" of Dawkins, "I wish that Dawkins ... had continued to play to his strengths". Krauss suggests that an unrelenting attack upon people's beliefs might be less productive than "positively demonstrating how the wonders of nature can suggest a world without God that is nevertheless both complete and wonderful." Krauss remarks, "Perhaps there can be no higher praise than to say that I am certain I will remember and borrow many examples from this book in my own future discussions."[7]

The Economist praised the book, focusing on Dawkins' critiques of the influence of religion upon politics and the use of religion to insulate political positions from criticism. "The problem, as Mr. Dawkins sees it, is that religious moderates make the world safe for fundamentalists, by promoting faith as a virtue and by enforcing an overly pious respect for religion."

Marxist literary critic Terry Eagleton in the London Review of Books suggests that Dawkins has insufficient understanding of the religious concepts he is attacking to engage with them effectively (he compares this to writing a book on biology when your sole knowledge of the subject was having read "The Book of British Birds"). Eagleton also disagrees about historical points, for example he asserts that "Catholic" and "Protestant" were not synonyms for "Republican" and "Loyalist" in Northern Ireland.

Andrew Brown in Prospect considers that "In his broad thesis, Dawkins is right. Religions are potentially dangerous, and in their popular forms profoundly irrational" But he cricitises the assertion that "atheists ... don't do evil things in the name of atheism" noting that "under Stalin almost the entire Orthodox priesthood were exterminated simply for being priests." He disputes that most people "believe in free speech and protect it" - "Do the Chinese...? Does Dawkins [when he suggests that] "we should no more allow parents to teach their children to believe in the literal truth of the Bible"?" He cites Robert Pape[8] that religious zealotry is neither necessary nor sufficient for suicide bombers, and concludes that the book is "one long argument from professorial incredulity."

Reviews in national newspapers

Joan Bakewell reviewed the book for The Guardian, stating "Dawkins comes roaring forth in the full vigour of his powerful arguments, laying into fallacies and false doctrines", noting it is a timely book: "These are now political matters. Around the world communities are increasingly defined as Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and living peaceably together is ever harder to sustain....Dawkins is right to be not only angry but alarmed. Religions have the secular world running scared. This book is a clarion call to cower no longer."

Marek Kohn in The Independent suggests that in this book "passions are running high, arguments are compressed and rhetoric inflated. The allusion to Chamberlain, implicitly comparing religion to the Nazi regime, is par for the course." He also argues that "another, perhaps simpler, explanation for the universality and antiquity of religion is that it has conferred evolutionary benefits on its practitioners that outweigh the costs. Without more discussion, it isn't clear that Dawkins's account should be preferred to the hypothesis that religion may have been adaptive in the same way that making stone tools was."

John Cornwell states in The Sunday Times "there is hardly a serious work of philosophy of religion cited in his extensive bibliography, save for Richard Swinburne – himself an oddity among orthodox theologians". He also complains that: "Dawkins sees no point in discussing the critical borders where religion morphs from benign phenomenon into malefic basket case. This is a pity, since his entire thesis becomes a counsel of despair rather than a quest for solutions."[9]

Reviews by other notable commentators

Alister McGrath, a christian theologian, describes The God Delusion as "his weakest book to date, marred by its excessive reliance on bold assertion and rhetorical flourish, where the issues so clearly demand careful reflection and painstaking analysis, based on the best evidence available". He suggests that "All ideals – divine, transcendent, human, or invented – are capable of being abused. That’s just the way human nature is. And knowing this, we need to work out what to do about it, rather than lashing out uncritically at religion."[10]

Reviews

References

  1. ^ The God Delusion, preface[1]
  2. ^ The God Delusion p13
  3. ^ ibid. p 31
  4. ^ Ibid. p53-54
  5. ^ "The general theory of religion as an accidental by-product - a misfiring of something useful - is the one I wish to advocate" ibid. p188
  6. ^ "the purpose of this section is to ask whether meme theory might work for the special case of religion" (italics in original, referring to one of the 5 sections of Chapter 5) ibid. p191
  7. ^ Lawrence M. Krauss. "Sermons and straw men". The Official Richard Dawkins Website. Retrieved 2006-11-06.
  8. ^ Dying to Win by Robert Pape
  9. ^ John Cornwell. "A question of respect". Times Online. Retrieved 2006-11-06.
  10. ^ The Dawkins Delusion

See also

External links

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