On the Nightstand:
The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins; (Houghton Mifflin 2006)
Subjects:
Evolution, Atheism, Religious Studies, "Intelligent Design."
Book Blurb:
From Publishers Weekly: The antireligion wars started by Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris will heat up even more with this salvo from celebrated Oxford biologist Dawkins. For a scientist who criticizes religion for its intolerance, Dawkins has written a surprisingly intolerant book, full of scorn for religion and those who believe. But Dawkins, who gave us the selfish gene, anticipates this criticism. He says it's the scientist and humanist in him that makes him hostile to religions—fundamentalist Christianity and Islam come in for the most opprobrium—that close people's minds to scientific truth, oppress women and abuse children psychologically with the notion of eternal damnation. While Dawkins can be witty, even confirmed atheists who agree with his advocacy of science and vigorous rationalism may have trouble stomaching some of the rhetoric: the biblical Yahweh is "psychotic," Aquinas's proofs of God's existence are "fatuous" and religion generally is "nonsense." The most effective chapters are those in which Dawkins calms down, for instance, drawing on evolution to disprove the ideas behind intelligent design. In other chapters, he attempts to construct a scientific scaffolding for atheism, such as using evolution again to rebut the notion that without God there can be no morality. He insists that religion is a divisive and oppressive force, but he is less convincing in arguing that the world would be better and more peaceful without it.
Why?:
I saw an interview on YouTube between Dawkins and Ted Haggard. While the interview itself revealed nothing groundbreaking, it was fascinating to watch the keen and supremely arrogant Dawkins joust with the slick and equally arrogant, mega-church "deceiver" Ted Haggard. I also found the above review from Publisher's Weekly amusing, as I can't imagine Dawkin's rhetoric equalling that of notorious fundamentalists like Dobson, Robertson, Falwell and company.
