The God Delusion

Published by Random House UK Audio

Narrated by Lalla Ward

Richard Dawkins was recently voted one of the world's top three intellectuals (alongside Umberto Eco and Noam Chomsky) by Prospect magazine. As the author of many classic works on science and philosophy, he has always asserted the irrationality of belief in God and the grievous harm it has inflicted on society. He now focuses his fierce intellect exclusively on this subject, denouncing its faulty logic and the suffering it causes.

While Europe is becoming increasingly secularized, the rise of religious fundamentalism, whether in the Middle East or Middle America, is dramatically and dangerously dividing opinion around the world. In America and elsewhere, a vigorous dispute between "intelligent design" and Darwinism is seriously undermining and restricting the teaching of science. In many countries religious dogma from medieval times still serves to abuse basic human rights, such as those of women and gay people — and all from a belief in a God whose existence lacks evidence of any kind.

Dawkins attacks God in all his forms, from the sex-obsessed, cruel tyrant of the Old Testament to the more benign, but still illogical, Celestial Watchmaker favoured by some Enlightenment thinkers. He eviscerates the major arguments for religion and demonstrates the ultimate improbability of a supreme being. He shows how religion fuels war, foments bigotry and abuses children.

In The God Delusion, Dawkins presents a hard-hitting, impassioned rebuttal of religion of all types and does so in the lucid, witty and powerful language for which he is renowned. It is a brilliantly argued, fascinating polemic that will be required listening for anyone interested in this most emotional and important subject.

A Random House UK audio production.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House UK Audio
• Release date: Oct 5, 2006
• ISBN: 9781407001623

Reviews for The God Delusion

[ltjinja · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Makes you think.

[linus_linus_2 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Unputdownable!
Mr.Dawkins is an educated and a well-qualified asshole.

[marcusbastos-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Religion and Science The case against religion or religious beliefs is not an easy one. Richard Dawkins exposes it comparing religion with science. He also devotes some pages to elaborate on philosophical arguments about the existence of God, pretending to demonstrate their failures. At the end, the promise he makes in the book’s introduction - to guide the reader to an emancipation of religious beliefs - is not fulfilled. Williams James - The Varieties of Religious Experiences - knows better.

[karenduff · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A really interesting read, although he does tend to go on a bit. Even as someone who shares his views on god I was starting to get fed up towards the end.

[scottcholstad · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very good, no doubt, but after all the hype, a little underwhelming, I felt. And frankly a bit too boring. I really think in this school of authors, Hitchens is more readable and generally better while I get a lot more out of Dan Barker even. Still, a good work.

[brakketh-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Compelling argument for atheism though find Dawkin's tone off putting at times.

[antao-3 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

“Science can chip away at agnosticism, in a way that Huxley bent over backwards to deny for the special of God. I am arguing that, notwithstanding the polite abstinence of Huxley, Gould and many others, the God question is not in principle and forever outside the remit of science. As with the nature of the stars, contra Comte, and as with the likelihood of life in orbit around them, science can make at least probabilistic inroads into the territory of agnosticism.”In “The God Delusion” by Richard DawkinsUhm...How can you do that Dawkins, when your knowledge of Statistics is so frigging fuzzy (I’m using a polite word here)?NB: This review heavily relies on probabilistic concepts (*I'm looking at you Dawkins*).I haven't thought about this aspect of the philosophy of math in a while since my college days. I guess I could get behind the idea that frequentism is incompatible with a finite world even though it seems to work well on paper and in the head. There's also the Bayesian view which thinks about this topic differently based upon prior and posterior although I'm not sure Dawkins could salvage any of his probability arguments without question begging. One of my fantasies is to see a frequentist and Bayesian go at it in a stats smackdown/debate.On with the argument.I've always found Dawkin's statements strange when it comes to God's existence statistics-wise, and coming from a biologist (I thought these guys would be fairly proficient in the arcane arts of Statistics and Probability). While absence of proof is not necessarily proof of absence, absence of evidence is routinely considered as evidence of absence. Consider this thought experiment: I toss a coin intending to prove that it is a two-headed coin: neither side of it is 'tails'. The coin comes down 'heads'. Have I proved my hypothesis? Obviously not. I toss it again: 'heads' again. Proven? No. I toss it 100 more times, for 100 'heads'. Have I proven my hypothesis? No. In fact there is no number of tosses that can prove the hypothesis - though a single result of 'tails' would instantly disprove it. So the absence of that proof of 'tails' - i.e. a 'tails' result - is indeed not a proof of 'tails' absence ... but the one thing that is certainly true is that the accumulated series of 'heads' results is evidence of 'tails' absence! The more 'heads' results I get, the greater the accumulation of evidence that 'tails' does not exist, given the "a priori" assumption that both sides of the coin are equally likely to appear at each toss. So absence of evidence is evidence of absence ... just not proof. Dawkin's unfamiliarity with the laws of statistics extends to his misunderstanding of statistical issues, which is quite surprising when we consider how important statistic is for any any branch of science, certainly for his area of "expertise", Biology. Dawkins, I want you to state what his your p-value for your hypotheses that God does not exist, ok? Can we have that, please? After you state that, we can have a proper discussion on the "existence" of God.The above-mentioned thought experiment can indeed be related to the existence of God. Every possible scientific inquiry we make about the universe which, if the universe were created by a supernatural entity, could reveal indisputable evidence of that supernatural entity but fails to do so (having a natural or mundane explanation instead) is like a toss of that coin coming down 'heads'. The evidence accumulates that no 'tails' exists. And those 'coin tosses' - scientific experiments across thousands of years - are in the millions now, and no credible evidence for a supernatural being has been revealed. It's not proof of the non-existence of God, but it's an accumulation of evidence.Personally, I think spirituality is an internal experience which is hard to classify and something some people feel drawn to. Those who are not drawn to spirituality can seem to be angered by those who are. In the early Christian Gnostic 'Gospel of Mary Magdalena it says 'God can be found in the silence'. Perhaps, if atheists would really like to understand the pull of spirituality they should try meditation. It would certainly make a refreshing change from those who scour the Old Testament to find things to complain about (perhaps if they realised that many Christians long ago stopped taking the OT literally, they might understand the futility of such exercises). It is very clear from reading both the Old Testament and The New Testament that they are written not only by very different people and a different era, but the whole style and approach to God is very different. In the OT God is rather wrathful, extremely powerful and sometimes unforgiving. Whereas Jesus spent his whole time stressing love, forgiveness and kindness. His kindness was often commented on and often shocked people used to less kindness from their orthodox priests of the time. I think the reason that Christianity flourished is because of this new vision of a gentle and loving God. It was revolutionary and people are still struggling to love one another today. The Old Testament, on the other hand belongs to the tradition in which it was written - pre-history by numerous anonymous writers over hundreds of years. But people are usually Christians because of the new kinder message of Jesus Christ (hence the name) and not because of the OT.Bottom-line: Dawkins has become better known, these days, as an anti-theistic polemicist (or is he a warrior of truthfulness?) than as a scientist or an intellectual. He's not out to enlighten, elucidate, or engage in the serious discourse beliefs as serious and strongly held as his deserve; rather, he seems content merely to mist all who fail to avoid him with bafflingly smug proclamations from atop the impossibly high horse upon which he is evidently stranded. He's become a rabid dogmatist as insufferable as any other dogmatist, extremist, or fundamentalist you're likely to meet, and he can't keep his mouth, or fingers, shut. By no means does my little diatribe imply that the religionists should have the stage while atheists and anti-theists must remain silent. (For ex: Which am I, anyway?) I do maintain, however, that if this man expects to be taken seriously any longer, he is well advised to procure a strong crowbar to pry his intellect open a tad (or at least learn Statistics), as well as at least enough humility to respect not only others’ beliefs, but others for their beliefs. He's an arrogant twat. People who accept his point of view behave as he. People who find it difficult to square his "mathematical opinions" with their beliefs (or knowledge) to the contrary (regardless of your opinion on the last two nouns) feel threatened by his rabble rousing belligerence. People who believe they are threatened generally behave as if they are threatened. What's so interesting or not self-evident about that? Dawkin's bias comes from the old platonist vs formalist split. Dawkins may see physics quantum fluctuations as perfectly real existing entities, though no one has seen any such thing directly but God is, at best a name a notion. Hey Dawkins, Quantum Physics is just a man-made representation of reality. It's not reality! Why does Quantum entanglement works? No one knows! This is all assumption. I am not a fan of organized religion and condemn as Dawkins does the terrible cruelty inflicted upon humanity by organized religion over the centuries. I am also no dogmatist. What I care about his Science. And this is why I think Dawkins is just after you for your Euros. He does not have the intellectual wherewithal nor the initiative to present cogent arguments to counter theists directly; he simply takes the stance that anything that is not conventional science is illegitimate. That is dogma and such laziness.NB: In this review I’m not proving or disproving God’s “existence”. I’m just debunking Dawkin’s “science”.

[davidroche_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Obvious, really.

[eveso_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Thought provoking.

[mnorfolk49 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Some of it is quite baffling, but essentially got me 'over the line' completely with atheism. A worthy read, even if you are a believer; if nothing else Dawkins and other scientists bang the 'evidence' card endlessly which hopefully wakes us up to questioning both the stories we hear and the facts we believe.

[steshaw-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Unfortunately Dawkins taints an otherwise good book with much (perhaps deserved) hatred of the Catholic church (in particular). One doesn't come away with the feeling that Dawkins is the unbiased scientific thinker that he may otherwise want to portray himself as.

[razinha-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Having read his books and heard him speak he reads a lot more passionately than he speaks. I appreciate his approach, learned some along the way in a repackaging of many of the standard arguments with new ideas thrown in, and thoroughly agree with most of what he has to say. I was interested to learn that they have creationist controversy in England. And I got a kick out of the characterization of fundamentalist Christianity in the US as the American Taliban.

[andres_ferraro-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Invaluable

[kassilem · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not quite what I was hoping for, but about what I expected. The middle part of the book was very technical with a lot of scientific terminology. There were a few parts that I had to read a few times before I understood and I have a undergraduate degree in this kind of of science, so for the layperson, these parts might be a bit of a challenge. The rest of the book, the beginning and end, is much easier to understand - and more aggressive. Dawkin's explains why he takes the aggressive stance here and I ended up not minding it as much as I worried I would. This is something I feel I can back and support. I feel now like I have some arguments I can use when I'm subjected to a religious diatribe. Before, I knew what I wanted to defend and what I felt was plain wrong, but I was never able to quite find the words to counter with. Trying to explain my lack of religion didn't bother me much before, not until I spent a year in Africa in a community where one's religion was the first question strangers asked each other. And if you can't back up your lack of belief, well then, you are in for some nasty judgement. Due to this experience, I will most likely be spending a lot of time on books like this. I believe this was a pretty good start.

[parvita-2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A good book for the open minded to challenge your beliefs.

[briandarvell_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I've read some of Dawkins work in the past and also skim through his Twitter page once in a while. It's very clear the stance he has taken on religion and it's purpose in society but I thought I would take a stab at his book The God Delusion since I've heard it referenced frequently over the years. Overall I was impressed with his arguments and the way the book was structured. I admit that I come from a background of little religion and work in a career related to science and fact, so perhaps I am biased from the outset but I find that it's extremely hard to argue much of what is written in this book by fact alone. I enjoyed the facts and arguments that Dawkins presents in this book and also note that Dawkins still makes reference to religious texts as being an important source of literary history. I would definitely recommend this book to others.

[taecelle-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Everyone must read it!

[hcubic · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Unless you teach in a religiously-sponsored school, religion probably plays little role in your teaching of science. However, the "prior knowledge" of your students includes some decidedly non-scientific, religion-inspired viewpoints that ought to be taken into account. Renowned evolutionist Richard Dawkins' best-selling atheist thesis, "The God Delusion", attacks faith of all kinds head-on, and challenges the beliefs of every reasoning person. While he points out that few distinguished scientists hold traditional religious values, that is not true of most teachers of science and is definitely not true of our students. I recommend that teachers read this book, but be cautious about how the material in it is used in the classroom. Even if you fully agree with his very skeptical view of religion, it does not serve our educational mission to confront students with ideas that they will reject out of hand because those concepts do not comport with previous religious training. On the other hand, I agree with Dawkins that religious ideas are given more deference than they deserve, just because they are "religious".

[devil_llama · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An awesome tour de force for the devil's chaplain. Dawkins is at his best in this refutation of Christianity. Though often criticized as not dealing with the sophisticated theological arguments, this book was not intended to be a stand-alone refutation of all possible things to all people, but instead was intended to address Christian thought where most people live. In this, it succeeds.

[flydodofly · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

There are not that many topics that polarise people as much as religion. Dawkins takes a fresh unflinching look at the reasons why and succeeds to give good plausible reasons and stay calm most of the time. I could not think of anything he should have added or left out and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and only wish that more people thought the same way. Also: I suppose it is a good "how to" manual if you are a budding atheist looking for some support.

[michael.bradham · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Somebody's got to write this way. He did.

[brendono-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A well written passionate, and engaging book, that makes extremely intelligent and rational arguments against the superstition and dogma of perceived belief.

[ridgewaygirl · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I read this book to both be polite and to prove a point. I know a couple of atheists, and they've been interesting to talk to, and they've known a lot about Christianity and the Bible. It just seems fair to understand their point of view by reading the book most associated with atheism today. And, in an internet conversation, I backed myself into the corner of having to read it now, rather than at some vague, future date. So it's an interesting book. Dawkins gets in his own way more often than he should have, especially with his point that atheism is the only rational choice. But he presents the basic reasons for atheism and the criticisms he has of religion in a clear way. It was one of those books I'm happier to say that I've read, than I was to actually read it, but it was informative. If you've ever followed the topics of religion and science, even casually, probably none of the issues he raises will be unfamiliar. And much of the arguments he raises are against a fundamentalist, anti-science version of Christianity which very few Christians espouse. But in addressing some of the science of our beginnings, he does go into some very interesting areas, with clear, engaging explanations of issues involving natural selection, fascinating creatures and chemistry. He's less sure-footed on topics like linguistics, but the issues he's raised are worth thinking about. He's a polarizing guy, who expresses himself forcefully and not tactfully. It's useful to know what he actually has to say, as opposed to what people say that he's said.

[azrowan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It took a bit to slog through it at times, but in the end I'm glad I took the time to read it.

[brianinseattle · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

For me, it was a life-changing book. While I've almost always considered myself agnostic, it's primarily been out of a lack of caring about religion in general. But Dawkins proved to me that there is no god, and how beautiful life is because of that.

[seven.stories.press · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I love me some Richard Dawkins, and not only because he's the only person who's ever asked me for a photo of my Darwin fish tattoo. Beyond being one of the most attractive and charming evolutionary biologists on the face of this planet, he's darned intelligent, too. And I adore pretty much anything he's ever written, which I suppose is more the point of a review here than raving about his charm.

[darthdeverell · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Dawkins' writing is eloquent, funny, and continuously on-point. He is unapologetic as he lays out his argument for the nonexistence of god and the lack of a necessity for religion. The book works like an extended academic paper, with each chapter representing a section of his overall argument. He carefully takes the time to evaluate the arguments in favor of religion and then scientifically debunks all of them. "The God Delusion" represents a cry for reason and science in a world increasingly anti-science.

[dickmanikowski · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is one of those books that just got away from me. I was probably 70% of the way through it when I got distracted by other books (so many books, so little time) and set it aside. When I went to renew it from the library so I could finish it, someone else had placed a hold on it. So I returned it.But it was an interesting read. Or at least the portion that I read interested me.Dawkins is pretty much the poster child for what I think of as evangelical atheism. While I disagree with his fundamental premise, I wanted to see what he had to say. And one he got past his bashing of creationists and others who insist on a fundamentalist reading of the Bible, he raised some interesting points.Trained as an evolutionary biologist, he takes a scientific approach toward the question of whether or not some sort of supernatural higher power exists. And I appreciated that approach.His exploration of what Darwinian survival value the concept of religion provides was particularly intriguing. But that's when I permitted my attention to be diverted to different books.

[mbmackay · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Masterful demolition of god & religion. Great stuff.Read Feb 2007

[benuathanasia · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

FYI, I regularly bounce back and forth between atheist, agnostic, and Quaker. Dawkins is the type of atheist that is aggressively angry and (seemingly) intentionally offensive to anyone who may be on the fence religion-wise. He reminds me of so many trolls I've seen in discussion boards that hovers around merely to insult those that a religious, regardless of what their view is. Were he a Christian, I would liken him to some of the most vociferous of televangelists given his overblown hatred of Jews and Muslims - thankfully for him, he hates all monotheists equally. There's very little commentary on non-Abrahamic religions.And did he REALLY say that raising a child in any religion (regardless of its liberalism of moderation) is worse than pedaphilia? This guy can seriously go fuck himself.