I recently finished reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. This book is brilliant and if you haven't read it, I definitely recommend it to you (if you do buy it, make sure you buy the paperback version with the additional foreword).
Basically, the book is non-fiction and details Dawkin's argument that there is no God (just in case it isn't obvious, Dawkins is an atheist). Furthermore, the belief in a personal God, ala Christianity, qualifies as a delusion (there is a great quote in the book "when one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion").
The first half of the book details his argument that there is no God. In my opinion, the first half of the book in itself merits purchase. His arguments are extremely well thought out and, despite some accusations to the contrary, do not consist of pure vitriol. The second half of the book talks about morality and particularly, the relationship between religion and morality. Unfortunately, there are a couple of areas in the second half of the book where it bogs down a bit. Overall though, he makes well thought out arguments (for the most part) in a highly entertaining and lucid manner.
Granted, the book in itself is not 100% convincing - there are a couple of arguments he makes which I'm not sure I fully agree with and there seem to be some assumptions which aren't fully explained. I guess this is due to the fact that there is a limit to how much you can convey in a book and still make it an interesting read. Nevertheless, this is one of those books which you find hard to put down after you pick it up and I cannot recommend it enough (regardless of whether you are an atheist, theist, agnostic or any of the other possiblities).
Full disclosure department - I consider myself an agnostic (and still do).
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6 comments:
I'm not sure how you can make a convincing argument that there is or isn't a god - at the end of the day, all the arguments boils down to faith.
Does that mean you are taking the position of an agnostic who believes it isn't possible to prove the existence of God or otherwise?
In response to your post, it depends on your definition of God. It probably wasn't clear enough in my post, but Dawkins argument is against a personal God eg the God seen in the Bible. Dawkins makes a distinction between the personal God (who supposedly created the Universe and should be worshipped) and what he terms the Einsteinian God as a metaphor for nature.
Without spoiling the book, its hard to talk about this in detail. But basically, he first examines the various arguments in favour of God - and then debunks them (with some pretty funny examples in some cases).
His main argument is with regard to how the Universe came to be so complex and apparently "designed". The personal God view is that the Universe and man was created by God (intelligent design). Dawkins argument is that this is self-refuting as any such God would have to be complex to start with.
On the other hand, darwinism can be used to show how the Universe has come to be to so complex by gradually building from simple things. In other words, God did not create the Universe.
An agnostic takes the position that it isn't possible to prove the existence of God or otherwise, therefore he remains on the fence.
A believer can take the same position (ie that you cannot PROVE the existence) but believes anyway out of faith.
i.e. the difference appears to be how they interpret the need or lack of proof.
One other thing - Dawkins definition of a "personal god" seems very much focused on the Christian/Islamic definitions of a "creator".
There's a third major "religion" - Buddhism and its offshoots such as Guan Yin, that worhsips these "deities" as enlightened beings that take an interest in, and protect, their believers.
I'd be interested in any arguments that he might have that can prove or dis-prove the potential existence of a higher being...
I have to disagree with your definition of agnostic (mainly because it doesn't fit me and I consider myself an agnostic). I did a bit of digging around and the best definition of agnostic seems to come from wikipedia.
Based on the wikipedia entry, I would be tagged as either a weak or apathetic agnostic. Your examples fall into strong agnosticism and agnostic theism.
Re Dawkins - yes, his argument is very much based on the definition of a Personal God as an allmighty omniscient being who created the universe (like a good scientist, he first defined the term God). As a result, at times, it can feel like he is singling out Christian/Islam particularly as he uses examples from these two religions (not surprising though considering they are the main religions with this definition of God).
He doesn't really talk about buddhism as it doesn't fall into the above definition of God. Obviously, I can't speak for Dawkins, but the guy is an evolutionary biologist (in fact, he refers to Darwinian principles fairly often in the book) so I guess the question he would consider is whether such a "higher being" could evolve naturally in a Darwinian sense. If such "higher beings" can evolve naturally, then I suppose that Dawkins would have no ideological opposition to this (other than that he seems to be anti-religious).
Of course, whether the deities as worshipped by Buddhism are actually "higher beings" is a completely different question.
Re: definition of agnostic - so you don't actually disagree with me, you just point out that there are different sub-divisions of agnosticism - fine with me :)
Re: the likelihood of a "creator" god - he is again arguing within the bounds of our current understanding.
For example - is there such a thing as a soul? If so, what is it? How does it sit with our understandings of science? How did it "evolve" naturally according to Darwinism? Or does it evolve at all? If he believes it doesn't exist, why not? Where's his proof? Or is it just because we haven't been able to prove it yet, one way or the other? Basically we still don't know, so no point arguing over it.
Therefore, I come back to my first statement - it boils down to faith.
If you believe, good for you - if you don't believe, good for you too. In the same way that I dislike people shoving their beliefs down my throat, I also dislike people shoving their "dis-beliefs" down my throat...
Anyway - this is one of those fun discussions we can have when I visit next month!
Oh, when I refer to "he" in my previous comment, I am of course referring to Mr Dawkins...
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