The God Delusion
This is the second book that I’ve read by Richard Dawkins, and I have to say, I’m becoming a big fan. Admittedly, most of the book was “preaching to the choir”, so I was a bit reluctant to read it. Despite this fact, I still enjoyed it immensely.
I had always considers myself an agnostic rather than an atheist, as I felt I could never disprove that God exists (of course, I can’t disprove the existence of the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy either). After finishing this book, my mind has been changed, I would classify myself as an atheist (or the new euphemism: “bright“). Just because we don’t have the answers for existence, doesn’t mean we should simply give up and say, “well, there must be a higher power responsible”. That is quite lazy. There is an answer to be found.
Intelligent Design is another issue I was somewhat ambivalent about as well. While I do “believe” in evolution, I never considered the two to be mutually exclusive. The main argument behind ID is that the natural world is too complex to for it not to have been designed. But, based on the line of reasoning that complex things need to be designed, then the designer itself must also be complex (more complex than what it designed), and therefore it would need to have been “designed” as well. Then who designed the designer? This creates an infinite regress.
One of the chapters also covers material in the bible. It doesn’t take much to debunk the bible, but it is always entertaining to read some of the things in the old testament. Some of it is quite appalling as well. I really wish more Christians would actually read the bible. The ones I know, seem to know very little about the contents. They only know what has been cherry-picked for them by their respective church. I highly recommend “The Age of Reason” by Thomas Paine for the most thorough debunking of the bible. It’s the book that “saved” me from my religious upbringing.
The book covers many more topics about religion, but I won’t go over them all.
I would challenge anyone of faith to read this book.
Merry Winter Solstice!
