The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

[xdc magicker]

All hail the mighty Dawkins! This is Richard at his most provocative best. A no nonsense, no holds bar attack on the superstitious nonsense and the silliest of human behaviours.

Starts out with a demolishing of the so called arguments for the existence of god and then goes onto examine why humans with our vast intellect can actually believe in the bizarre superstitious and ritualistic manner that we exhibit in our religious practices and thoughts. He also looks at the evolutionary reasons that religious behaviour may be attributed to with some fascinating anthropology to back up the claims.

My fav anecdote relates to a university friend of Dawkins who was a moderate christian when Dawkins met him. Following a camping trip to scotland the man returned a born again christian and went on to join the priest hood after apparently hearing the voice of the devil on a lonely Scottish hill side. Dawkins relates that he was telling this story to some biologists who immediately burst out laughing. When asked why they explained to Richard about a rare bird that in habits the highlands of Scotland that has a call … which sound just lake a demonic voice! classic.

There are of course 3 audience for this book:

the dedicated atheist who will just love every word on every page

the agnostic who I am sure will be tipped over the edge to atheism by the end of it

and of course the True Believe who probably won’t read it but if they do will only use it to help convince themselves that this is another test of their faith.

Dawkins style is of course a matter of controversy and some argue if it is helpful in the on going culture class between moderate liberals and religious nutters (was that impartial?). Robert Winston recently berated his friend Dawkins on this matter. However, you need to read it yourself to make up your own mind on this. Personally, I feel that as long as there are moderate religious believers than they will always be a justification / buffer for the fundamentalist nutters out there and the only way to confront people is with facts presented in a non-sugar coated style.

Read it! This book should be on every book shelf in the land!

[11thSignal]

Really enjoyed this book, all though I’m a self confessed agnostic I still like to have a little proof before I believe blindly in things…

Theory of Evolution 1
Religion 0

Darwin FTW!!!!

[XDCsPUNKer]

Although I’m more on the side of Dawkins. He is only pushing one belief in favor of another

[tess]

I really want to read all of Dawkins’ books. I have one at the moment, the Extended Phenotype, but The God Delusion sounds ace. Is it easy reading or does it require thought and concentration? I can fit in an easy reading book now, but one which requires thought processes may have to wait a few weeks 😀

[xdc magicker]

@=XDC=sPUNKer wrote:

Although I’m more on the side of Dawkins. He is only pushing one belief in favor of another

he goes out of his way to explain why this is not the case. that’s the point of the book.. to explain why science is not a faith and needs to be treated differently to the dogma and superstitions of the past.

[xdc magicker]

@tess wrote:

I really want to read all of Dawkins’ books. I have one at the moment, the Extended Phenotype, but The God Delusion sounds ace. Is it easy reading or does it require thought and concentration? I can fit in an easy reading book now, but one which requires thought processes may have to wait a few weeks 😀

i read this as i read all my books – in 5 mins intervals – it was a bit of a stuggle and i really need to read it again

[11thSignal]

@=XDC=sPUNKer wrote:

Although I’m more on the side of Dawkins. He is only pushing one belief in favor of another

Humm but at least he may be pushing for a belief that has a little proof to show.

😀 😀 🙄

[XDC Dutchman]

@=xdc= magicker wrote:

All hail the mighty Dawkins! This is Richard at his most provocative best. A no nonsense, no holds bar attack on the superstitious nonsense and the silliest of human behaviours.

Starts out with a demolishing of the so called arguments for the existence of god and then goes onto examine why humans with our vast intellect

That’s how far I got till I burst out laughing. Have you met humans ? Vast intellect ? Why’s Pharty always on holiday when you need some proper comments ( aka insults ! )

Seriously though, not being much into reading(aka lazy) I thought I would read through the Wiki version of it HERE
Seems like an interesting read, but at the end of the day as Spunker said, he’s just pushing his beliefs in favour of another.
From wiki ->

Dawkins further argues, following Bertrand Russell, that although “you cannot disprove the existence of God”[13] it is also impossible to disprove the existence of an orbiting teapot – and also cites unicorns, the Flying Spaghetti Monster and tooth fairies. Hence the inability to disprove the existence 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.

So he can’t prove that God doesn’t exist, nor can it be proven that God does exist. Same can be said for the big bang, nobody can prove it happened or didn’t happen. At the end of the day we won’t know as undeniable physical proof for either will always be lacking
At the end of the day either I believe that I and everything around me was made by someone(God) by design and there’s the promise of a life beyond this, or I believe that I and everything that exists came into being through a big bang and then evolved and that when I die I return to the earth and rot away.
I’ll be honest, I believe in God for many reasons and only did so well after becoming an adult, but even if put with the simple fact above, I’d rather want that I was created and had a purpose in the life I live than feel like being the result of an accident and the only ever end result of my life being death

[sickofitall]

Of course, it’s very easy to slag off religions and all that sort of thing. However, I hope for the sake of this Dawkins bloke that he’s right about everything.

Problem he’s got is that in saying there’s no such thing as God he’s basically saying that Mary was making up excuses when she assured Joseph that she hadn’t been playing away and her conception must have been immaculate on account of her being a virgin and all that.

Now then, I dunno about you lot but if there is an all powerful creator of the universe with a somewhat colourful record of smiting poor bastards for no good reason at all I’d argue that he wouldn’t be the type of being that you’d want to wilfully go out of your way to piss off.

So, in conclusion I can pretty confidently say that calling the mother of his child a lying fucking slag is pretty much a surefire way to guarantee yourself a one way ticket to hell and an eternity of excruciating arse rape by some 15 foot demon or something like that.

Good luck with that, Dawkins.

[xdc magicker]

@=XDC= Dutchman wrote:

Same can be said for the big bang, nobody can prove it happened or didn’t happen. At the end of the day we won’t know as undeniable physical proof for either will always be lacking

I don’t want a book recommendation to turn into an argument but..

people often think that the big bang and evolution because they are labeled ‘theories’ this then means that they are not accepted as real or are speculative or there is any real doubt about their validity. this is not the case. they are theories in the same way that “the earth is round” or “the earth goes round the sun” are just theories with a vast amount of observational evidence to back them up. same goes for evolution and the big bang.. every single fact that comes along validates the theories still further. while i am sure that there will be some tweaking of the ideas over the years and possible even some interesting surprises to be had it is unlikely that scientists will one day turn around and say.. “see this bit there.. thats god that is”

compare this to a ‘theory of god’ which after thousands of years has not produced a single scrap of reliable evidence.

as to the point about purpose in life i guess it is up to each of us to invent or borrow or abstain from any set of purposes we like

[XDC_Wolf]

people often think that the big bang and evolution because they are labeled ‘theories’ this then means that they are not accepted as real or are speculative or there is any real doubt about their validity. this is not the case. they are theories in the same way that “the earth is round” or “the earth goes round the sun” are just theories with a vast amount of observational evidence to back them up. same goes for evolution and the big bang.. every single fact that comes along validates the theories still further. while i am sure that there will be some tweaking of the ideas over the years and possible even some interesting surprises to be had it is unlikely that scientists will one day turn around and say.. “see this bit there.. thats god that is”

Where to begin Magiker, firstly the big bang theory is that, just a theory, although there is evidence from the cosmos backicng up the theory of the Big Bang, it is not unusual for scientists to be wrong (I say this from a physicists point of view). I am not saying the Big Bang didn’t happen, nor am I saying that God exists (that’s a personal decision I can leave up to you) but I am saying that your blind faith in Science is worrying, in fact as worrying as perople who have blind faith in Religion.

Lets examine what Science can tell us about the Big Bang. Firstly there is 90% of the universe missing if the big Bang theory now as we understand it is correct, which is postulated to be dark matter. We can’t detect dark matter but the theories work if it exists. Secondly when you go to less than 10^-34 seconds after the big bang the laws of Physics as we know them fall about laughing at us. But it’s ok, because it will all work if we have Gravitons, a particle that is reponsible for the gravitational fields that we feel, much like the Electron is the particle responsible for the electromagnetic fields. But hang on, Gravity still exists and gravitons haven’t been found, but we “beleive” they must be there because everything we “know” depends on them being there.

Are you following the line of this argument here, there is a lot of beleif involved here, alot of unexplained things that scientists have created theories to suggest the outcomes of. So where does that leave us? Is Science a religion? If it is, is that a bad thing? Need religions be “superstitious nonsense and the silliest of human behaviours.
” or can they not be a source of comfort and hope?

And as a footnote

There are of course 3 audience for this book:

the dedicated atheist who will just love every word on every page

the agnostic who I am sure will be tipped over the edge to atheism by the end of it

and of course the True Believe who probably won’t read it but if they do will only use it to help convince themselves that this is another test of their faith.

Doesn’t really leave anyone outside of your group of Atheists being anything other than idiots. I am a Catholic, I’m not afraid to say it and I view you all here as my equals at least, not based on some sort of criteria of beleif, but on a criteria of whether or not you’re decent people, but with comments like the last one I personally feel belittled for holding my beleifs. It is not somehting I should feel on these boards and as far as I am aware there has never been anyone of a religious bent ever tried to belittle atheists here.I would go as far as to say that the most religiously extreme group of people on these boards are the atheists and quite frankly I’m bored of it. Have your opinions, express them eloquently as I know you can, but try not to stoop to the arrogance of your first post .

[xdc magicker]

as i said i don’t want this to be an argument – will leave it there 🙂

for the record I used the term ‘true believes’ to refer to fundies which excludes 99% of Catholics and probably should have added a 4th class of reader as the “intellectual believer who will probably be mildly offended at dawkins being rude but otherwise won’t care less and will get on with business as usual”

[XDCNeonSamurai]

Actually guys, as long as no-one takes this personally and views what’s happening here as simply a discussion of opinions on the existence of god I reckon is THE most interesting topic for debate.

I’m agnostic with 99% of me thinking that the whole thing with god is probably just a ‘hokey old religion’ (as a certain freighter captain would say), but I’m not totally convinced.

[XDC Dutchman]

LOL @ SOIA’s comments, you remind me of Chris, a guy at work who can take any situation and bring humour into it to the point where everyone has to laugh.
I agree with Neon on this, it’s a very interesting topic and as long as it doesn’t become a slag fest then surely sharing our opinions is exactly that, our opinions

Wolf tried to illustrate that neither side has 100% proof and for me scientists have yet to convince me of many things, one day coffee is good for you, another day it causes heart problems, ages ago they thought the earth was flat, but it’s not. I was taught at school that Pluto was a planet, the 10th in our solar system, yet now it’s classified as a dwarf planet as there are many similar “planets” near it. They create a drug for high blood pressure and once it’s used they find out it causes increased blood pressure elsewhere in the body.
The only thing I can conclude is that man(and/or woman), contrary to popular belief, doesn’t know everything. For these people to then turn to me and say that God doesn’t exist and we’re delusional as Christians is a bit rich.

What always makes me wonder is how easy people believe in things like being possessed by demons, and how the Devil causes a lot of criminals to commit murder etc, yet God doesn’t exist ? Why’s nobody every written a book, the Devil Delusion, or is it easier to believe in something bad than something good ?

[XDCiNSANE]

I believe it was made up for entertainment.. (like Shakespear) there was no TV back in them days so a load of peeps got together to write a fictional book, someone found it moons on and thought for some odd reason.. its true lets all believe.. anyhoos in later years some got bored of the book, and then (Again whilst having no TV) decided to entertain themselves by throwing people to lions etc etc.. then a lot more years on, TV was invented.. then people started believing a mule could dance

Its a shame they didnt write the script for Aliens *special Edition* back in them days.. I’d be worshiping an Alien Queen then.. that would be way cooler.. she’s badass

I used to attend Church as a Child, I was a believer then as I didnt know any better and just followed what older people thought.. apparently I used to know all the books in the bible *so my mum reminded me tuther day* anyhoos.. I got older and figured it out when I tried having a conversation with a bush in the park, which was a one way thing i have to say.. ignorant fucker he was.. his mates were the same

anyhoos Each to there own on this one I say

[Author]

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