The God Delusion – Book Review

“The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins

Why Read It?

Might seem strange that I would read an overtly atheist piece of writing. However, as informed by Greg Clarke and John Dickson at Men Meeting the Challenge conference in 2008, there is a “New atheism” movement and it is making lots of noise. As Christians, they said, we should know what they are on about so that we can be prepared to respond when questions are asked.

Originally I was apprehensive to buy the book because in doing so I give Dawkins money (however little), thus assisting in making him justified in his opinions and possibly write another book. Although I did buy the paperback instead of the hard cover and payed a lot less. Ultimately it was more important to read it sooner rather than later. The plan was to pass on the book to avoid other people having to buy it.

Expectations before reading

• Ridiculous assumptions
• Conclusions based on flawed logic
• Vehement attack on Christianity in particular

First Impressions

From my first quick flick through I thought it would be an easy read. It is broken up into topical chapters with many subheadings. Usually short segments works for me as I can easily put the book down at the end of a segment if I need a break from reading

Dawkins’ Main Points

• Science has no room for God
• Natural Selection explains everything
• Jesus never said he was God
• Historical argument that Jesus never existed
• The 10 commandments only refers to the Jews therefore those acts can still be perpetrated on non Jews

Rebuttal

Dawkins must have never read the bible, or at least didn’t read it in its correct context. This seems strange for someone making such huge statements about Christianity and the historical Jesus.

Jesus rather emphatically and repeatedly said he was God. He was given chances to recant and refused. Ultimately he was crucified for saying he was God. It was treated as blasphemy.

As for Jesus never existing, Dawkins has ignored 99.9% of secular ancient historians that agree that Jesus existed. They might not agree on his divinity but they will say that he performed baffling deeds as stated by Josephus.

If he is willing to state such untruths then his credibility has to seriously be brought into question

Final Impressions

It wasn’t easy to read at all. Not just because he was trying to discount God. I found his writing was disjointed and had no natural flow. I found it confusing. I didn’t want to read this book more than once but had to read some parts over again to understand what he was on about. A lot of the time I couldn’t see the relationship between the text and the sub headings. His rambling was incessant, he could have made his point in half the space. I was trying to make notes as I read. In ten pages I could only usually find two or three main points. Other times I would skip huge chunks because I had learned his point already.

He is a Professor of Physics and therefore he talked a lot about scientific notions that mostly went over my head.

I was surprised to learn that newly converted atheists hold this book in such high regard. Perhaps they were searching for something as well and by their own prejudices bypassed the bible and found this book. Check out any religion section in a bookstore. There’s not a great deal of Christian material there.

The examples he uses to ridicule Christianity aren’t Christian at all instead they are ‘religious’. There is a difference. Christianity is all about Jesus, religiousness is all about following rules.

Dawkins does make some powerful points when referring the Old Testament. But one should not rely on his interpretation of the bible as his credibility has already been brought into question. Ultimately people still need to read the bible for themselves.

But thank God that is now over. Now for a book I might enjoy reading.