"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a mysogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."

– Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (page 52; paperback edition)

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As you may have guessed from the above quotation, I read Professor Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion.

Before I continue, I want to thank In_Reason_I_Trust and Zerowing21. After reading some of their entries, I was motivated to read this book (and hopefully others like it in the future). I’ve been reading many people’s Xanga blogs about religion recently and enjoying every moment of it. If I have read something you wrote about religion, even if I have not mentioned your name here, I would like to thank you. There aren’t many people I can talk to in person about religion, so the internet is my main source of conversation on the topic and books are my main source of information about it.

I think religion is a very interesting and thought-provoking topic. I love to read books containing religious satire. Works such as Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series (a trilogy in five parts), Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, Robert A. Heinlein’s Job: A Comedy of Justice, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, and Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court come to mind. I enjoyed all of these immensely. By reading these books (and others like them, which contain a serious topic underneath the fantasy/science fiction) I have an opportunity to think about the topic itself, in a fictional setting, and draw my own conclusions about its relation to the real world.

While I usually read fiction and enjoy religious satire, I thought it would be a good idea to read some non-fiction books on the topic of religion. I thought this book would be a good place to start.

Now, after that much-too-long introduction, on to my review...

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I find Professor Dawkins’ scientific approach to religion very interesting. (I guess this makes sense, since he’s a scientist.) Whether he’s writing about the origins of religion, the likelihood of god’s existence, or the effects of religion, he always includes scientific arguments, which I think strengthen the overall effect of his book.

While Professor Dawkins is first explaining The God Hypothesis, he mentions NOMA (non-overlapping magisteria), which (he explains) is the idea that science and religion are separate and that, therefore, science cannot comment on the validity of religion. He disagrees with this, stating, "[A] universe with a creative superintendent would be a very different kind of universe from one without. Why is that not a scientific matter?" (78) I think this is a very good point. After all, if the universe was created by an all-powerful, all-knowing, and benevolent god, then why do we see so many things in the world that contradict this idea? I used to agree with the idea that science and religion were separate, but I had been having doubts about that for a while, and I think that this book finally convinced me.

A little bit later, Professor Dawkins makes another statement which I found particularly amusing and which I thought rang true. After explaining that there are people who claim science can’t comment on religion or morals, he writes, "NOMA is popular only because there is no evidence in favor of the God Hypothesis. The moment there was the smallest suggestion of any evidence in favor of religious belief, religious apologists would lose no time in throwing NOMA out of the window" (83). I think this is an excellent point. If science and religion should be forever separate, then why do some religious people try to find scientific proof of god (or creation)? When there is little or no evidence, why do they hold on to faith? If a person wants to claim that a hypothesis has scientific support, he/she has to be willing to admit that the hypothesis is wrong if it turns out there is no scientific support. It’s unfair to only selectively look at the evidence which supports a hypothesis and ignore any evidence against it. If we want to treat the idea of god as a hypothesis, then we have to say that we don’t definitely know the answer until we find evidence; until evidence is found, it’s hypocritical to preach it in churches and teach it to children in religious schools as it is an absolute fact.

Concerning the probability of god’s existence, Professor Dawkins refutes several of the arguments for god’s existence. He then explains why the existence of god is unlikely. My personal opinion on the existence of a god has changed throughout the years. I’ve thought about it a lot, but more than anything, I want to know. This is why I found Dawkins’ scientific approach so wonderful to read. He makes it clear that although we are not absolutely one hundred percent sure that god either does or does not exist, it is more probable that god does not exist, given what we do know about the universe.

He explains that while people are technically agnostic, we are atheists in practice. While I have had doubt about god’s existence for many years, I used to think that atheists were perhaps being as dogmatic as theists by saying that there is no god, but what Professor Dawkins explained caused me to change my views. I realized that (to use an analogy) god is like extraterrestrial life. We technically do not know if there are aliens on other planets. Until we find out that there are, we act as if they are not there. We do not take their imagined opinions into account when we make decisions in our lives and make laws in our governments.

In the chapter on the roots of religion, Professor Dawkins’s knowledge (and apparent love) of biology plays a major role. He speculates about why so many people, around the world, believe in god. He doesn’t think that religion itself was preserved in evolution, but suggests the idea that maybe religion is a byproduct (a "misfiring") of something else that was preserved in evolution.

I admittedly don’t know enough about biology or evolution to judge the validity of this statement, but I found it very interesting. I’ve heard religious people use the argument that religion has been a part of every society as an argument in its favor. I’ve never found this convincing, because the popularity of an idea does not necessarily mean it is true. (Plus, there’s the fact that there have been many different religions, which does not support the argument that one of them is true while all the other are false, since no one religion has any more evidence than the others.) Professor Dawkins’ suggestion could explain why religion is found in so many societies and why it is so resilient in the face of challenges.

The professor also tackles the question Can we be good without god? While some might say "no," he says "yes." Again, he uses science to back up his opinion. He write about altruism from an evolutionary point of view, which I found fascinating.

In a chapter which I particularly enjoyed, Dawkins continues his discussion of morals and explains why the "good book" is not really a good guide to morality at all. He makes some very good points, some of which I’d also thought of on my own (but which he expresses more eloquently than I can) and many of which I had not considered before. .

A passage I particularly enjoyed was when Dawkins discusses his interview with Reverend Michael Bray, who claimed that the reason Christians are against homosexuality is because god will destroy an entire town that has some homosexuals and thereby also kill innocent people. Professor Dawkins writes about this, "You’d think an omnipotent God would adopt a slightly more targeted approach to zapping sinners: a judicious heart attack, perhaps, rather than the wholesale destruction of an entire city just because it happened to be the domicile of one lesbian comedian" (270-1). Reading this made me smile, because (despite the reverend’s horrible attitude) Dawkins has expressed something I’ve always thought. Wouldn’t god be able to only punish those who did something he found offensive without killing other people? He is supposedly omnipotent after all. Unlike Mr. Dawkins, who used a physical ailment as an example, I’ve always imagined the extremists’ god sitting up in Heaven with a sniper rifle. (I’ve been watching too much Family Guy, which once had a reference to The God Delusion in one of its episodes.)

He also points out the fact that religion sometimes motivates people to do horrible things. I think this is very true. Instead of looking out at the world and deciding what to do based on the consequences, some people follow arbitrary rules from holy books. These rules sometimes have disastrous consequences, because many of them put forward the idea that one group is special while all others should be persecuted or have fewer rights.

One of the parts that really made me think was Chapter 9, which is entitled Childhood, Abuse and the Escape From Religion. In it, Dawkins argues that indoctrinating children into believing religion and labeling children with the religion of their parents is wrong.

In this chapter, Dawkins also discusses the importance of education, especially the evolution vs. intelligent design debate. One great point he makes is that supporters of intelligent design don’t have science to back up their claims. I definitely agree with him on this; intelligent design does not belong in schools, because it’s just creationism dressed up to look like science.

I have always had mixed feeling on the topic of parents teaching their kids religion. On the one hand, I respect other people’s rights and understand each person will want to teach their kids about their own beliefs. On the other hand, I also believe that children should have access to information and that it is not possible to label a child with a certain religion unless/until they have reached that decision on their own after actually learning about that religion. Children (and adults) should be able to learn actual science and also learn about different beliefs other than their family’s so that they can make their own decisions. After all, they may be kids now, but they will one day be adults with responsibilities. They will be allowed to vote make many decisions that will affect both their own lives and the lives of those around them. What they believe will affect their actions. They cannot make informed decisions if the information they have been given is false or incomplete.

To say that the parents’ right to teach and/or indoctrinate their kids is more important than the kids’ right to make their own decisions later in life is misguided. Now, before someone accuses me of wanting to kidnap children and indoctrinate them, I am not suggesting that religious people should not be allowed to have kids or that kids should be taken away by the government if their parents are religious. I am suggesting that the government should not help people of a certain faith teach religion to their kids. For example, if a parent decides that certain books will not be allowed in their house, that’s their decision. However, the government cannot ban these books just because some religious group finds them offensive. Those books should still be available in libraries, and if a child wants to disobey his/her parents by reading them, the government cannot step in and enforce religious beliefs on the child.

In fact, I’ll go even further and say that kids reading books that their parents disapprove of can be a good thing. If I only read books that my parents agreed with, then I would not have read The God Delusion. I would also not be reading The Bible.

(To read some very interesting information about censorship please go to Judy Blume’s Website. There are six separate articles on censorship. I read several of Judy Blume’s books when I was in elementary and middle school without even knowing that they were controversial, and I really enjoyed them. The American Library Association’s Website has several lists of the most frequently challenged books, and it’s my goal to read as many of them as I can.)

Getting back to the book review, throughout The God Delusion, there are quotes by various people, and they all do an excellent job of supporting Dawkins’ argument. This book motivated me to read more about religion and atheism, and these quotes offered a good place to start, since I looked up several of the books they are from. I think that one of the great things about reading is that a really great book will inspire a person to read more, and The God Delusion has certainly done that for me.

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So, I guess this wasn’t as much of a "review" as me just going on about all the things I enjoyed about The God Delusion. I could go on and on, but then this entry would be even longer than it already is. I’d definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading about religion. It not only contains logic, reason, and science; it also offers several good laughs and many thoughtful moments.

Some people have said that Professor Dawkins is shrill or strident – a claim that he responds to in the introduction of the paperback edition of The God Delusion. I don’t think he was mean; In fact, while reading, I kind of felt like I was sitting in an interesting class while a nice and funny professor calmly explained the topic to me.

So, was I convinced by Professor Dawkins? Am I an atheist? You may be asking this. (Or perhaps you are wondering why the world you just wasted your time reading a horrible weblog entry by some annoying college student who doesn’t know what she’s talking about.) I have to admit that I actually think I am. My belief in god has changed many times, and I have had doubt for many years. I have always seen the horrible things done in the name of religion and have been upset about the extremism. I’ve also always supported separation of church and state. Despite that, even after losing my trust in religion, I still used to hold on to a belief in god both for comfort and to explain the unexplained (what I now recognize as the "God of the Gaps" idea). I think that reading this book helped me take the last step into disbelief in god.

By the way, after reading The God Delusion, I also read Christopher Hitchens’ God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything and Sam Harris’ two books End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation. Right now, I’m reading The Portable Atheist. To be fair (to get different sides of the argument) I’m also reading The Bible and The Qur’an. When I love a topic, I dive in headfirst. There are probably many of you here on Xanga who have read more about religion and atheism than I have; if you could recommend any books, I would be very appreciative.

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Works Cited

Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006.