 First edition UK cover | |
| Author | Richard Dawkins |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subjects | |
| Publisher | Bantam Press |
Publication date | 2 October 2006 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (hardcover andpaperback) |
| Pages | 464 |
| ISBN | 978-0-618-68000-9 |
| 211/.8 22 | |
| LC Class | BL2775.3 .D39 2006 |
The God Delusion is a 2006 book by British evolutionary biologist and ethologistRichard Dawkins, in which he argues that asupernatural creator,God, does not exist, and that belief in apersonal god qualifies as adelusion, which he defines as a persistentfalse belief held in the face of strong contradictoryevidence. In the book, he expresses his agreement toRobert Pirsig's statement inLila (1991) that "when one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion."[1] He argues in favour of the possibility of morality existing independently of religion and proposes alternative explanations for the origins of both religion and morality.
In early December 2006, it reached number four in theNew York Times Hardcover Non-Fiction Best Seller list after nine weeks on the list.[2] The book has attracted widespread commentary and critical reception, with many works written in response.
Dawkins has presented arguments againstcreationist explanations of life in his previous works onevolution. The theme ofThe Blind Watchmaker, published in 1986, is that evolution can explain the apparent design in nature. InThe God Delusion he focuses directly on a wider range of arguments used for and against belief in theexistence of a god (or gods).[citation needed]
Dawkins identifies himself repeatedly as anatheist, while also pointing out that, in a sense, he is alsoagnostic, though "only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden".[3]
Dawkins had long wanted to write a book openlycriticising religion, but his publisher had advised against it. By 2006, his publisher had warmed to the idea. Dawkins attributes this change of mind to "four years ofBush" (who "literally said that God had told him toinvade Iraq").[4][5] By that time, a number of authors, includingSam Harris andChristopher Hitchens, who together with Dawkins were labelled "The Unholy Trinity" by Robert Weitzel, had already written books openly attacking religion.[6] According to theAmazon retailer in August 2007, the book was the best-seller in their sales of books on religion and spirituality, with Hitchens'sGod is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything coming second. This led to a 50% growth in that category over the three years to that date.[7]
Dawkins dedicates the book toDouglas Adams and quotes the novelist: "Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"[8] The book contains ten chapters. The first few chapters make a case that there almost certainly is no God, while the rest discuss religion and morality.
Dawkins writes thatThe God Delusion contains four what he calls "consciousness-raising" messages, arguing that:
Chapter one, "A deeply religious non-believer", seeks to clarify the difference between what Dawkins terms "Einsteinian religion" and "supernatural religion". He notes that the former includes quasi-mystical andpantheistic references to God in the work of physicists likeAlbert Einstein andStephen Hawking, and describes such pantheism as "sexed up atheism". Dawkins instead takes issue with thetheism present in religions like Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism.[9] The proposed existence of this interventionist God, which Dawkins calls the "God Hypothesis", becomes an important theme in the book.[10] He maintains that the existence or non-existence of God is a scientific fact about the universe, which is discoverable in principle if not in practice.[11]
The book argues against theFive Ways. According to Dawkins, "[t]he five 'proofs' asserted byThomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century don't prove anything, and are easily [...] exposed as vacuous."[12]
Dawkins summarises the main philosophical arguments onGod's existence, singling out theargument from design for longer consideration. Dawkins concludes thatevolution by natural selection can explain apparent design in nature.[1]
He writes that one of the greatest challenges to the human intellect has been to explain "how the complex, improbable design in the universe arises", and suggests that there are two competing explanations:
This is the basic set-up of his argument against the existence of God, theUltimate Boeing 747 gambit,[13] where he argues that the first attempt is self-refuting, and the second approach is the way forward.[14]
At the end of chapter 4 ("Why there almost certainly is no God"), Dawkins sums up his argument and states, "The temptation [to attribute the appearance of design to actual design itself] is a false one, because the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the designer. The whole problem we started out with was the problem of explaining statistical improbability. It is obviously no solution to postulate something even more improbable".[15] In addition, chapter 4 asserts that the alternative to the designer hypothesis is notchance, butnatural selection.
He dedicates a chapter of his book to criticism of theGod-of-the-gaps argument.[16] He noted that:
Creationists eagerly seek a gap in present-day knowledge or understanding. If an apparent gap is found, it is assumed that God, by default, must fill it. What worries thoughtful theologians such asBonhoeffer is that gaps shrink as science advances, and God is threatened with eventually having nothing to do and nowhere to hide.[16]
Dawkins states he cannot disprove God's existence with absolute certainty. However, he appliesOccam's razor to argue that a godless universe requires fewer assumptions than one with anomniscient andomnipotent deity, which he contends would represent an extremely complex explanation. He further asserts that omniscience and omnipotence are logically incompatible attributes. Based on these arguments, Dawkins concludes that a universe without God presents a more plausible explanation.[17]
The second half of the book begins by exploring the roots of religion and seeking an explanation for its ubiquity across human cultures. Dawkins advocates the "theory of religion as an accidental by-product – a misfiring of something useful"[18] as for example the mind's employment ofintentional stance. He proposes that religions spread through cultural transmission, comparing them tomemes (a concept he likens to viruses).[19]
He then turns to the subject ofmorality, maintaining that society does not need religion to be good. Instead, society's morality has aDarwinian explanation:altruistic genes, selected through the process of evolution, give people natural empathy. He asks, "would you commit murder, rape or robbery if you knew that no God existed?" He argues that very few people would answer "yes", undermining the claim that religion is needed to make society behave morally. In support of this view, he surveys the history of morality, arguing that there is a moralZeitgeist that continually evolves in society, generally progressing towardliberalism. As it progresses, this moral consensus influences how religious leaders interpret their holy writings. Thus, Dawkins argues that morality does not originate from the Bible. He proposes that society's moral progress informs what parts of the Bible Christians accept and what they now dismiss.[20]
InThe God Delusion, Dawkins not only defends atheism, but also goes on the offensive against religion. Dawkins criticizes religion for what he describes as its subversion of science, fostering of fanaticism, encouragement ofbigotry against homosexuals, and other perceived negative influences. Dawkins regards religion as a "divisive force" and as a "label for in-group/out-group enmity and vendetta".[21]
He is opposed to the teaching of religion in schools, which he considers to be anindoctrination process. He likens thereligious teaching of children by parents and teachers infaith schools to what he perceives as mental abuse. Dawkins considers the labels "Muslim child" and "Catholic child" equally misapplied as the descriptions "Marxist child" and "Tory child", as he wonders how a young child can be considered developed enough to have such independent views on the cosmos and humanity's place within it.
The book concludes with the question of whether religion, despite its alleged problems, fills a "much needed gap", giving consolation and inspiration to people who need it. Dawkins argues these needs are much better filled by non-religious means such as philosophy and science and asserts that atheism offers a more life-affirming perspective than religion. An appendix gives addresses for those "needing support in escaping religion".
The book was nominated for Best Book at theBritish Book Awards, where Richard Dawkins was named Author of the Year.[22] Nevertheless, the book received mixed reviews from critics, including both religious and atheist commentators.[23] In theLondon Review of Books,Terry Eagleton accused Richard Dawkins of not doing proper research into the topic of his work, religion, and further agreed with critics who accused Dawkins of committingstraw man fallacies against theists.[24]
Oxford theologianAlister McGrath (author ofThe Dawkins Delusion? andDawkins' God) argues that Dawkins is ignorant ofChristian theology, and therefore unable to engage religion and faith intelligently.[25] Dawkins had an extended debate with McGrath at the 2007Sunday Times Literary Festival.[26]
InWhy there almost certainly is a God: Doubting Dawkins, philosopherKeith Ward claims that Dawkins mis-stated the five ways, and thus responds with astraw man. For example, for the fifth Way, Dawkins places it in the same position for his criticism as theWatchmaker analogy- when in fact, according to Ward, they are vastly different arguments. Ward defended the utility of the five ways (for instance, on the fourth argument he states that all possible smells must pre-exist in the mind of God, but that God, being by his nature non-physical, does not himself stink) whilst pointing out that they only constitute a proof of God if one first begins with a proposition that the universe can be rationally understood. Nevertheless, he argues that they are useful in allowing us to understand what God will be like given this initial presupposition.[27]
Eastern Orthodox theologianDavid Bentley Hart says that Dawkins "devoted several pages ofThe God Delusion to a discussion of the 'Five Ways' ofThomas Aquinas but never thought to avail himself of the services of some scholar of ancient and mediaeval thought who might have explained them to him ... As a result, he not only mistook the Five Ways for Thomas's comprehensive statement on why we should believe in God, which they most definitely are not, but ended up completely misrepresenting the logic of every single one of them, and at the most basic levels."[28]
Christian philosopherKeith Ward, in his 2006 bookIs Religion Dangerous?, argues against the view of Dawkins and others that religion is socially dangerous.
EthicistMargaret Somerville[29] suggested that Dawkins "overstates the case against religion",[30] particularly its role in human conflict.
Many of Dawkins' defenders claim that critics generally misunderstand his real point. During a debate onRadio 3 Hong Kong, David Nicholls, writer and president of theAtheist Foundation of Australia, reiterated Dawkins' sentiments that religion is an "unnecessary" aspect of global problems.[31] Dawkins argues that "the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis like any other".[32] He disagrees withStephen Jay Gould's principle ofnonoverlapping magisteria (NOMA). In an interview with theTime magazine, Dawkins said:
I think that Gould's separate compartments was a purely political ploy to win middle-of-the-road religious people to the science camp. But it's a very empty idea. There are plenty of places where religion does not keep off the scientific turf. Any belief in miracles is flat contradictory not just to the facts of science but to the spirit of science.[33]
AstrophysicistMartin Rees has suggested that Dawkins' attack on mainstream religion is unhelpful.[34] Regarding Rees' claim in his bookOur Cosmic Habitat that "such questions lie beyond science; however, they are the province of philosophers and theologians", Dawkins asks "what expertise can theologians bring to deep cosmological questions that scientists cannot?"[35][36] Elsewhere, Dawkins has written that "there's all the difference in the world between a belief that one is prepared to defend by quoting evidence and logic, and a belief that is supported by nothing more than tradition, authority or revelation."[37]
On 3 October 2007,John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, publicly debatedRichard Dawkins at theUniversity of Alabama at Birmingham on Dawkins' views as expressed inThe God Delusion, and their validity over and against the Christian faith.[38][39][40]"The God Delusion Debate" marked Dawkins' first visit to theOld South and the first significant discussion on this issue in the "Bible Belt".[41]The event was sold out, andThe Wall Street Journal called it "a revelation: in Alabama, a civil debate over God's existence."[42][43] Dawkins debated Lennox for the second time at theOxford University Museum of Natural History in October 2008. The debate was titled "Has Science Buried God?", in which Dawkins used a form of anEddington concession[clarification needed] in saying that, although he would not accept it, a reasonably respectable case could be made for "a deistic god, a sort of god of the physicist, a god of somebody likePaul Davies, who devised the laws of physics, god the mathematician, god who put together the cosmos in the first place and then sat back and watched everything happen" but not for a theistic god.[44][45][46][47]
The book was ranked second on theAmazon best-sellers' list in November 2006.[63]The God Delusion has been translated into 35 languages.[64]
ForThe God Delusion, Dawkins was named Author of the Year at the 2007British Book Awards. TheGiordano Bruno Foundation awarded the 2007Deschner Prize to Dawkins for the "outstanding contribution to strengthen secular, scientific, and humanistic thinking" in his book.[65]
Many books have been written in response toThe God Delusion, including but not limited to:
InTurkey, where the book had sold at least 6,000 copies,[66] a prosecutor launched a probe into whetherThe God Delusion was "an attack on holy values", following a complaint in November 2007. If convicted, the Turkish publisher and translator, Erol Karaaslan, would have faced a prison sentence of inciting religious hatred and insulting religious values.[67] In April 2008, the court acquitted the defendant. In ruling out the need to confiscate copies of the book, the presiding judge stated that banning it "would fundamentally limit the freedom of thought".[68]
Dawkins' website, richarddawkins.net, was banned in Turkey later that year after complaints from Islamic creationistAdnan Oktar (Harun Yahya) for alleged defamation.[69] By July 2011, the ban had been lifted.[70]
List of editions in English:
The book has been officially translated into many different languages, such as Spanish, German, Italian, and Turkish. Dawkins has also promoted unofficial translations of the book in languages such as Arabic[71] and Bengali.[72] There are alsoTelugu andTamil translations of the book. The Richard Dawkins Foundation offers free translations inArabic,Urdu,Farsi, andIndonesian.[73]
Non-exhaustive list of international editions:
Chronological order of publication (oldest first)
| International | |
|---|---|
| Other | |
