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
- 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.
- 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.
- Arguments for God's Existence delves into the many arguments for the existence of God advanced throughout the ages, and finds them wanting.
- Why There Almost Certainly Is No God explains how the "design" apparent in the natural world is explained much better by Darwinian natural selection.
- The Roots of Religion explains why religious belief is so ubiquitous.
- The Roots of Morality: Why Are We Good?
- The 'Good' Book and the Changing Moral Zeitgeist
- 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."
- 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.
- A Much Needed Gap?
Reviews
- 2006-10-19 Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching (Terry Eagleton): link to review, plus response to review