A surprisingly difficult read; Dawkins is happy to go down various byways that his argument opens up. A lot of readers have criticised his style or authorial voice, finding it "condescending" or "arrogant" (even if they were in agreement with his thesis); at times, I got a sense of what they were reacting to, although it didn't trouble me particularly.

I have slightly non-mainstream theist views (more a suspicion than anything I'd call a belief) and I was surprised to find Dawkins describing something I could agree with and reinforcing my position. There was much else I agreed with, a few things I disagreed with and a lot that, for a book published in 2006 (and revised a year later) was worryingly prescient. (Mainly about American politics.) ( )

Should be required reading. ( )

Good, it's not great (my apologies, Hitch). ( )

(40) This was fascinating. I am late to the party as it was written in 2006, but it certainly has not lost its relevance. Perhaps my favorite quote is from Seneca the Younger who I think lived in antiquity. “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.’ Umm, yeah - that about sums it up.

I think that given Dawkins premise that religion is dangerous and abusive especially to children, he necessarily has to be disrespectful. In fact, his whole first chapter is dedicated to showing us that the special respect we give to religious beliefs is a huge problem. And that is where he probably loses some people. As a Catholic (atheist) who send my children to Catholic school, I should have been horrified. But instead, I feel almost validated. I don’t need to bother with cognitive dissonance. I teach my children to think for themselves, have discussions about comparative religion and science and allegory and culture. It is all not mutually exclusive. I don, t need to reject my cultural heritage, to hold scientific, rational, yet humanistic beliefs. Right. Right? (Though not sure what the priests would say - probably nothing as I write them big checks)

Obviously, this book made me think. This book is well-reasoned, eminently readable, and quite powerful. One complaint is that he constantly referenced his past work and others work, making it sometimes seem like there was no original thought or purpose to this one. Made me think at times, why don’t I just put this down and read this other handful of books which are so heavily quoted? And at times a bit repetitive. This is a 5 star in terms of subject matter and powerful rhetoric, but is pulled down by that pop science feel of recycled repetitiveness to get the points across to the masses.

I will check out his bibliography and someday soon I really want to tackle ‘The Origin of Species, myself. If I had more conviction and energy, I would find a way to emigrate to a more enlightened country as I feel us slipping into a Christian theocracy due to broken electoral politics. Sigh.

A late Bravo from me. ( )

Dawkins makes a lot of very valid points, and there is a ton of great information in this book...however, it's DRY. So dry. 30% through, I just couldn't take it anymore and had to switch to the audiobook. And I hate audiobooks. There are much more accessible books out there that will provide the... ( )

Rather than providing a reasoned approach to a popular subject, Dawkins has essentially written the equivalent of THE CASE FOR CHRIST for atheists - a work that is red meat to those who already believe its presuppositions, but will do little to sway those readers who do not. This work does not deal with all aspects of religion (or even his main target of Christianity) head-on, but instead attempts to dethrone a straw-man version of it. Anyone with a working knowledge of major religious movements should be able to recognize this approach fairly quickly - evidence, in my mind, that such a reader is not the target audience of this book.

One argument on which I could agree with Dawkins: the presence and prevalence of "functional atheism." However, even in this, he fails to prove his point, and instead engages in an arrogant, revisionist attempt to claim great minds of the past for his own cause. ( )

Dawkins doesn't seem to take any aspect for granted. He methodically tries to hit the issue from every angle. At times it felt like he was preaching to the choir, but I do feel like I came away with many new strong arguments I hadn't thought of previously. ( )

http://pro-libertate.net/20130331/202-read-god-delusion ( )

When writing a book such as this before you put a word on the page you know you it is going to be over analyzed and critiqued, while at the same time praised by many. I think Dawkins laid it out beautifully knowing what was going to happen when it was released. I read a later released version where he stated he made changes based on reviews. So I don't know if that made a difference in my experience compared to others. Whether you are a believer or not, this is a great read. If you are a believer, reading books like this shouldn't sway your beliefs unless you have doubts in your own beliefs. I don't think he is trying to convert anyone from believing, he is just laying out a string of research and you can choose to believe it or not. As with anything else in life facts are often ignored, or changed to opinion or visa versa to believe in what one wants to be true, this is true with politics, santa, god, etc. Luckily we all have access to the internet and can pursue our own research on any matter necessary. Personally I think he hit the nail on the head, and made his point well explained so even the lowest of reading level could understand what he was trying to say, which made it a slow read at times but overall it was well thought out and put together. ( )

I think Dawkins is a brilliant man, but I disliked his approach here, and thought of it as too broad and shallow. Most of the things mentioned about religion are poorly researched, which makes the arguments he states against it NOT convincing for religious people. Also, I don't like the fact he's "preaching" atheism, instead of just being rational. It was as if he wanted people to embrace his own religion and join his cult.

I wouldn't say there aren't some interesting (and very true) things mentioned in this book, but the inaccurate bits of it ruined the interesting bits. ( )

This book tells the truth. Everyone should read it. ( )

All of his books are very engaging. He convincingly argues that even religion without faith in the supernatural as a way to teach people ethics or console them had terrible consequences. The statement that the founders, especially Thomas Jefferson, were not even deists was interesting -- the current default "story" is that the United States were founded by Christians. And he is the narrator (along with Lalla Ward). ( )

I listened to the audiobook and it was a bit amusing. But that was it. I agree with much of what he says but the execution was messy, repetitive and very one-sided. ( )

Never read a book so eloquently,humorously and, brilliantly written.. 10X⭐ ( )

I only read part of this book, and there were some things he talked about that I had not considered, mostly about the bad effects of religion on society. This isn't really the fault of any God, just some of the people that follow a specific God. If there is a God, who says he likes it any better than any of us?

But overall, I'm suspicious of supposed atheists who feel a need to convince others of their atheistness. I consider myself to be an atheist simply because I have never found any reason not to be. I'm very skeptical, and don't really believe anyone who says they talk to God, so I'm certainly not going to take the word of an old book telling me what unknown strangers said about some other stranger's experiences with God. Especially when these unknown strangers probably never even read what the book said about them. ( )

I finally finished 'The God Delusion' and it is not only eye opening, but also an excellent and entertaining read. It is full with terrifying facts about what religion does, how it impacts our lives (whether you are religious or not) and of course, why there is no such thing as an omnipotent being, having all our lives planned for us and expecting our blind faith - or else!

It is easy to see why this book not only swayed agnostics (like myself) towards atheism, but even inspired former 'true believers' to question their respective religious teachings and start thinking for themselves rather than blindly obeying a given doctrine.

This book is a rare must-read if you are open-minded or interested in opening your mind. I doubt that any religious fanatic will get much out of it, but everybody else is highly recommended to read it and think about it. Though he offers plenty of scientific facts, the author does not expect the reader to simply believe, but rather to think! ( )

I enjoyed it for being direct and challenging believes, but he can come across as a bit condescending, especially if you do follow any of the mainstream religions. On the other hand Atheists don't have nearly as many spokesmen as the religious community. ( )

Executive summary: I find Richard’s elitism to be worse than his atheism per se. Simply to hold an opinion I think not true, even if it tends towards a certain malus, (like elitism), is not culpable really in the sense of holding yourself aloof from people with less opportunity and intelligence, and holding correctness of thought to be the one and only something. It should probably be noted that Richard is only too aware that all atheists are not his own type, of which more will be said later.

[Special note: I was just talking about this with a friend; you think of scientists as being automatically woke or whatever as a stereotype, but one thing I got from this book was that that’s unified in an individual or group of individuals, not the discipline itself, which emphasizes the results of education and is silent on the issue of those who lack it. In a way this is complimentary to scientists more open to social justice than Sir Richard, lolz.]

First Addendum: I tried to say this some other time, but what I want to say is that although I wouldn’t abolish all authority, sometimes Richard in his quest to be consistent (the Emerson he doesn’t quote is, A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, and it has his photo affixed) ignores the idea that an individual is more than a plus or a minus to his or her philosophy’s reputation; I think a more fair thing would be to evaluate authorities and individuals based on the effect that they have on each other, instead of uncritically praising or blaming them, as such. Especially since there is no Central Atheist Authority under which Richard lives, that extracts from him his complaint against Native American religion, but he offers it anyway; likewise there have been many formal and informal systems that have attempt to secure from various religious believers their ungraciousness in various ways, but sometimes this has not been secured…. (Also sometimes the teacher is the gracious one, and the ungrateful little brat the bigot.)

Introduction: I like stream of consciousness reviews; I dislike deletions in editing and hiding away initial reactions. Nevertheless, this one got so out of hand that I had to make an exception. Richard does two things: first, he whines that God is a tyrant…. This although not ideal is not so much the problem. Some believers do think (on some level) that God is a tyrant, and the human negativity magnet/attraction to the lowest common denominator makes this an attractive thing to talk about. This was what I was expecting. But the other thing, the thing that surprised me and made me angry, was what an insufferable elitist Richard is. He could have just quoted, “If you do this to the least of these, you do it to Me”, and we would have known exactly what the problem was. He thinks (on some level) that the more you know, the better a person you are, the more worthwhile, and that errors of fact (for so they are perceived to be, since God “doesn’t exist”, although again Richard doesn’t react to God as someone who doesn’t exist but as a very real, very bad thing that he’s very angry at, right), are necessarily malicious, or at least that there can be no meaningful distinction to be drawn between errors of fact (Russia borders Poland), and errors of malice (Ukrainians are inferior). He doesn’t make any allowance for social justice or anything like that; he’s an elitist at war. Cf Emerson’s, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Richard is much more concerned with his abstract category “religion” that with its effect on people, which ironically leads to effects that are highly inconsistent. Thus, he flatters himself that he frees the gays, but only because he wants to oppress the Jews, Wiccans, Native Americans, and Muslims. Of course, he doesn’t like the Christians, either; they’re too American, so that makes them the rival of what he does love: all things English. Personally I might be a moderate Anglophile, but Richard is *that* Englishman—exactly who you don’t want to be, to put it bluntly. Of course, there are atheists who aren’t like Richard, [Jonathan Haidt, etc.], but there’s the rub, he comes in like a true extremist gunning for the people on his side that aren’t extreme enough/that he doesn’t like. To be honest, as much as I try to read books, not just to understand the world, but also to understand people, this whole book would be better off unwritten, because as flawed as he is, I can’t imagine him getting it worse than this; this is real acting-out. [It’s television writing.]

Interlude: After this brief transition I will start editing back in things I wrote when I got angry. For completeness’ sake.

Downfall Guy: Here, have a bumper sticker. Coexist, Hitler, coexist!
Richard: (turns, but doesn’t slow down) Fuck religion.

Part Written First:

I tried not to be angry; you can’t hear me speak, but I suppose you’ll have to decide for yourself if I am or not, although I certainly don’t like being called a “faith head”; it sound like he’s doing his best to stigmatize me. (“Look at that schizophrenic white American faith head. And he used to be obese! You should have seen him! I even heard he’s a vegetarian!…. And he took the vaccine! The moron!”)

I also understand that there are a lot of stilted midcentury style religious intellectuals guarding their turf, and I guess he doesn’t like it, although he doesn’t like the crackers either. (But I guess I *am* a cracker, because I’m a faith head. It’s true what those men preach!) But it doesn’t take a lot of knowledge to see just how little he understands about religion—beyond =cracker, and, you know, “If you weren’t a moron…. No, really, you don’t understand, if you really weren’t a moron…. If you lived in the future…. *raises gun, with tears in eyes* You would have been just like me.”

I try not to be easily insulted in that way, but believe it or not, I’m not a moron, and I notice when people are *trying* to insult me. Like, say you’re a feminist or whatever, so you read a feminist book to get a handle on the nitty gritty. You notice the author hates you for being an American or something and what she calls a “liberal/conservative”, and not a radical—not unlike the Zealots who started off by killing their fellow Jews who were moderates, and work their way up to killing Romans, the feminist’s enemy is always other feminists, no matter how much money they spilled to read one of those books that gut them for their not-quite-good-enough beliefs. Or a pro-atheist book whose first target is not God or even religious monkeys but polite atheists.

Vichy!

The thing about justice types is that they look to the less privileged, so it’s easier to write those people a pass, you know. If you do it to the least of these, you do it to Me. Richard’s position is worse in a way because he comes off as quite the elitist and therefore is less entitled to that sort of reasoning—and whatever atheists are, they’re not un-influential; a lot of people forget about God in our society; turn on the radio, the TV, whatever you like, and then somebody comes across the religious enclave and there’s a big crowd flooding the exit out of the religious enclave, which quickly becomes an uncool and slightly ‘not normal’ place to be—but hey, what have I got to lose? I certainly don’t buy the restaurant review malice as ok argument; [i.e. ‘What’s the harm in one more angry person?’ ~Sir Richard the Tele-atheist]; I used to work in a kitchen so yes it’s easy for me to say, Do this to *us* and Jesus won’t be happy with you. It’s just not a good argument.

Which brings me back to what I was trying to say, his extreme lack of verse with religion. Even the definition of the thing. First, ‘religion’ is not ‘poetry’, because he likes poetry, but not religion. (Religious poetry? The Song of Songs? Milton?) And Obviously, religion is not science, because science is good, and religion is…. Bad. (If spirituality tried to be science it would be new age, and the atheists would lose their fucking minds, as the French would say, despite in the anti-Christian Islamophobe books saying, Why don’t they try? Dunno, either they do and you don’t notice or care—it’s me or the monkeys people; I’m all you’ve got—or else they’re just really scared of being called a moron! (Let’s just listen to sex on the radio. We’ll blend it.)

And pantheism is…. Atheism? Because Hindus are…. Atheists? And belief in many gods is actually…. None at all? Or else Hindus just…. Don’t count?

Thoughts? Questions? Concerns?

(I mean, really, pantheism is saying that there’s one kind of stuff and it’s God—and that’s what Richard calls atheism. The atheism of little brown men who don’t matter.)

[Racist atheists see religion as quintessentially brown.]

Oh but I almost forgot to say, I don’t dream for a minute that this is a reasonable defense of atheism. I’m not an atheist; I don’t think I could really be one if I tried; different people are wired differently—although who knows, maybe Dawkins doesn’t believe in the non-existence of God: maybe he’s just angry at God for being evil, for being Hitler, which is much easier for me to ‘get’—and I think that goes for a lot of people. I don’t understand, “There’s one kind of stuff, dirt, and “Nicomachean Ethics” is dirt and we can cut your brain open and find it….” Yeah, I don’t know buddy…. Most people don’t; true atheists are rare, not that that’s especially important one way or another (Jews are much more important than their numbers would suggest, to the irritated puzzlement of the Greek mind), as most people pretend to be English Christians on the Fourth of July, atheists at work, and sex zombies on the radio, even if they are, certainly not all, possibly *none* of those things—who knows? Do they?

But I read it to expose myself to hostile bluster as an exercise, although it’s probably an important book as well. Some books should be read, if possible, even if they are bad, although I won’t supply another example, even though one comes to mind, a political book, because you wouldn’t allow in your narrowness for a moment that I was sincere—that I was non-angry.

…. [If I were to get angry, it would probably be about, “We’re all agreed for some reason, and we always have been, but we shouldn’t be, that it just makes sense not to denigrate and to refrain from insulting, the Jewish religion. I mean, come on, what’s the matter with these Jews, right? Your little God’s not real, so start jogging on Saturdays, and act the right way, dammit—normal! Like me!”

(several paragraphs deleted)

…. To be fair, it is possible for religious culture to be dysfunctional, like much of (ie the stereotype of) contemporary Islamic culture; however, to extend this back in time to all of Muslim history, across a billion and a half people to make an imaginary monolith of Islam today, and into the future because Those People can’t change is more than absurd; it’s a prejudice. And then to say that any sort of religious person is bad so that you can be ‘consistent’….? Why?

And that he gets to bloody decide whether other peoples cultures have a right to exist, or if the world needs any culture other than the state religion, Militant Aryan Normality (MAN, lol).

(more deleted material)

…. The first time I drafted the above, I was indeed an angry religious person. ^^

I was Malcolm X. ^^

But there’s something to be said for covering bases, even when people leave something to be desired.

…. I suppose he’s something of an accidental racist, despite being pretty radical about it….

And I understand that he’s not every atheist; he’s actually very much a popular atheist rather than a pure rationalist all the way down…. I really thought that this would be easier, as when it’s just me that ‘bad’ it’s not as bad…. But really English Christianity was what he hated least, it was quite….

…. Not all of it is as bad as that first bit, to be fair; a lot of it is just the snide teenager I was expecting and not the uglier by far thing I found. How you talk to someone this superficial and aggressive towards other groups of people I don’t know, and I wouldn’t claim to be doing it the right way. (There are those two contradicting verses in Proverbs, one after another: Don’t rebuke the fool, or you’ll be like him; rebuke the fool, lest he grow wise in his own delusion. I guess the point is, when it comes to fools you’re fucked either way. Neither option is really that good.) All I know for sure is I’m not going to be responding to his predicable snide little arguments (if I can help it). I wouldn’t be justified by an Islamophobe even if I knew how. Given how shallow and weak it is I think he could have made it half as long, and still had room for plenty of teenage cracks. It’s unfortunate if any of his other writings are more grown up than this, because I’m not sure I can persuade myself to give him my money and trust again.

…. I guess my part in this is I trust someone with intelligence to have at least part of the truth, but sometimes they seem to have nearly none. They notice not if you’re a good person, but if you think like they do.

…. The reason I think that is that one of the big ways that I keep myself out of trouble is I tinker with the mind (Kant: ‘think’ as opposed to ‘cognize’), [n.b. I forget what this means ~editor version of me], I imagine, and so I imagine that the big brains will be my friends. I stay out of trouble. But the mind is a tool, and if we use it to feel sad, we’ll feel sad. (As opposed to, true is justtrue, and bad is justbad.)

…. (review extensions)

[Sir Richard: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is Wrong-Bad.
Interviewer: In what way.
Sir Richard: Goodbye.]

[Old Woman: God will judge the brown people for having sex.
Sir Richard: Racism!
Young Woman: *sipping tea* The brown belief of religion will disappear in the new dawn of new whiteness.
Sir Richard: Preach, sister!
Reporter: Do you think you’re being consistent.
Sir Richard: Goodbye.]

[Sir Richard: Science preaches peace. Scientists are all peaceful. No religion, no war. All science, all peace.
Reporter: Atom bombs.
Sir Richard: Goodbye.]

[Reporter: What’s the worst part about religion.
Sir Richard: Tribalism.
Reporter: What’s the best country in the world.
Sir Richard: England.
Reporter: Huh huh.
Sir Richard: Ooo, I’m gonna get you.]

[Sir Richard: There’s no more racism. There’s no more sexism. Praise the modern West, white men found the answer!
Reporter: How many of the authorities you cite are white men, and are there any Blacks.
Sir Richard: Fuck you. That’s just how the world works. We have freedom because of white men! Do you think it was all Martin Luther King and the unschooled Blacks?
Reporter: Wow.
Sir Richard: In the future there won’t be anyone like you.
Reporter: I hope that’s not a threat!]

[Reporter: People who are unmerciful should be strictly punished!
Sir Richard: And right away, before it’s too late!
Reporter: Like in The Merchant of Venice!
Sir Richard: What good English blood Shakespeare had!]

[Although the tricky thing about mercy is you can have too much of it—like if you’re a gay Christian. I guess the right people have to have mercy, and in the right amounts, and Then it can be good, maybe. But you really need to measure; it’s science!]

It’s odd (if somehow unsurprising) to hear him claim familiarity with Judaism on some level—“follow these specific rules and live a certain way”—while claiming that religion is the “flying spaghetti monster”—strange ideas that don’t matter because they don’t change how you live your life—while also implicitly believing that religion is bad because it’s not Greek enough.

But whatever. *shrugs*

…. Russell’s teapot is funny though. “There’s some tiny thing out there, people say, but it doesn’t affect our lives, and we can’t be sure it’s really there, so I don’t care.” This is advanced as an argument for atheism, but it sounds like an explanation of why I am not a scientist, or versed in every problem of the human intellect. If there were unlimited time to read books, I’d be happy to be a scientist. As it is, I think motivation is the most important thing. Many scientists are only motivated to further depress the price of corn so that more animals can be butchered more cheaply by hyper-oppressed immigrants working for immoral corporations, because that’s what they get paid to do. Other scientists, of course, are vegetarians, like me; their knowledge of what’s happening to the climate and the earth—they know even more than I do, although I get the gist (German, “spirit”) of it—must motivate them. But to a hyper-rationalist things either are true or they’re not; how you feel doesn’t matter.

[White men were revolutionizing the world as never before in the 1800s, but although I’m not a Black anti-intellectual, it’s easy to be a little skeptical. Certainly SOCIAL Darwinism is not the answer, and just because there’s an Evolutionary reason to do something, doesn’t mean there’s an Actual reason. (Biology doesn’t replace psychology…. Incidentally, the obvious pairing for Darwinism is Freudianism—also not the most problematic 19th century ism.) Sure, ice cream probably would have helped you survive a billion years ago: I’ll go raid the concentration camp for chickens for eggs and we’ll make our own.

Woman Monastic: Sublimate. Sublimate. Sublimate.
Sir Richard: That’s not the right thing, although I can’t tell you why.
—Well then, I’ll have to assume that your mysterious reason isn’t very good.
Sir Richard: *cries*
—C’mon, time for bed Richard.
Sir Richard: I’m, Sir, Richard! I’m going to marry Emma Woodhouse!]

“…. Blah blah blah you’re wrong blah blah blah shut up blah blah blah you were wrong to even be born, blah blah BLAH blah”

[It was popular to be a nominal Christian before, so openly disavowing faith was courageous. Now, it is not so popular in scientific circles to be Christian, so openly disavowing faith is…. Bold! Courageous! Daring! The New Look! Always this idea, Your ideas come from sociology. My ideas come from…. Macy’s! Sorry, I mean, Da Trut’. If my idears weren’t Da Trut’, I wouldn’t put no belief on ‘em. Your beliefs, however, come from the inherent delusions of the human condition. Sorry. Oh, and the robots are taking your job. Fear me, humans!]

I thought about quoting the part of “Till We Have Faces” where the title phrase appears, but, fuck it, he doesn’t like beauty, so why spite him.

Hopefully there’s nothing else really interesting in the book, aside from the names of his enemies. Lol.

[…. The part where he tries to talk about science a little bit is almost interesting, except he doesn’t really seem interested in the existence of the natural world, just his pissy attitude about the pissy little science tracts evangelicals print up. Science itself seems basically secondary to the task of hating trolls. “I’ve met too many people who don’t understand the origin of the universe…. I need therapy.” Ok Jack, well some people need therapy because their parents abused alcohol. Pick a number and get in line….

But seriously, why is he averse to religious people learning about science without becoming atheists?

And what is not impressive about God creating a world, and then hiding his hand in it, so that he gives people the freedom either to believe in him or not? Different from the attitude of most churches, and also of Sir Richard here, who wants all the royalties of all the discoveries of the Great White Man English Science Empire sent to him, and he certainly is not here to give you a choice. About, anything. At all.]

…. “And the other thing I don’t like is Psalm 109; it ends on a happy note. That shows a lack of consistency! They should teach you in school that that’s just the wrong way, the wrong way! Go all in! I hate you, The End! We’re Done!”

Like, What.

…. To Atheist Hell, with everyone who doesn’t pretty much just hate the world. That is what I Richard am bullying you into believing, today. So say we all.

*everyone mumbles, something or another*

[Angry Staffer: Hitler I’m debating either becoming a monk, or at least going to Shelby Spong’s church.
Hitler: Your mother is an atheist doctor and I’m an atheist lawyer and yet here we are letting the primitive Jew climb inside!
Angry Staffer: I thought you valued the right of children.
Hitler: You’re perverting the rights of Militant Aryan Normality; you fucking religious Jew. *throws the pencil* The idea was if you put you in front of the television early enough, you’d bear all the same scars as everyone else, and not these damn Jew marks!]

[*knock knock* State Inspector! I’m here to prevent child abuse.
Wants To Be Gluttonous, Not Religious: Oh, good. Take me away! Soviet Union, here I come!
Parent: But! My child!
Adult Child of an Alcoholic: My mother and father drink too much.
State Inspector: Well, that’s very interesting, but if we abducted the children of all alcoholics, addicts, codependents, and depressed patients—
Native American Child: *running*
State Inspector: Injun! *starts running after her*]

[Proud Parent: Look at my English child! A proud, atheistic, non-abused, non-religious prodigy of the race!
State Inspector: Folkish little darling.
Child: Who is Jesus? Was he a Jew, a Christian, or a Muslim? I want to learn.
Proud Parent: Rosy-cheeked darling, you haven’t studied Marx yet. It’s as though you’re asking about sex.]

[Agent Smith: How can I teach you about religion…. If it doesn’t exist?
Neo: I don’t like the future.
Agent Smith: Be that as it may, the machines will win, because religion doesn’t exist to stop us. Religion is the mindless obedience of tradition. But all tradition begins with a reformer. These reformers would have to be religious, and so could never exist religiously and reform at the same time. So religion doesn’t exist. God doesn’t exist. I’m an idiot. But God is a bigger idiot—he doesn’t even exist. So I’m smarter than God. That makes me feel good.
Neo: How can you feel good…. If you’re a machine?
Agent Smith: According to Ronald D Moore, I would take off my clothes.]

[*Sir Richard makes First Contact*
Aliens: We are aliens. We come from Betelgeuse, and in the name of our prophet Andromeda we come on an interfaith mission.
Sir Richard: You’re religious.
Aliens: Yes.
Sir Richard: You’re crackers from the South! You’re crackers from the South! You’re here to promote country music lechery, fried food gluttony, hard drinking, football fanaticism, and godless living!
Aliens: No no, we come from Betelgeuse.
Sir Richard: You’re the black people from Australia! The English Empire must be dead! *crying* Where is PG Wodehouse?]

[Downfall Dawkins: *pounding on the table, losing his mind* Life is a blessing; take it from me—how happy am I! In this life we can do intellectual violence to our enemies, in this life we can co-opt feminism to bolster whatever we can safely assume I was going to do anyway, in this life we can torment, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, the black people of Australia, and in this life we can safely assume that others are deluded by the human condition whenever they trouble us, and that we have transcended the human condition by believing that others are deluded. What joy I know, what joy! Come, let’s abolish the Sabbath, today!]

[IRA Activist, 1972: *”happy”* The British are murdering my people! Now recruitment will be easy again! Good times are here to stay!

Downfall Dawkins, 2006: *”happy”* Anne Coulter wrote another Cracker Jesus book! If only more people read it, people will start to think that Jesus really was a cracker, and read my book! Good times are here to stay!]

…. But, and I wasn’t sure how to say this, but this book really freed from the notion that there’s something to being, Ordered to be Atheist, (because you’re so intolerant).

Da Rules:

1. Be consistently kind: no mistakes, or you’re one of those angry religious types!
2. Reject the world and all that is it as evil, no namby pamby All Is Well, dammit!

Yes, if that’s all there is to it, I think I can stand disobeying, Da Rules!

[To be clear, I don’t believe in saying a rock is six thousand years old instead of six billion, because that makes us feel good for some reason, when that’s not truthful.

But Richard seems to think that the purpose of life is to bang on the table about da trut’, and never questions why some people might think that there’s more to life than dating rocks, or playing chess, or losing your temper at your philosophical enemies. Wow, I dunno, maybe because doing that just leads to a life where you hurt others and become miserable? But who cares, right? Scrooge doesn’t need you guys; he has a good job and he’s well respected in his field because he’s very smart. So there!]

…. Maybe I can end this madness with Downfall. It’s just so crazy.

Hitler: *banging the table and losing his mind* But worse than that is if the faith heads became moderate, literate, and intelligent, because then it might not be easy to tell they’re faith heads, and they might taint our blood! They might taint our blood! It’s because they’re Americans! They’ll taint our secular English blood!

*girl is crying*
Hitler’s wife: Don’t worry; he’ll make a lot of money on TV with anger like this, and then we’ll go to Vegas.

[…. And, you know.
Hitler: *banging on the table and losing his mind* Life before technology was evil! Life before technology was evil! I want supersonic jets! I want supersonic jets! Help me, mommy! I’m crazy!

*girl is crying*
Hitler’s wife: Well, at least you didn’t marry a “loser”! We might get our phones upgraded too!]

…. And it’s truly bizarre that he goes out of his way to nitpick and discredit Comte/positivism, since that way would seem to be where his allies would lie. Sad fucker just doesn’t have any friends.

…. 1. I could never really understand God.
2. It hurts me to think that something is allowed to exist, that I don’t understand. I’ll understand everything, eventually! And then I won’t have to bother arguing with you anymore, so there!
3. God’s not real.

…. It’s a curious problem though, not that I’m totally unfamiliar with the angry/sex-obsessed robot (destroy my enemies so I can reproduce, brain!). I mean he does seem like a very stunted-human by the end of the book, reducing everything to some form of greed and ignorance, and always assigning himself the superior position and his enemy the inferior position. And this person does this because of his love of knowledge, you know. And it makes you think: because I read a lot; it’s one of my main things, but if I thought that life was just reading books I probably wouldn’t even be reading the right books; wow….

…. Although television does things to people. Even science can’t control television. (It can’t control capitalism and socialism.) Television does things to people. We can only tremble in fear.

Demonic Cartoon Television: Hahaha…. I’m the television!
Sniveling Weakling: Oh no! Don’t hurt me!
Demonic Cartoon Television: Hahaha…. I’ll hurt you! *does head butt*

10/25/21

If you are already an atheist, you have probably heard most of what Dawkins has to say. However, I am glad it was published. ( )

بالإضافة إلى فشل الدين في تقديم أي شيء ذي قيمة، فإنه يعيق التقدم والتطور، ويرسخ القيم اللاإنسانية التي عفا عليها الزمن ولا تمت للأخلاق بصلة ضمن مفهومنا المعاصر للأخلاق. الاستثمار في الدين ما هو إلا نفاق ومضيعة للوقت، وأكثر ما يثير السخرية أن المتدينين أنفسهم هم أكثر الناس اقترافاً للشناعات. ( )

Dawkins is a hero ( )

Good and informative, but a bit repetitive at times. ( )

Dawkins challenges the reader to think about their beliefs, and to recognize that our strongly held religious beliefs can often simply be accidents of birth, inherited from our parents. Born to other parents in other cultures could have given us quite different beliefs. Religions would prefer we not question the beliefs we've been taught, however blind faith can prevent us from challenging, what in retrospect, should be questioned. I would imagine that the young victims (some as young as 9 years old) of the recently convicted sexual predator Tony Alamo could be an example of how blind faith in our religious leaders can have harmful consequences. While Dawkins doesn't take us down this path, I imagine that Jim Bakker, convicted of fraud after soliciting millions from his followers, Warren Jeffs, Billy James Hargis, Ted Haggard, and a variety of predatory priests are other examples of leaders who deserved to be questioned. Dawkins makes the case that it's OK to question. Perhaps some beliefs, when challenged, need to be discarded. On the other hand, I imagine, other beliefs or leaders capable of standing up to questions, may ultimately be strengthened. ( )

Heard an interview with Dawkins on my favorite NPR show that kept me glued to the radio. Someone's dubbed him as Darwin's rottweiler--I couldn't resist.

OK--so I haven't actually finished the whole thing yet, but most of his arguments are ones I've heard already, and I mostly agree...it just gives more fuel to the fire. The really great thing about this book is that it makes me feel better, a little less villanized, about being a "de facto" atheist; the not-so-great thing about this book is that many parts are used as a vendetta against his foes...gets a little tiresome. When you separate the wheat from the chaff, though, there's some very interesting information that's bound to get you riled up one way or the other. ( )