The God Delusion
by Richard Dawkins
Product Details
Paperback: 374 pages
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company
Point: Belief in any supernatural god is ridiculously unscientific, unhelpful, and dangerous to fellow humans.
Path: Chapter 1 – religion has caused lots of problems, but no one is able to talk about it. It is off limits.
Chapter 2 – “any creative intelligence, of sufficient complexity to design anything, comes into existence only as the end product of an extended process of gradual evolution.”
Chapter 3 – all arguments for God fail
Chapter 4 – Argument from improbability – basically a hyped up version of “Who created God?”
Chapter 5 – Answering from where religion comes – a desire, a placebo, a meme? Who can say?
Chapter 6 – “Then why are we good?” 1. We aren’t. 2. Misfiring nerves.
Chapter 7 – The Bible is horrific in its dealings with others. Do you really want to claim that?
Chapter 8 – fundamentalism (believing the Scriptures of your faith) undercuts science, and therefore is unacceptable
Chapter 9 – it is child abuse to bring up a child in a religious upbringing.
Chapter 10 – If there is a gap in every person that needs to be filled, why fill it with God? Why not science, art, human friendship, humanism, etc.?
Sources: Websites, critics, current literature.
Agreement: Religion – as a form of reaching God – is dangerous.
Disagreement: The author is overly infatuated with science. He is caustic and angry. Full of misinterpretations, exaggerations and over generalizations.
Personal App: Evidence will not argue a person into belief. Only the Holy Spirit can change a heart.
Stars: .25 out of 5
I couldn’t stomach most of it.