The God Delusion

Last updated

The God Delusion
The God Delusion UK.jpg
First edition UK cover
Author Richard Dawkins
LanguageEnglish
Subjects
Publisher Bantam Press
Publication date
2 October 2006
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint (hardcover and paperback)
Pages464
ISBN 978-0-618-68000-9
211/.8 22
LC Class BL2775.3 .D39 2006

The God Delusion is a 2006 book by British evolutionary biologist and ethologist Richard Dawkins. In The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator, God, almost certainly does not exist, and that belief in a personal god qualifies as a delusion, which he defines as a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence. He is sympathetic to Robert Pirsig's statement in Lila (1991) that "when one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion." [1] In the book, Dawkins explores the relationship between religion and morality, providing examples that discuss the possibility of morality existing independently of religion and suggesting alternative explanations for the origins of both religion and morality.

Contents

In early December 2006, it reached number four in the New York Times Hardcover Non-Fiction Best Seller list after nine weeks on the list. [2] More than three million copies were sold. [3] According to Dawkins in a 2016 interview with Matt Dillahunty, an unauthorised Arabic translation of this book has been downloaded 3 million times in Saudi Arabia. [4] The book has attracted widespread commentary and critical reception, with many books written in response.

Background

Dawkins has presented arguments against creationist explanations of life in his previous works on evolution. The theme of The Blind Watchmaker , published in 1986, is that evolution can explain the apparent design in nature. In The God Delusion he focuses directly on a wider range of arguments used for and against belief in the existence of a god (or gods).

Dawkins identifies himself repeatedly as an atheist, while also pointing out that, in a sense, he is also agnostic, though "only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden". [5]

Dawkins had long wanted to write a book openly criticising religion, but his publisher had advised against it. By 2006, his publisher had warmed to the idea. Dawkins attributes this change of mind to "four years of Bush" (who "literally said that God had told him to invade Iraq"). [6] [7] By that time, a number of authors, including Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, who together with Dawkins were labelled "The Unholy Trinity" by Robert Weitzel, had already written books openly attacking religion. [8] According to the Amazon retailer in August 2007, the book was the best-seller in their sales of books on religion and spirituality, with Hitchens's God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything coming second. This led to a 50% growth in that category over the three years to that date. [9]

Synopsis

Dawkins dedicates the book to Douglas Adams and quotes the novelist: "Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" [10] The book contains ten chapters. The first few chapters make a case that there almost certainly is no God, while the rest discuss religion and morality.

Dawkins writes that The God Delusion contains four "consciousness-raising" messages:

  1. Atheists can be happy, balanced, moral, and intellectually fulfilled.
  2. Natural selection and similar scientific theories are superior to a "God hypothesis"—the illusion of intelligent design—in explaining the living world and the cosmos.
  3. Children should not be labelled by their parents' religion. Terms like "Catholic child" or "Muslim child" should make people cringe.
  4. Atheists should be proud, not apologetic, because atheism is evidence of a healthy, independent mind. [1]

"God hypothesis"

Chapter one, "A deeply religious non-believer", seeks to clarify the difference between what Dawkins terms "Einsteinian religion" and "supernatural religion". He notes that the former includes quasi-mystical and pantheistic references to God in the work of physicists like Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, and describes such pantheism as "sexed up atheism". Dawkins instead takes issue with the theism present in religions like Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. [11] The proposed existence of this interventionist God, which Dawkins calls the "God Hypothesis", becomes an important theme in the book. [12] He maintains that the existence or non-existence of God is a scientific fact about the universe, which is discoverable in principle if not in practice. [13]

The book argues against the Five Ways. According to Dawkins, "[t]he five 'proofs' asserted by Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century don't prove anything, and are easily [...] exposed as vacuous." [14]

Dawkins summarises the main philosophical arguments on God's existence, singling out the argument from design for longer consideration. Dawkins concludes that evolution by natural selection can explain apparent design in nature. [1]

He writes that one of the greatest challenges to the human intellect has been to explain "how the complex, improbable design in the universe arises", and suggests that there are two competing explanations:

  1. A hypothesis involving a designer, that is, a complex being to account for the complexity that we see.
  2. A hypothesis, with supporting theories, that explains how, from simple origins and principles, something more complex can emerge.

This is the basic set-up of his argument against the existence of God, the Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit, [15] where he argues that the first attempt is self-refuting, and the second approach is the way forward. [16]

At the end of chapter 4 ("Why there almost certainly is no God"), Dawkins sums up his argument and states, "The temptation [to attribute the appearance of design to actual design itself] is a false one, because the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the designer. The whole problem we started out with was the problem of explaining statistical improbability. It is obviously no solution to postulate something even more improbable". [17] In addition, chapter 4 asserts that the alternative to the designer hypothesis is not chance , but natural selection .

He dedicates a chapter of his book to criticism of the God-of-the-gaps argument. [18] He noted that:

Creationists eagerly seek a gap in present-day knowledge or understanding. If an apparent gap is found, it is assumed that God, by default, must fill it. What worries thoughtful theologians such as Bonhoeffer is that gaps shrink as science advances, and God is threatened with eventually having nothing to do and nowhere to hide. [18]

Dawkins does not claim to disprove God with absolute certainty. Instead, he suggests as a general principle that simpler explanations are preferable (see Occam's razor) and that an omniscient or omnipotent God must be extremely complex (Dawkins argues that it is logically impossible for a God to be simultaneously omniscient and omnipotent). As such he argues that the theory of a universe without a God is preferable to the theory of a universe with a God. [19]

Religion and morality

The second half of the book begins by exploring the roots of religion and seeking an explanation for its ubiquity across human cultures. Dawkins advocates the "theory of religion as an accidental by-product – a misfiring of something useful" [20] as for example the mind's employment of intentional stance. Dawkins suggests that the theory of memes, and human susceptibility to religious memes in particular, can explain how religions might spread like "mind viruses" across societies. [21]

He then turns to the subject of morality, maintaining that we do not need religion to be good. Instead, our morality has a Darwinian explanation: altruistic genes, selected through the process of evolution, give people natural empathy. He asks, "would you commit murder, rape or robbery if you knew that no God existed?" He argues that very few people would answer "yes", undermining the claim that religion is needed to make us behave morally. In support of this view, he surveys the history of morality, arguing that there is a moral Zeitgeist that continually evolves in society, generally progressing toward liberalism. As it progresses, this moral consensus influences how religious leaders interpret their holy writings. Thus, Dawkins states, morality does not originate from the Bible, rather our moral progress informs what parts of the Bible Christians accept and what they now dismiss. [22]

Other themes

The God Delusion is not just a defence of atheism, but also goes on the offensive against religion. Dawkins sees religion as subverting science, fostering fanaticism, encouraging bigotry against homosexuals, and influencing society in other negative ways. [23] Dawkins regards religion as a "divisive force" and as a "label for in-group/out-group enmity and vendetta". [24]

He is most outraged about the teaching of religion in schools, which he considers to be an indoctrination process. He equates the religious teaching of children by parents and teachers in faith schools to a form of mental abuse. Dawkins considers the labels "Muslim child" and "Catholic child" equally misapplied as the descriptions "Marxist child" and "Tory child", as he wonders how a young child can be considered developed enough to have such independent views on the cosmos and humanity's place within it.

The book concludes with the question of whether religion, despite its alleged problems, fills 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 suggests that an atheistic worldview is life-affirming in a way that religion, with its unsatisfying "answers" to life's mysteries, could never be. An appendix gives addresses for those "needing support in escaping religion".

Critical reception

The book generated a range of responses, both positive and negative. Metacritic reported that the book had a weighted average score of 59 out of 100, indicating "mixed or average reviews". [25] On January/February 2007 issue of Bookmarks, the book received a Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg (3.0 out of 5) based on critic reviews with a summary saying, "This fatal flaw knocks his book down a rung or two for critics, many of whom seem inclined to believe in Dawkins, if only he weren’t so preachy". [26]

The book was nominated for Best Book at the British Book Awards, where Richard Dawkins was named Author of the Year. [27] Nevertheless, the book received mixed reviews from critics, including both religious and atheist commentators. [28] In the London Review of Books , Terry Eagleton accused Richard Dawkins of not doing proper research into the topic of his work, religion, and further agreed with critics who accused Dawkins of committing straw man fallacies against theists. [29]

Oxford theologian Alister McGrath (author of The Dawkins Delusion? and Dawkins' God ) argues that Dawkins is ignorant of Christian theology, and therefore unable to engage religion and faith intelligently. [30] Dawkins had an extended debate with McGrath at the 2007 Sunday Times Literary Festival. [31]

In Why there almost certainly is a God: Doubting Dawkins, philosopher Keith Ward claims that Dawkins mis-stated the five ways, and thus responds with a straw man. For example, for the fifth Way, Dawkins places it in the same position for his criticism as the Watchmaker analogy- when in fact, according to Ward, they are vastly different arguments. Ward defended the utility of the five ways (for instance, on the fourth argument he states that all possible smells must pre-exist in the mind of God, but that God, being by his nature non-physical, does not himself stink) whilst pointing out that they only constitute a proof of God if one first begins with a proposition that the universe can be rationally understood. Nevertheless, he argues that they are useful in allowing us to understand what God will be like given this initial presupposition. [32]

Eastern Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart says that Dawkins "devoted several pages of The God Delusion to a discussion of the 'Five Ways' of Thomas Aquinas but never thought to avail himself of the services of some scholar of ancient and mediaeval thought who might have explained them to him ... As a result, he not only mistook the Five Ways for Thomas's comprehensive statement on why we should believe in God, which they most definitely are not, but ended up completely misrepresenting the logic of every single one of them, and at the most basic levels." [33]

Christian philosopher Keith Ward, in his 2006 book Is Religion Dangerous? , argues against the view of Dawkins and others that religion is socially dangerous.

Ethicist Margaret Somerville [34] suggested that Dawkins "overstates the case against religion", [35] particularly its role in human conflict.

Many of Dawkins' defenders claim that critics generally misunderstand his real point. During a debate on Radio 3 Hong Kong, David Nicholls, writer and president of the Atheist Foundation of Australia, reiterated Dawkins' sentiments that religion is an "unnecessary" aspect of global problems. [36] Dawkins argues that "the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis like any other". [37] He disagrees with Stephen Jay Gould's principle of nonoverlapping magisteria (NOMA). In an interview with the Time magazine, Dawkins said:

I think that Gould's separate compartments was a purely political ploy to win middle-of-the-road religious people to the science camp. But it's a very empty idea. There are plenty of places where religion does not keep off the scientific turf. Any belief in miracles is flat contradictory not just to the facts of science but to the spirit of science. [38]

Astrophysicist Martin Rees has suggested that Dawkins' attack on mainstream religion is unhelpful. [39] Regarding Rees' claim in his book Our Cosmic Habitat that "such questions lie beyond science; however, they are the province of philosophers and theologians", Dawkins asks "what expertise can theologians bring to deep cosmological questions that scientists cannot?" [40] [41] Elsewhere, Dawkins has written that "there's all the difference in the world between a belief that one is prepared to defend by quoting evidence and logic, and a belief that is supported by nothing more than tradition, authority or revelation." [42]

Debate

On 3 October 2007, John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, publicly debated Richard Dawkins at the University of Alabama at Birmingham on Dawkins' views as expressed in The God Delusion, and their validity over and against the Christian faith. [43] [44] [45] "The God Delusion Debate" marked Dawkins' first visit to the Old South and the first significant discussion on this issue in the "Bible Belt". [46] The event was sold out, and The Wall Street Journal called it "a revelation: in Alabama, a civil debate over God's existence." [47] [48] Dawkins debated Lennox for the second time at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History in October 2008. The debate was titled "Has Science Buried God?", in which Dawkins used a form of an Eddington concession[ clarification needed ] in saying that, although he would not accept it, a reasonably respectable case could be made for "a deistic god, a sort of god of the physicist, a god of somebody like Paul Davies, who devised the laws of physics, god the mathematician, god who put together the cosmos in the first place and then sat back and watched everything happen" but not for a theistic god. [49] [50] [51] [52] Several days later, in a public debate in Inverness, Scotland, John Lennox used this part of Dawkins' speech out of context claiming that "Dawkins now believes that a good case can be made for deism", which Dawkins refuted in his conference in Atlanta, describing Lennox as insincere. [53] [54]

Reviews and responses

Sales

The book was ranked second on the Amazon best-sellers' list in November 2006. [70] The God Delusion has been translated into 35 languages. [3]

Awards

For The God Delusion, Dawkins was named Author of the Year at the 2007 British Book Awards. The Giordano Bruno Foundation awarded the 2007 Deschner Prize to Dawkins for the "outstanding contribution to strengthen secular, scientific, and humanistic thinking" in his book. [71]

Responding books

Many books have been written in response to The God Delusion. [72] For example:

In Turkey, where the book had sold at least 6,000 copies, [73] a prosecutor launched a probe into whether The God Delusion was "an attack on holy values", following a complaint in November 2007. If convicted, the Turkish publisher and translator, Erol Karaaslan, would have faced a prison sentence of inciting religious hatred and insulting religious values. [74] In April 2008, the court acquitted the defendant. In ruling out the need to confiscate copies of the book, the presiding judge stated that banning it "would fundamentally limit the freedom of thought". [75]

Dawkins' website, richarddawkins.net, was banned in Turkey later that year after complaints from Islamic creationist Adnan Oktar (Harun Yahya) for alleged defamation. [76] By July 2011, the ban had been lifted. [77]

Editions

English

List of editions in English:

Translations

The book has been officially translated into many different languages, such as Spanish, German, Italian, and Turkish. Dawkins has also promoted unofficial translations of the book in languages such as Arabic [78] and Bengali. [79] There are also Telugu and Tamil translations of the book. The Richard Dawkins Foundation offers free translations in Arabic, Urdu, Farsi, and Indonesian. [80]

Non-exhaustive list of international editions:

Interviews

See also

Related Research Articles

Faith is confidence or trust in a person, thing, or concept. In the context of religion, faith is "belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion". According to the Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, faith has multiple definitions, including "something that is believed especially with strong conviction", "complete trust", "belief and trust in and loyalty to God", as well as "a firm belief in something for which there is no proof".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Dawkins</span> English evolutionary biologist and author (born 1941)

Richard Dawkins is a British evolutionary biologist, zoologist, science communicator and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. His 1976 book The Selfish Gene popularised the gene-centred view of evolution, as well as coining the term meme. Dawkins has won several academic and writing awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Ruse</span> Canadian philosopher of science (born 1940)

Michael Ruse is a British-born Canadian philosopher of science who specializes in the philosophy of biology and works on the relationship between science and religion, the creation–evolution controversy, and the demarcation problem within science. Ruse currently teaches at Florida State University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alister McGrath</span> Northern Irish theologian, Anglican priest, and academic (born 1953)

Alister Edgar McGrath is a Northern Irish theologian, Anglican priest, intellectual historian, scientist, Christian apologist, and public intellectual. He currently holds the Andreas Idreos Professorship in Science and Religion in the Faculty of Theology and Religion, and is a fellow of Harris Manchester College at the University of Oxford, and is Professor of Divinity at Gresham College. He was previously Professor of Theology, Ministry, and Education at King's College London and Head of the Centre for Theology, Religion and Culture, Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Oxford, and was principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, until 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sam Harris</span> American philosopher and neuroscientist (born 1967)

Samuel Benjamin Harris is an American philosopher, neuroscientist, author, and podcast host. His work touches on a range of topics, including rationality, religion, ethics, free will, neuroscience, meditation, psychedelics, philosophy of mind, politics, terrorism, and artificial intelligence. Harris came to prominence for his criticism of religion, and is known as one of the "Four Horsemen" of New Atheism, along with Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett.

<i>The Root of All Evil?</i> 2006 documentary film directed by Richard Dawkins

The Root of All Evil?, later retitled The God Delusion, is a television documentary written and presented by Richard Dawkins in which he argues that humanity would be better off without religion or belief in God.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russell's teapot</span> Analogy devised by Bertrand Russell

Russell's teapot is an analogy, formulated by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making empirically unfalsifiable claims, as opposed to shifting the burden of disproof to others.

Criticism of atheism is criticism of the concepts, validity, or impact of atheism, including associated political and social implications. Criticisms include positions based on the history of science, philosophical and logical criticisms, findings in both the natural and social sciences, theistic apologetic arguments, arguments pertaining to ethics and morality, the effects of atheism on the individual, or the assumptions that underpin atheism.

<i>Letter to a Christian Nation</i> 2006 book by Sam Harris

Letter to a Christian Nation is a 2006 book by Sam Harris, written in response to feedback he received following the publication of his first book The End of Faith. The book is written in the form of an open letter to a Christian in the United States. Harris states that his aim is "to demolish the intellectual and moral pretensions of Christianity in its most committed forms." In October it entered the New York Times Best Seller list at number seven.

"Go God Go" is the twelfth episode in the tenth season of the American animated television series South Park. The 151st episode of the series overall, it originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on November 1, 2006. The episode is the first in a two-part story arc, which concludes with "Go God Go XII".

Pharyngula, a blog founded and written by PZ Myers, is hosted on ScienceBlogs and on FreeThoughtBlogs (2011–present). In 2006 the science journal Nature listed it as the top-ranked blog written by a scientist based on popularity. The blog addresses a range of topics, including Myers's academic specialty, biology. It has become particularly well known for Myers's writing style and for his criticism of intelligent design and creationism. In 2009, Hemant Mehta ranked Pharyngula the most popular atheist blog, based on subscriber levels and other factors.

The Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit is a counter-argument to modern versions of the argument from design for the existence of God. It was introduced by Richard Dawkins in chapter 4 of his 2006 book The God Delusion, "Why there almost certainly is no God".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science</span> Non-profit organization

The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science is a division of Center for Inquiry (CFI) founded by British biologist Richard Dawkins in 2006 to promote scientific literacy and secularism.

<i>The Dawkins Delusion?</i> Book by theologian Alister McGrath

The Dawkins Delusion? Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine is a book by the theologian Alister McGrath and the psychologist Joanna Collicutt McGrath. It is written from a Christian perspective as a response to arguments put forth in The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. The work was published in the United Kingdom in February 2007 by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and in the United States in July 2007.

<i>Darwins Angel</i> 2007 book by John Cornwell

Darwin's Angel is a book published in response to Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. It was written by John Cornwell and subtitled An Angelic Riposte to The God Delusion.

Secular morality is the aspect of philosophy that deals with morality outside of religious traditions. Modern examples include humanism, freethinking, and most versions of consequentialism. Additional philosophies with ancient roots include those such as skepticism and virtue ethics. Greg M. Epstein also states that, "much of ancient Far Eastern thought is deeply concerned with human goodness without placing much if any stock in the importance of gods or spirits." An example is the Kural text of Valluvar, an ancient Indian theistic poet-philosopher whose work remains secular and non-denominational. Other philosophers have proposed various ideas about how to determine right and wrong actions. An example is Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Lennox</span> Northern Irish mathematician and philosopher of science

John Carson Lennox is an Irish mathematician, bioethicist, and Christian apologist originally from Northern Ireland. He has written many books on religion, ethics, the relationship between science and God, and has had public debates with atheists including Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.

The term New Atheism describes the positions of some atheist academics, writers, scientists, and philosophers of the 20th and 21st centuries. New Atheism advocates the view that superstition, religion, and irrationalism should not be tolerated. Instead, they advocate the antitheist view that the various forms of theism should be criticised, countered, examined, and challenged by rational argument, especially when they exert strong influence on the broader society, such as in government, education, and politics. Critics have characterised New Atheism as "secular fundamentalism" or "fundamentalist atheism". Major figures of New Atheism include Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett, collectively referred to as the "Four Horsemen" of the movement.

The courtier's reply is an alleged type of informal fallacy, coined by American biologist PZ Myers, in which a respondent to criticism claims that the critic lacks sufficient knowledge, credentials, or training to pose any sort of criticism whatsoever. It may be considered an inverted form of argument from authority, where a person without authority disagreeing with authority is presumed incorrect prima facie.

<i>The Irrational Atheist</i> 2008 book by Vox Day

The Irrational Atheist: Dissecting the Unholy Trinity of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens is a 2008 non-fiction book by Vox Day, an American far-right activist, writer, musician, publisher, and video game designer. Day describes himself as a Christian nationalist. The Irrational Atheist was one of a number of books including God's Undertaker, and The Devil's Delusion, published in response to Dawkins and other New Atheists.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Dawkins, Richard (2006). The God Delusion . Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p.  406. ISBN   0-618-68000-4.; "Preface on-line" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 February 2008.(101 KB)
  2. ↑ "Hardcover Nonfiction – New York Times". The New York Times. 3 December 2006. Archived from the original on 12 May 2013. Retrieved 2 December 2006.
  3. 1 2 Richard Dawkins, Brief Candle in the Dark: My Life in Science , Bantam Press, 2015, page 173 ( ISBN   978-0-59307-256-1).
  4. ↑ "Richard Dawkins and Matt Dillahunty in Conversation". 4 February 2012. Archived from the original on 21 November 2020. Retrieved 16 April 2018– via YouTube.
  5. ↑ The God Delusion, page 51.
  6. ↑ Richard Dawkins, Brief Candle in the Dark: My Life in Science , Bantam Press, 2015, page 171 ( ISBN   978-0-59307-256-1).
  7. ↑ Dawkins, Richard. "Richard Dawkins explains his latest book". RichardDawkins.net. Archived from the original on 13 October 2007. Retrieved 14 September 2007.
  8. ↑ Weitzel, Robert. "Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris: The Unholy Trinity... Thank God". Atlantic Free Press. Archived from the original on 15 September 2007. Retrieved 14 September 2007.
  9. ↑ Smith, David (12 August 2007). "Believe it or not: the sceptics beat God in bestseller battle". The Observer. London. Archived from the original on 21 November 2020. Retrieved 5 October 2007.
  10. ↑ Dawkins 2006, p. 7.
  11. ↑ Dawkins 2006, pp. 9–27.
  12. ↑ Dawkins 2006, p. 31.
  13. ↑ Dawkins 2006, p. 50.
  14. ↑ Dawkins 2006, p. 77.
  15. ↑ Dawkins 2006, p. 114.
  16. ↑ This interpretation of the argument is based on the reviews by Daniel Dennett and PZ Myers.
  17. ↑ Dawkins 2006, p. 158.
  18. 1 2 Dawkins 2006, pp. 151–161.
  19. ↑ Dawkins 2006, pp. 147–150.
  20. ↑ Dawkins 2006 , p. 188: "The general theory of religion as an accidental by-product – a misfiring of something useful – is the one I wish to advocate"
  21. ↑ Dawkins 2006 , p. 191: "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 five sections of Chapter 5)
  22. ↑ Having given some examples of what he considers to be the brutish morality of the Old Testament, Dawkins writes, "Of course, irritated theologians will protest that we don't take the book of Genesis literally any more. But that is my whole point! We pick and choose which bits of scripture to believe, which bits to write off as symbols and allegories." Dawkins 2006 , p. 238
  23. ↑ He gives examples of cases where blasphemy laws have been used to sentence people to death, and when funerals of gays or gay sympathisers have been picketed. Dawkins states preachers in the southern portions of the United States used the Bible to justify slavery by claiming Africans were descendants of Noah's sinful son Ham. During the Crusades, pagans and heretics who would not convert to Christianity were murdered. In an extreme example from modern times, he cites the case of Reverend Paul Hill, who revelled in his self-styled martyrdom: "I expect a great reward in heaven... I am looking forward to glory," he announced as he faced execution for murdering a doctor who performed abortions in Florida, US.
  24. ↑ Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, Black Swan, 2007, page 294 ( ISBN   978-0-552-77429-1).
  25. ↑ "The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins: Reviews". Metacritic. Archived from the original on 18 February 2008. Retrieved 13 March 2008.
  26. ↑ "The God Delusion By Richard Dawkins". Bookmarks. Archived from the original on 9 September 2015. Retrieved 14 January 2023.
  27. ↑ "Winners & Shortlists 2007". Galaxy British Book Awards. Archived from the original on 24 April 2008. Retrieved 12 September 2007.
  28. ↑ David Bentley Hart. "Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies". New Haven, CT: Yale University Press 2009. Archived from the original on 6 June 2011. Retrieved 24 July 2009.
  29. ↑ Eagleton, Terry (19 October 2006). "Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching: The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins". London Review of Books. 28 (20). Archived from the original on 10 March 2010. Retrieved 7 March 2010.
  30. ↑ McGrath, Alister (2004). Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life. Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishing. p.  81. ISBN   1-4051-2538-1.
  31. ↑ Cole, Judith (26 March 2007). "Richard Dawkins at The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival". The Times. London. Archived from the original on 6 April 2007. Retrieved 4 March 2008.
  32. ↑ Ward, Keith (2008). Why there almost certainly is a God: Doubting Dawkins. Oxford: Lion Hudson. ISBN   978-0-7459-5330-4.
  33. ↑ David Bentley Hart, The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss. New Haven: Yale University Press: 2013. pp. 21-22. Hart goes on to say "[n]ot knowing the scholastic distinction between primary and secondary causality, for instance, he imagined that Thomas's talk of a 'first cause' referred to the initial temporal causal agency in a continuous temporal series of discrete causes. He thought that Thomas's logic requires the universe to have had a temporal beginning, which Thomas explicitly and repeatedly made clear is not the case. He anachronistically mistook Thomas's argument from universal natural teleology for an argument from apparent 'Intelligent Design' in nature. He thought Thomas's proof from universal 'motion' concerned only physical movement in space, 'local motion,' rather than the ontological movement from potency to act. He mistook Thomas's argument from degrees of transcendental perfection for an argument from degrees of quantitative magnitude, which by definition have no perfect sum. (Admittedly, those last two are a bit difficult for modern persons, but he might have asked all the same.)"
  34. ↑ Huxley, John (24 May 2007). "Aiming for knockout blow in god wars". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 26 May 2007. Retrieved 27 May 2007.
  35. ↑ Easterbrook, Gregg. "Does God Believe in Richard Dawkins?". Beliefnet. Archived from the original on 9 May 2007. Retrieved 26 May 2007.
  36. ↑ "Is God a Delusion?". Radio 3, Hong Kong. 4 April 2007. Archived from the original on 30 April 2008. Retrieved 8 February 2011.
  37. ↑ Dawkins 2006 , p.  50
  38. ↑ Van Biema, David (5 November 2006). "God vs. Science (3)". Time. Archived from the original on 11 February 2012. Retrieved 3 April 2008.
  39. ↑ Jha, Alok (29 May 2007). "Scientists divided over alliance with religion". The Guardian. UK. Archived from the original on 19 July 2008. Retrieved 17 March 2008.
  40. ↑ Dawkins, Richard (2006). "When Religion Steps on Science's Turf". Free Inquiry magazine. Archived from the original on 19 April 2008. Retrieved 3 April 2008.
  41. ↑ Dawkins 2006 , pp.  55–56
  42. ↑ Dawkins, Richard (January–February 1997). "Is Science a Religion?". American Humanist Association. Archived from the original on 30 October 2012. Retrieved 15 March 2008.
  43. ↑ "The God Delusion Debate (Dawkins-Lennox)". Fixed Point Foundation. Archived from the original on 17 August 2009. Retrieved 10 November 2009.
  44. ↑ Joanna Sugden (4 October 2007). "Richard Dawkins Debates in the Bible Belt". The Times. UK. Archived from the original on 29 April 2011. Retrieved 10 November 2009.
  45. ↑ Kristen Record (4 October 2007). "Scholars match wits over God's existence". The Birmingham News. Archived from the original on 25 June 2009. Retrieved 10 November 2009.
  46. ↑ "Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox". RichardDawkins.net. Archived from the original on 23 August 2009. Retrieved 10 November 2009.
  47. ↑ Naomi Schaefer Riley (12 October 2007). "A Revelation: In Alabama, A Civil Debate Over God's Existence". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 21 January 2010. Retrieved 10 November 2009.
  48. ↑ Video of The God Delusion Debate (Dawkins – Lennox).
  49. ↑ "Has Science Buried God?". Fixed Point Foundation. Archived from the original on 30 December 2009. Retrieved 1 February 2010.
  50. ↑ Melanie Phillips (23 October 2008). "Is Richard Dawkins Still Evolving?". The Spectator. UK. Archived from the original on 4 April 2010. Retrieved 1 February 2010.
  51. ↑ "Has Science Buried God?". BBC Oxford. 15 October 2008. Archived from the original on 9 January 2017. Retrieved 1 February 2010.
  52. ↑ "video of 11 minutes of the "Has Science Buried God?" debate". 22 October 2009. Archived from the original on 21 November 2020. Retrieved 16 April 2018– via YouTube.
  53. ↑ ""Lying for Jesus" – Richard Dawkins at American Atheist (AA) Conference in Atlanta". 2 May 2009. Archived from the original on 18 January 2022. Retrieved 28 January 2022– via YouTube.
  54. ↑ "Richard Dawkins: On The God Delusion in retrospect". 2 December 2021. Archived from the original on 16 December 2021. Retrieved 28 January 2022– via YouTube.
  55. ↑ Alvin Plantinga (2007). "The Dawkins Confusion – Naturalism ad absurdum" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 December 2015. Retrieved 5 November 2015.
  56. ↑ Kenny, Anthony (July 2007). "Knowledge, Belief, and Faith". Philosophy. 82 (3): 381–397. doi:10.1017/S0031819107000010. S2CID   171028155.
  57. ↑ Nagel, Thomas (23 October 2006). "The Fear of Religion". The New Republic . Archived from the original on 20 December 2009. Retrieved 12 September 2007.
  58. ↑ Michael Ruse (December 2007). "Richard Dawkins: The God Delusion". Isis. 98 (4): 814–816. doi:10.1086/529280.
  59. ↑ Swinburne, Richard. "Response to Richard Dawkins' comments on my writings in his book The God Delusion" (PDF). Retrieved 10 March 2010.
  60. ↑ McGrath, Alister (2007). The Dawkins Delusion?. SPCK. p. 20. Also expressed in his review "The Dawkins Delusion".
  61. ↑ H. Allen Orr (January 2007). "A Mission to Convert". The New York Review of Books. 54 (1). Archived from the original on 3 March 2007. Retrieved 3 March 2007.
  62. ↑ Terry Eagleton (19 October 2006). "Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching". London Review of Books. 28 (20). Archived from the original on 21 February 2012. Retrieved 26 November 2006.
  63. ↑ Antony Flew. "Flew Speaks Out: Professor Antony Flew reviews The God Delusion". bethinking.org. Archived from the original on 11 October 2008. Retrieved 25 December 2008.
  64. ↑ Martin Beckford (2 August 2008). "Richard Dawkins branded 'secularist bigot' by veteran philosopher". The Daily Telegraph. UK. Archived from the original on 14 April 2015. Retrieved 29 December 2008.
  65. ↑ Murrough O'Brien, "Our Teapot, which art in heaven," Archived 1 July 2017 at the Wayback Machine The Independent, 26 November 2006
  66. ↑ Dawkins, Richard (17 September 2007). "Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?". RichardDawkins.net. Archived from the original on 6 January 2014. Retrieved 14 November 2007.
  67. ↑ Marilynne Robinson. "The God Delusion". solutions.synearth.net. Archived from the original on 12 March 2010. Retrieved 4 April 2010.
  68. ↑ Simon Watson (Spring 2010). "Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion and Atheist Fundamentalism". Anthropoetics: The Journal of Generative Anthropology 15, no. 2. Archived from the original on 7 July 2010. Retrieved 14 August 2010.
  69. ↑ William Lane Craig. "Dawkins' Delusion". Archived from the original on 26 August 2014. Retrieved 22 August 2014.
  70. ↑ Jamie Doward (29 October 2006). "Atheists top book charts by deconstructing God". The Observer. London. Archived from the original on 8 December 2006. Retrieved 25 November 2006.
  71. ↑ "Deschner Prize to Richard Dawkins". giordano-bruno-stiftung.de. June 2007. Archived from the original on 21 November 2020. Retrieved 22 September 2020.
  72. ↑ "Two new fleas are discovered!". The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. 5 October 2008. Archived from the original on 12 May 2015. Retrieved 21 December 2012.
  73. ↑ Tiryaki, Sylvia (3 December 2007). "The God Delusion in Turkey". Turkish Daily News. Archived from the original on 21 November 2020. Retrieved 18 February 2008.
  74. ↑ "Turkey probes atheist's 'God' book". Associated Press, CNN. 28 November 2007. Archived from the original on 29 November 2007. Retrieved 28 November 2007.
  75. ↑ "'Tanrı Yanılgısı' kitabı beraat etti" (in Turkish). AA. 2 April 2008. Archived from the original on 5 April 2008. Retrieved 2 April 2008.
  76. ↑ "Turkey bans biologist Richard Dawkins' website – Monsters and Critics". Archived from the original on 18 September 2009. Retrieved 27 October 2009.
  77. ↑ "RD.net no longer banned in Turkey!". RichardDawkins.net. July 2011. Archived from the original on 5 November 2011. Retrieved 6 August 2011.
  78. ↑ Rachael Black (10 November 2014). "The God Delusion | Richard Dawkins Foundation". Richarddawkins.net. Archived from the original on 22 December 2015. Retrieved 16 April 2018.
  79. ↑ Stephanie (27 July 2015). "The God Delusion (Bengali Translation) | Richard Dawkins Foundation". Richarddawkins.net. Archived from the original on 22 December 2015. Retrieved 16 April 2018.
  80. ↑ "The Translation Project". Archived from the original on 30 May 2020. Retrieved 18 May 2020.
  81. ↑ "The God Delusion". modernrationalist.com. Archived from the original on 13 January 2016. Retrieved 1 November 2015.

Further reading

Chronological order of publication (oldest first)

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.