It's doesn't matter if you are are a callous atheist, a mild believer, or a religious fundamentalist, you should read this book anyway. It will probably leave you with your own faith and beliefs, but enriched with many stimulating ideas. It will also make a perfect source of discussion subjects to liven up those boring dinner with your friends. The first part of the book is about refuting the so called "proofs" of God existence and pointing out the fact that a "God Hypothesis" is far for being useful to explain the universe , since it creates the biggest problems of explaining God. Not so interesting and new if you have done already a little thinking by yourself but still useful. One really good idea I found in the first part of the book was the the criticism of the "automatic respect for religion", that is the habit of according respect and tolerance to the weirdest behaviours if only they are a consequence of religious faith. The discussion that I found more interesting are about the morality of human beings and its possible origins and laws, and on the origin the seeminly universal religious sense in our race. The idea of religion as by-product of some other evolutionary useful mechanism like blind obedience to parents, or the ability to understand things through their real or imaginary "purpose" and "intentions" is really fascinating. So is the idea of religion as an extention of the psycological process that causes children to create imaginary friends. The chapter on the "evils" of religion and how , even in its "moderate" forms can harm the happiness of people is also definitely worth some pondering.
Where this book falls a little short is in his analysis of the Bible and the New Testament. First, the real "sourcebook" for Christianity is the New Testament, it is not calle New for nothing... but this is not Dawkins's fault. In my deep ignorance about history I have alway wondered why Christianity in anglosaxon countries is so centered around the Bible instead of the New Testament, which, if believed is orders of magnitude more important than the Bible. And it seems to have deep consequences on the national characters, if one just looks at the cleverly organized by kinda business cold anglo-saxons compared with the warmth of latin people. Or maybe it's not a consequence but a cause... who knows? The most glaring gap though is a total failure in appreciating the geniality , the poetry and the depth of Jesus life and teachings. Considering the idea of God suffering and dying for the human race as a sadomasochist act is a superficial and silly idea. Even as a little child I noted that Christianity was the only religion I knew of where the founder had not used his cult to life a life of happiness power and domination but suffered and died miserably. That immediately rules out the scenario in which some smart guy uses religious sense in other people to reach wealth and power. It's also an highly poetic and genially crazy idea , the idea of a God suffering and dying like the human race has to suffer and die. I don't know about you, but I would not be able to feel much sympathy for a God that sits comfortably in his Paradise while man has to cope with the harshness of life down here...
A subject that needs way more analysis and thinking is morality. It's often repeated that if there is no God to decide what's good and what's evil , than morality is necessarily bound to be subjective and arbitrary. I disagree with this. It would be like saying that without parental guide a kid would not have any idea of what is good and what is bad. What you see instead is a lot of kids who can do much better than their parents, even when they happen to have terrible parents. The objectivity of morality is rooted not in someone arbitrary decision, be him a parent or a god, but in understanding the objective consequences of an action. It would be quite depressing even for a religious person to believe that, for example, murder is evil not because of its evil consequences but because God doesn't like it. And that's also why religious people everywhere should have very clear that while reason cannot prove or disprove religion, any religious claim or behaviour must stand the test of reason. I would also object to Dawkins optimistic and naive idea of the moral standards improving with time. That's a very narrow point of view that surprises me in an intelligent man like Dawkins..yes, standards of life has improved , sure, in his little corner of the World.. most of Europe and US, but this is just a tiny bit of ur planet. Richard you should have the courage of giving a hard look at Africa, Asia and south America and realize that the only things that has improved is the economy of a minority of Earth nations, and this partly because of the advancement of science and technology but mostly because of the exploiting of the rest of the planet, like the Iraq war can easily remind us.
The only thing that can provoke an improvement in morality is culture and knowledge. In that sense I see the metaphor of God as "The Verb" particularly striking. Intelligence, knowledge and culture can help us see through the consequences of our actions and give an objective , "scientific" foundation to make this planet a decent place to live in. Look around, and you will easily see that the persons responsible of selfish, brutal or irresponsible actions are very often persons who have little education and cultural background. And with culture I don't mean just the one you can get from books and university, but even the family traditions, as in this respect wisdom is more important than sheer knowledge.
And finally about the inspiration that the authors tries to give in the final chapters, which should fill the gap left by the refutation of God.. well I have to say that Dawkins is am exceedingly brilliant science writer, extremely stimulating and fascinating as far as science is concerned, but as for inspiration and passion, well he's just a tiny bit to "technical" for that. And here comes my last critic to this nonetheless fascinating book. Religion can be dangerous, but so can be any kind of fixation, even an adoration for science that makes you look at everything through the same old glasses of science and analyze your life and reality just in those terms. If your life is centered only around one spot, be it religion, literature, science, sportsmanship or whatever else you might like, your life and your view of the cosmos is necessarily going to be narrow , rigid and ultimately boring.
ps> and please, Richard, stop it with your meme theory, it's not a scientific theory, it's not needed to explain anything, it's just an analogy.
The God Delusion
4.5 | 13,605 ratings
Price: 16.55
Last update: 12-17-2024
About this item
Top reviews from the United States
Riccardo AudanoA treasure of stimulating ideas, with some gaps...
Donald A. Collins