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| The God Delusion | 
| Author: Richard Dawkins
Publisher: Mariner Books
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy New: $2.98
You Save: $12.97 (81%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  1265 reviews
Sales Rank: 237
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 464
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.4 x 1.3
ISBN: 0618918248
Dewey Decimal Number: 211
EAN: 9780618918249
ASIN: 0618918248
Publication Date: January 16, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: New book, ships out next business day, 100% satisfaction guaranteed, may have slight shelf wear
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| Customer Reviews:
 OMG - No Soul to Pray For! October 6, 2006
58 out of 89 found this review helpful
R. Dawkins 'The God Delusion' is the most thought-provoking book I've read in the past two decades.
Perhaps the greatest irony of all is that, 50 years ago, publication of this book would have seen Dawkins on trial for heresy, and 50 years from now it would be (hopefully) completely unnecessary.
Those who would benefit most from this book are, unfortunately, those most unlikely to read it.
Religionists, theists and fantasists - wake up. You live in a world that has no connection to reality. Take 15 minutes away from your prayers and read a chapter - I suggest the one that explains just how much harm you're doing to your kids. It won't hurt, really. If worse comes to worse, you can just pray some more to your non-existent sky king and continue to live in ignorance and fallacy.
Church elders - run. Run away very fast. This book has been nailed to your churches' door and nothing you are capable of doing can make its insidious influence go away. Its proofs and explanations are an absolute indictment of the garbage you shove into people's heads on a daily basis; your scriptural nonsense falls into tatters in the face of its truths.
The light is shining. Watch the cockaroaches run...
 Is Jesus a Delusion, Too? October 6, 2006
4 out of 107 found this review helpful
God is not a delusion, but he can and should be a personal God. Today, you find churches set up in storefronts or out in the country in hovels by untrained "preachers" instead of the denominations of days gone by. There were the Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Church of God, Church of Christ, etc. Now, it is non-denominational, which means "anything goes." Thus, this scientist has decided that the world would be better off without religious intervention. The churches do help their members in crisis, but otherwise they are in the business of money.
With the advent of telelevangists, we saw their public downfalls usually because of sex, though others were making a killing by using the money for personal luxuries. When Jeff went to Chicago to attend the U of C, he encountered his first atheist. Coming from a small Tennessee town, growing up Methodist, it was a bad discovery to find that his Physics and Astronomy professors did not believe in God. Everyone knows that the University of Chicago is a radical school. The Big Bang theory was that we were put here randomly and there are other aliens out there somewhere more intelligent than we. No intervention, no creation by God, no Jesus, (apparently he was a false prophet); my long-ago favorite prophet, Jeremiah (the prophet of doom) would have fit in as their advisor as he saw only the bad happening in his surroundings and was not inspired by the premonitions of Isiah and the Old Testament leaders who prophysized the coming of the Son of God. Atheists believe in the devil, so the rest of us can find comfort in God in his many varieties. The Catholics believe in communicating by calling on the Virgin Mary. I'm not an atheist, but no virgin could have a child, even a miracle child. Old women can, but not young virgins, so I believe that the Catholics have false beliefs for some reason all their own.
John Wesley taught us that Protestants of all persuasions can find life easier and we can get along with our neighbors if we have some kind of faith in a higher being. E. T. where are you?
Dawkins says it as it is October 6, 2006
29 out of 40 found this review helpful
Religious reviewers just don't get it! Blinded by their narrow archaic views they fail to see how absurd their beliefs appear to rational thinking people.
I don't think the likes of Dawkins and would have any brief with religion if it didn't try and impose itself on society and sow ignorance and discord.
Following in the traditions of Paine, Ingersoll and Russell there is no polite way of critiquing religion without expressing the contempt that this vestige of the dark ages deserves.
Sanity in a crazy world - but now what? October 6, 2006
21 out of 26 found this review helpful
I think, like many other reviewers, that this book is a breath of fresh air. A candid, lucid, intellectually rigorous and honest treatment of religion that additionally unmasks everything that religious protectionists have done to shroud and shy away from proper intellectual scrutiny. Dawkins rightly recognises how the term "have faith" is loaded into our children to have the drug like effect of "don't question", and highlights the pernicious anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism that is the feature of too many of today's religous teachings.
This book will strike a chord with like minded educated people, who are already on Dawkin's intellectual wavelenght. He has done an admirable job in presenting an intellectual toolkit that rational people can use to reach a confident and rational conclusion. However, this book left me wanting more in two distinct ways.
Firstly, Dawkins style of writing and his use of non everyday language, whilst elegant and intellectually rigorous, is unlikely to have mass market appeal and therefore may render the text as intellectually inaccessible to many of those in society who could most benefit from his liberating arguments.
Whilst I can't think of anyone better who could summarise and make accessible the finer points of natural selection, one needs to realise that the competition for mindspace is operating at a much more mass market level. On my local church billboard, for example the banner reads "GOOD - GOD = O". Rubbish? of course it is! but effectively populist and far more accessible to the common person than phrases like "the spectroscopic nemesis of Comte's positivism". Dawkins mass marketing of atheism has a way to go, although I wish him the best of luck.
Secondly, this book didn't address how rationalists can positively respond and act to stem the tide of fundamentalism and the cancerous way in which these absolutist 'values' ('restrictions') are being imposed on everyone (believer or non-believer) through the manipulative political-power wielding religious organisations. I put this book down wanting some outlet for that shared sense of frustration, but found none offered between the pages other than gaining a sense of problem shared.
Perhaps a challenge for your next book, Mr Dawkins?
I do not necessarily agree but will buy it! October 5, 2006
14 out of 36 found this review helpful
I find the comments here interesting. I've got to order this book and read the author's viewpoint for myself. I have some thoughts concerning some of the comments posted here.
As a Christian I see many problems with the church and those who call themselves "believers". I believe the entire concept of "hell" has been distorted over the years to scare people into church attendance. The Greek text doesn't seem to support the current concept of hell as much as Christians would like it to. Nor does the overall O.T./N.T. teaching on "hell". The modern church seems to do alot these days to increase attendance and make money in the name of God. I will never agree with that.
I must say that all that comes in the name of science is not always science. Much of it is not observable nor can it be truly tested. We have to admit that what science has called fact and good for us often times becomes false and bad for us somewhere down the road. We all thought Pluto was a planet. Now some within the scientific realm are trying to tell us otherwise. I think there are more hidden agendas around than we want to admit to within science. It's not as cut and dry as we would like to make it. There is alot of philosophical thought within the discipline we call "science". Where scientific fact cannot be observed it is often substituted with the latest philosophy that promotes the cause. When this happens it should no longer be considered purely science or science at all. Much of it is not observable, testable, or repeatable.
We turn to so-called "experts" but who can we call an expert when the experts cannot even agree? Even the most note-worthy of scientists that are considered credible still differ in opinion. Can we determine who is an expert simply from their educational background? If so, then since some colleges and universities are better than others then which college or university produces the best experts? Should the ones who earned a degree with an "A" average be considered better than the ones who earned a degree with a "C" average? Do internet classes count? If scientific experts disagree then which one should we consider to be the expert? We tend to agree with the ones that support our lifestyle choices and support our way of thinking.
In the same manner much of what is done in the name of Christianity/Religion is neither Christian or particularly good in any way, shape, or form. Just because someone with a cause decides to label it as Christian doesn't make it so. All that comes in the name of Christianity is not necessarily Christian. You cannot judge Christianity by the deceived who claim to follow it yet show no evidence of it.
I also question the concept of Christian's abusing children with the teaching of a concept of hell. While this may or may not be entirely true in some cases why doesn't anyone question the child abuse done over and over again by those who have absolutely no religious affiliation at all? How many naturalist/atheists have abused children? Some of the reviewers out here act as if only religious people are guilty of child abuse and that those who are not religious never abuse children. You tend to get angry over supposed abuse surrounding an ideology but not physical forms of abuse or perhaps false ideologies that you may hold to that have been taught to your children.
If morality evolved along with us apart from a god then how do we know it evolved properly? Is there a morality of the fittest as well? Random chance morality doesn't seem all that wonderful. If we all evolved and there are many, many different views of morality how do we decide which moral stance is right and which one is wrong? Obviously some evolved better or at least different than others. How do we make the determination that one view of morality evolved better than another? Which evolved view of morality do we accept and cherish as being proper?
What if my evolved morality believes that it is proper to kill one of your children yet your evolved morality says that it is not o.k. for me to kill your children? If it is all part of a random chance evolved morality how can you say it is wrong for someone to believe that murder is right? What is the standard for morality in the world of "evolved morals"?
When it comes to evolution I have often wondered why "man" as the highest evolved creature seems to have less ability to survive in some cases than the lower evolved animals he dwells with. When the tsunamis hit most of the animals had something within them in that told them to seek higher ground before the flood water engulfed them. Meanwhile the human beings were swallowed by the wave. I would like to believe that mankind should have all that the animals have to survive plus so much more. Yet it is apparent that we dont. Why is it that the highest evolved species of man has so many problems? We are dispensing so many psychotropic drugs these days under the guise of "if we cannot help you we will sedate you". We turn to science for answers to our problems but many times we do not find any help at all. The concept of answering life's problems in an easy to swallow pill form seems appealing but it is not realistic. The problems still exist beyond our cloudy sedation and science induced designer pharmaceuticals. Our household pets seem to have less problems than us. That doesn't always make me feel like the crowning glory of the evolutionary process. I do not see as much adaptation to the environment as I do stress, trying to cope, and all out searching for answers. The plethora of self-help material, over use of prescription drugs, psychology, and psychiatry seem to point to a problem without certain answers.
I don't have to mention all of the down sides to religion in my post here. Others will do fine without my help. I just lost a marriage that I wanted that only got worse when church people became involved. I don't need to hear about what is wrong with the church goers. I already know. It seems likely that both sides are lacking in evidence and explanation. As Christians we need to focus more on living a proper lifestyle that sets an example and doesn't leave non-believers wondering-"What is so great about Christianity or religion?" As for science-----there needs to be some admitting of certain philosophical presuppositions that are held near and dear instead of calling it science.
I'll give the book 5 out of 5 stars before I even read it. It's worth 5 stars simply because it promotes debate.
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