Notes on "The God Delusion"

[ciphergoth]

ergotia and lilithmagna got me Richard Dawkins's "The God Delusion" as a present - thanks! Here's some bullet points on my reactions to it:

• Those who know my views well won't be surprised to learn that Dawkins isn't atheistic enough for me. Dawkins considers the existence of God to be a hypothesis that can be scientifically examined. As an ignostic I can't see that the word "God" refers to any concept meaningful enough to be put to the test.
• The book claims that one of its aims is converting the faithful. I don't believe him; certainly a book with so strident a tone could never succeed in that department. Instead, its primary goal is to rouse nonbelievers to stand up and be counted, for which purpose the tone will help some and hurt some.
• Critics of the book often write that he only engages with fundamentalists, and simply pretends that they characterize all religious people. That just isn't so; he has anticipated that criticism and is explicit about avoiding that error all the way through the book. However, I'd like to have seen a more direct attack on moderate religion than simply saying "well it isn't true and it opens the door to fundamentalism" - or at least more space devoted to the latter charge.
• The most useful service the book performs may be that of naming and attacking "NOMA" - the idea that science can rule in its domain but should refer to religion for what is religions domain. This is a theme I could develop further :-)
• You can't calculate the probability of God. Setting aside my ignostic objections (or possibly just casting them in a different light) in order to apply Bayes theorem as he does, you need the "a priori" probability of God, and there's no good way to choose that value. Certainly the reasoning suggested by several people that he quotes, that since we don't know either way we should assign a 50/50 a priori probability, is no way to go about things.
• Jesus got off far too lightly in the discussion about morality.

Comments

[xquiq.livejournal.com]

The main thing I appreciated about the book was that Dawkins is quite upfront in saying that religious ideas are not necessarily more worthy of reverence than any other type of idea. The idea that religion trumps logic in terms of the respect afforded to a viewpoint is one that has irritated me in the past.

I was slightly uncomfortable at first with his strident tone, but I think in part this is because I've been whispering about my own atheism for fear of causing offense, while accepting that the religious can shout about the correctness of their belief from the rooftops if they so desire. 'The God Delusion' encouraged me to think about that attitude in a bit more depth and do some more reading. I am happy to report that I have now moved on from that position ;)