The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

Date Published: 2006, Mariner Books.
ISBN: 0-618-91824-8
# of Pages: 463


This book was technically assigned for a philosophy class I'm taking this semester (PHIL 103: Philosophy of Religion). However, I had read 3/4ths of it prior to taking the class and only began with the beginning again so that I could stay on track with the class.

Somehow I had managed to avoid reading this book for years, even after having been well-acquainted with Sam Harris and Dan Barker and a menagerie of other writers affiliated with "new atheism". Even though Richard Dawkins is generally considered the go-to guy for the new atheist ~thing~ I had found other reasons to read other books by other writers and only got around to reading Dawkins because I had felt that I should be familiar with his stuff.

I really wasn't disappointed with him at all, even though I had heard a lot of negative things. He wasn't at all belligerent or "angry" and I thought that whatever aggression he might be said to have was perfectly well-justified considering his level of commitment and passion for reason and science. He sees religion as a force that negatively affects individuals and society by causing psychological harm and preventing progress in science and medicine.

He had a number of things which he labeled "consciousness-raisers" that I thought were especially useful. Amongst those was knowledge about evolution, which goes without saying I think, but he also had a very sobering reminder about how we indoctrinate children to associate with beliefs that they do not even possess the faculties to fully grasp. "I want everybody to flinch whenever we hear a phrase such as 'Catholic child' or 'Muslim child'. Speak of a 'child of Catholic parents' if you like; but if you hear anybody speak of a 'Catholic child', stop them and politely point out that children are too young to know where they stand on such issues, just as they are too young to know where they stand on economics or politics." (25) He, in fact, even has a an entire chapter about religion as a form of child abuse and a particularly compelling anecdote about a woman who recalls being touched inappropriately by a priest as a child and who, around the same time, had a good friend of a different religion pass away -- and spending many sleepless nights thinking about how, according to the doctrines of her religion, her friend was now spending an eternity in hell.

I think these are arguments regarding the negative affects of religion that often go unappreciated. I find them sort of beside-the-point when discussing the existence of God (and Dawkins does a very good job, I think, of knocking down some commonly used arguments in favor of his existence) but I think one of the main things that prevent people from thinking about these issues critically is that they think they are not affected by them.

We had a student in the class the other day say that he "just doesn't care" about religion, as long as it doesn't affect him -- because he doesn't think it's possible to change anybody's mind about it. Unfortunately, many people are elected to public office and hold positions of power based solely on having the "correct" religious affiliation, and their influence on our policies have an enormous affect on all of our lives, whether we believe in God or not.

And we also had a student in the class say that she had been on the fence prior to reading the book and that the book knocked her squarely on the side of atheism, so I think that says something for the power of intelligent debate.