“The God Delusion”, Richard Dawkins

The book cover mentions that Richard Dawkins has recently been voted one of the top three intellectuals alive today and it just makes so much sense. He is effortlessly academic and challenging in his writing style, his arguments and his topics and were it not so desperately ironic considering the subject of this particular book, I would worship him.

Some years ago, on carelessly flicking through “A Devil’s Chaplain”, I got offended at Dawkins’ lack of tolerance for other people’s opinions but now I think I understand what he means when he argues that God is indeed a delusion and that religion deserves no undue respect, no tip-toeing around misconceived notions and no special status in matters of opinion. Dawkins covers it all here, all the angles from which religious zealots could possibly attack his arguments. Creationism is dealt with, but, refreshingly, does not become the main focus of the book as we move from the poverty of the agnostic stance to deconstructed arguments for the existence of God to the roots of religion and much more.

“What is the primitively advantageous trait that sometimes misfires to generate religion?” he asks, and this wonderfully irreverent tone continues throughout the book. While he sometimes seems to go out of his way to use words like “outbreak” or “infested” to show his view of religion as an unfortunate condition, this is probably done to desensitise people, or in his own words, raise the reader’s consciousness.

Dawkins brilliantly illustrates the ridiculous idea of deriving morality from scripture: if religious leaders argue that some passages of the Bible are symbolic, surely the decision of which parts those are and which are to be taken literally is just as easily made by an atheist as it certainly can’t be based on the text itself.

This book is necessary as a loud counterpart to too many religious fanatics, who apparently are finding a foothold in Britain, too.

The last chapter describes how science and a sense of wonder can easily replace and surpass religion as a source of consolation and inspiration. Bill Bryson’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything” and “The God Delusion” have made me realise that I could never be anything but an atheist and thanks to this book I have the knowledge to back it up and the feeling that this is a beautiful state of affairs.