The God Delusion
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4.3 • 16 Ratings
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- 9,49 €
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- 9,49 €
Publisher Description
'Timely, impassioned and brilliantly argued' Rod Liddle, Sunday Times
'A spirited and exhilarating read' Joan Bakewell, Guardian
Dawkins attacks God in all his forms.
He eviscerates the major arguments for religion and demonstrates the supreme improbability of a supreme being. He shows how religion fuels war, foments bigotry and abuses children.
The God Delusion is a brilliantly argued, fascinating polemic that will be required reading for anyone interested in this most emotional and important subject.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The antireligion wars started by Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris will heat up even more with this salvo from celebrated Oxford biologist Dawkins. For a scientist who criticizes religion for its intolerance, Dawkins has written a surprisingly intolerant book, full of scorn for religion and those who believe. But Dawkins, who gave us the selfish gene, anticipates this criticism. He says it's the scientist and humanist in him that makes him hostile to religions fundamentalist Christianity and Islam come in for the most opprobrium that close people's minds to scientific truth, oppress women and abuse children psychologically with the notion of eternal damnation. While Dawkins can be witty, even confirmed atheists who agree with his advocacy of science and vigorous rationalism may have trouble stomaching some of the rhetoric: the biblical Yahweh is "psychotic," Aquinas's proofs of God's existence are "fatuous" and religion generally is "nonsense." The most effective chapters are those in which Dawkins calms down, for instance, drawing on evolution to disprove the ideas behind intelligent design. In other chapters, he attempts to construct a scientific scaffolding for atheism, such as using evolution again to rebut the notion that without God there can be no morality. He insists that religion is a divisive and oppressive force, but he is less convincing in arguing that the world would be better and more peaceful without it.
Customer Reviews
Thanks
I must say that back then when I knew nothing of R.Dawkins I used to hate him for no reason (or for being an atheist) and especially I hated this book even though I hadn’t read it. I was 14 years old and extremely religious. Now thankfully I came to understand that I had been mistaken for long time.
I realized that there had been something wrong with my views on religion when I was 16 years old or something, I tried to find myself and I found myself being okay with agnosticism. It had been my point of view for several years and I used to think that as long as any religions didn’t interfere with my life I would be fine with them. Then six months ago I discovered Mormonism, I would say that when it happened I didn’t believe in god and I came to their church to study English (I thought why would I let myself loose such a great opportunity to study English when they suggested to do it themselves?) I also thought that it was the true point of churches and religions to help others (now I don’t). They helped me with that but also they tried to brainwash me. At first I thought that there might be a god and those people from the church helped me to find it in some way, but then I realized that they played on common logical mistakes and misconceptions, for example I told them “I always have felt that I have been led by something to some point in the life where I am supposed to find the truth”, and they told me that they also had felt so, and that most of the people that had come to them felt the same way and they found themselves led to Mormonism, and at first I felt like “okay, maybe I also was led to them and I will find the truth here”, but then I realized that probably every single person feels or at least has felt in the life that they have been led by some force or something (by that I mean some god) to find the truth and it’s most probable a misconception of our perception (Apophenia).
I think that it’s biologically made so that we must believe that we are special and important in the world/life/universe etc. and it brings such misleading thoughts that if we are special and important then these speciality and impotence are meant especially for us, which means that it could be meant by something or some kind of advanced force that we call our creator or a god. It’s just a misconception created by our own minds in my opinion, so those thoughts and feelings made me search for some answers to my questions I had and one of the books that helped me lay everything out step by step is “The God Delusion”.
I realized myself that any kind of religion is basically an evil and people don’t have to tolerate with this ignorance. I always have thought and felt that religion brings only suffering, violence and terrible things into the world but I hoped that i was mistaken, now I realized thyI was not. Now I believe that even good and kind people that are religions actually support violence and suffering by supporting a religion that brings those suffering and violence to the world and no matter which confession or religion it is.
I frequently hear a statement like “I don’t belong to that bad confession, only they do horrible and inhuman things” and I don’t see any difference between a “good” confession and a “bad” one as long as they are a part of one religion where there is possible to be violent to others.
I am 21 and I have to say that I always have tried to think critically and this critical thinking has brought me here, I am not perfect but I see that I evolve and I am happy living without any gods which are symbols of ignorance and violence for me. I regret only that this idea of a god was in my mind too long and It took me long to defeat it but thankfully I always doubted in everything.
Thanks to the book and the author that opened my mind and eyes. Thanks to those people from my past that criticized my religion views because if it hadn’t been for them I wouldn’t have doubted and come here.
P.S: I hated the book and the author and I even tried to “fight” it only because being 14 (or 16 I don’t remember) years old I was unreasonably afraid to lose my belief due to my feelings that told me that most likely the book had convincing and logical facts that would make me doubt and it had them indeed.
Thanks once more.
Well argued
A well argued case for atheism.
john
Categorial mistakes and not so well argumented. Still he knows how to write, so that is fine. Summa summarum : there is the God (but even I don’t believe in god that Dawkins don’t believe)