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Richard Dawkins

The God Delusion

Summary

Richard Dawkins examines God in all His forms and brings out the flaws that many religious arguments contain and details some of the atrocious harm religion has caused throughout humanity's past - war, prejudice, abuse to children, etc. He lays out intriguing evidence that atheists should be admired for their healthy skepticism and that they can truly appreciate the world's wonders better than most. No doubt controversial but very interesting read  

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Key Takeaways
:
  1. Dawkins writes that The God Delusion contains four "consciousness-raising" messages:
    1. Atheists can be happy, balanced, moral, and intellectually fulfilled
    2. Natural selection and similar scientific theories are superior to a "God hypothesis"
    3. Children should not be labelled by their parents' religion. Terms like "Catholic child" or "Muslim child" should make people cringe
    4. Atheists should be proud, not apologetic, because atheism is evidence of a healthy, independent mind.
  2. Dawkins does not claim to disprove God with absolute certainty but instead suggests that simpler explanations are preferable 
 
What I got out of it:
  1. I thought Dawkins did a very good job of writing a balanced book which attempts to lay out many of these very controversial topics in a neutral and uncontroversial tone. While there will of course be many people who completely disagree with what he has to say, I believe many of his arguments are extremely valid - especially the point about not labeling children by their parent's religion as they have not yet had the chance to properly form their own beliefs. Also, I came away with a new term that seems to be taking on increasing moment, pantheist - using the term "God" to symbolically represent nature and the universe. God is in everything and all around us.
  • "God hypothesis"
    • Differentiates "Einsteinian religion" from supernatural religion
      • Einstein was religious in the sense that he was aware of things beyond the mind's grasp but, Dawkins argues, this God "is light years away from the interventionist, miracle-working, thought-reading, sin-punishing, prayer-answering God of the Bible."
    • He writes that one of the greatest challenges to the human intellect has been to explain "how the complex, improbable design in the universe arises", and suggests that there are two competing explanations:
      1. A hypothesis involving a designer, that is, a complex being to account for the complexity that we see
      2. A hypothesis, with supporting theories, that explains how, from simple origins and principles, something more complex can emerge
    • "The temptation [to attribute the appearance of a design to actual design itself] is a false one, because the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the designer. The whole problem we started out with was the problem of explaining statistical improbability. It is obviously no solution to postulate something even more improbable."
  • Religion and morality
    • Explores the roots of religion and seeks an explanation for its ubiquity across human cultures. Dawkins advocates the "theory of religion as an accidental by-product – a misfiring of something useful "...as for example the mind's employment of intentional stance." Dawkins suggests that the theory of memes, and human susceptibility to religious memes in particular, can explain how religions might spread like "mind viruses" across societies
    • People do not need religion to be good since morality has a Darwinian explanation - altruistic genes, selected through the process of evolution, give people natural empathy. So, morality does not originate from the Bible, rather it is in all our best interests
    • The God Delusion is not just a defense of atheism, but also goes on the offensive against religion. Dawkins sees religion as subverting science, fostering fanaticism, encouraging bigotry against homosexuals, and influencing society in other negative ways
    • He is most outraged about the teaching of religion in schools, which he considers to be an indoctrination process and a form of mental abuse. Dawkins considers the labels "Muslim child" or a "Catholic child" equally misapplied as the descriptions "Marxist child", as he wonders how a young child can be considered developed enough to have such independent views on the cosmos and humanity's place within it
    • The book concludes with the question whether religion, despite its alleged problems, fills a "much needed gap" giving consolation and inspiration to people who need it. Argues that these needs can be much better filled by non-religious means such as philosophy and science. 
    • Suggests that an atheistic worldview is life-affirming in a way that religion, with its unsatisfying "answers" to life's mysteries, could never be

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