The God Delusion

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

Synopsis

Dawkins begins his book by setting out exactly what it is that he is attacking. He is not attacking what he terms “Einsteinian religion”, whereby some scientists use the word “God” as a metaphor for nature or the mysteries of the universe. He is specifically criticising belief in supernatural gods. He goes on by making the point that religion has a privileged immunity against criticism which it does not deserve, quoting Douglas Adams to illustrate his 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 a belief in supernatural gods 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.

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, demonstrating that they are all vacuous, with the exception of the argument from design.

Dawkins continues in chapter 4 by arguing that evolution by natural selection can be used to demonstrate that the argument from design is wrong. A hypothetical cosmic designer would require an even greater explanation than the phenomena He is intended to explain. 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 uses the theory of memes, and human susceptibility to religious memes in particular, 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 argues 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, citing how 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

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)
The God hypothesis ("The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next." – Ralph Waldo Emerson)
Arguments for God's existence ("A professorship of theology should have no place in our institution." – Thomas Jefferson)
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)
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)
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)
The 'Good' Book and the changing moral zeitgeist ("Politics has slain its thousands, but religion has slain its tens of thousands." – Sean O'Casey)
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)
Childhood, abuse and the escape from religion ("There is in every village a torch – the teacher: and an extinguisher – the clergyman." – Victor Hugo).
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".

Criticism

Andrew Brown, writing for the Prospect [1], criticizes apparent selectivity in Dawkins' advocacy of free speech:

He [Dawkins] quotes later in [The God Delusion] approvingly and at length a speech by his friend Nicholas Humphrey which argued that, "We should no more allow parents to teach their children to believe, for example, in the literal truth of the Bible or that planets rule their lives, than we should allow parents to knock their children's teeth out." But of course, it's not interfering with free speech when atheists do it.'

Brown also criticises Dawkins' claim that suicide bombers are caused by religious schools. Brown, citing a study by Chicago-based professor Robert Pape, contends that 'religious zealotry is not on its own sufficient to produce suicide bombers', further noting that the tactic has been used by non-religious groups, such as Marxist guerillas in Sri Lanka. [2]

Dawkins has been criticised by John Cornwell, Catholic historian and author of Hitler's Pope, for his lack of religious reading in preparation for the book. Cornwell notes that, though his bibliography cites numerous sources for evolutionary theory and the history thereof, very few religious texts or text concerning religion are noted: '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' . Cornwall also complains about Dawkins' negative tendency: '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.' [3]

The physicist Lawrence M. Krauss has noted the comparative futility of an unrelenting attack upon people's beliefs compared with 'positively demonstrating how the wonders of nature can suggest a world without God that is nevertheless both complete and wonderful' [4]. This is a possibility that Dawkins leaves only to the last pages of the book.

Reviews

External links

Description of The God Delusion at the official website of the Richard Dawkins Foundation
Newsnight Book Club - Extracts from The God Delusion.
Video interview with Dawkins - Talk about his views on various religions and The God Delusion.