The God Delusion

Overview

The God Delusion is a book by Richard Dawkins, published in 2006. Its basic thesis is in support of atheism.

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Chapters

1. A Deeply Religious Non-Believer sets up some basic premises for the rest of the book:
   • It is not talking about Einsteinian religion
   • Religion gets undeserved respect, e.g. unspecified "religious reasons" will trump rational argument every time in a legal setting, even to the point of allowing otherwise illegal activities such as consumption of controlled substances "needed" for a religious ceremony; religious conflicts are often re-branded as "ethnic cleansing" or "inter-community warfare"; etc. Dawkins makes the case that respect for "freedom of religion" is being taken too far.
2. The God Hypothesis argues that God's purported existence is a scientific hypothesis about the universe which should be analyzed as skeptically as any other scientific claim.
3. Arguments for God's Existence delves into the many arguments for the existence of God advanced throughout the ages, and finds them wanting.
4. Why There Almost Certainly Is No God explains how the "design" apparent in the natural world is explained much better by Darwinian natural selection.
5. The Roots of Religion explains why religious belief is so ubiquitous.
6. The Roots of Morality: Why Are We Good?
7. The 'Good' Book and the Changing Moral Zeitgeist
8. What's Wrong with Religion? Why Be So Hostile? invites the reader "to think about ways in which religion is not such a good thing for the world."
9. Childhood, Abuse and the Escape from Religion attempts to raise consciousness about indoctrination of children who are too young to make up their own minds about their beliefs.
10. A Much Needed Gap?

Reviews

• 2006-10-19 Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching (Terry Eagleton): link to review, plus response to review
• detailed review and summary by Robert Stewart on The Journal of Evolutionary Philosophy web site:
  • chapters 1-6

Links cited within the book

• (p215) 2006-05-27 Animal instincts by Richard Conniff