The God Delusion (who's read it?)

[Nick]

So I'm in an agnostic point in my life. Leaning more towards believing.
I was recommended the book The God Delusion. Who's read it?
What are your thoughts on it?

[Matt]

I've read it---I was a 4 or a 5 (pure agnostic/weak atheist) on Dawkins's scale prior to reading it but now I'd say I'm a 6 (de-facto atheist). The small section entitled "The Poverty of Agnosticism" (pages 69-77) really encouraged me to get off the agnostic fence. As Dawkins would say, everyone is an atheist to the extent that they reject all gods save for the one they believe in. I just take that atheism one god further.

Out of curiosity, why do you lean towards believing?

[Nick]

I'm through the first chapter now. It's all very intriguing to me. The one quote Dawkins put in there from Robert Pirsig, "When one person suffers from a delusion, it's called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion". I Read that quote over and over again. It's powerful. And there are good examples of it too. Like Charles Manson and Jim Jones.

I lean more toward believing because I myself used to be a hardcore Christian. But after a series of events, my extreme faith was tested. And now as I think about it, there is really no proof of a god existing. Hopefully after reading this book my mind will be set with Atheism. And that will be a very interesting thing if/when it happens. Because my parents are proclaimed Seventh-Day Adventists.

[Matt]

Prior to reading The God Delusion I already had a beef with religion because 1.) I was raised Catholic, I went to parochial school for 8 years, and unlike my peers I actually READ the bible. The amount of bigotry and hatred in it is shocking---every wonder why the ten commandments doesn't mention things like rape and slavery? It's because all that stuff was cool in the old testament. 2.) The amount of bigotry and hatred that comes out of people like Fred Phelps, Pat Robertson, and Jerry Falwell was, and still is, absolutely revolting. The bible is their source material. So, like I said, I was already a 4 or a 5 on the Dawkins scale coming into the book. Now I'm a 6 and I feel liberated---this is your existence, and you don't have to wait for some space god to come rescue you. As Douglas Adams once said, "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?"

I don't want to spoil this for you. I'd like to hear what you thought of the book after you're done reading it. Maybe you'll still believe. More power to you---I am one of the few atheists that actually think atheism doesn't have too much of a bearing on one's morality (It just means you don't believe in a lie. I recently saw Bishop Desmond Tutu on Craig Ferguson---what a courageous, deeply moral man. I don't care what religion he is, or if he believes something that isn't true---he's alright by me!). I do, however, think that religion (especially the hateful religion of preachers like Phelps and Robertson), can make good people into brainwashed monsters. Would the Crusades, the Inquisition, 9/11, or the bombing of abortion clinics ever happen if some manipulative megalomaniacal fundamentalist wasn't indoctrinating hordes of people to kill in the name of god?

[Nick]

One thing that I've kinda been playing around with in my head for the last few days is this:
The God of the Christians and Catholics and all of the other Protestant and Jewish religions doesn't approve of suicide. But how can that be when Jesus himself sent himself down to Earth when he knew damn well that it was suicide? The answer: It never happened. Or God is a liar. I would rather believe the first answer. But either one works for me because they both prove that there is something fictional about religious beliefs.

Something I thought of when I was reading that second paragraph was this: My mom asked me last week or the week before, "Who is more judgemental? The open or closed minded people?". Then I thought about how Atheists were considered to be close-minded because they don't accept that there is a God. I believe it is actually the opposite though. I believe that Atheists are the most open-minded people out there mainly because they don't just go with what they were told growing up. They have taken the time to consider all things before breaking away from the popular belief of religion. Wouldn't you agree?

[Matt]

There is no debate with the bible. There is no talking snake and there is no god that got every species of animals together on a boat. Jesus is a rehashing of Mitra and Horus. Look it up sometime. Think about it: Would we still accept the most outlandish stories of the bible had science not shrunk the realm of religion? These stories were believable at one time, and that time was called the bronze age. Now they're just parables.

You do understand that the argument your mother makes is an incredibly weak argument, right? Your mother is an atheist when it comes to all gods but one. She's even "close minded" about all sects of Christianity except one. So you would suddenly be open minded had you accepted just one of these religions? Do they suddenly all have the correct answer? Preposterous.

[Nick]

I do believe so. She keeps her head in one direction and won't listen to reason or other sides of anything. Whenever there is an argument brought up she seems to repeat questions in different ways because I shut down the argument before. She doesn't listen to me. Neither does my dad. And they don't shut up about it. But my mind is open, if it wasn't then I wouldn't be accepting the religious propoganda that I was raised and taught to believe. I want to get to the part in the book where he counters all arguments for why there is a god. I'm getting tired of using the same counterpoints all the time with my parents, and I think some new ones will help open their minds, or at least leave me alone about it. Arguing about the same thing over and over and over again gets very old, very quick.

[Matt]

You arguing with 5 minutes with your Mom and Dad will not undo years and years of indoctrination. There are PLENTY of arguments in the book regarding why there is no god, so don't worry, and Dawkins lays them out in chapter 4 (entitled "Why there almost certainly is no god") He also lays out the common arguments for a god in previous chapters and blows them out of the water.

But honestly, even if you read these arguments it's probably not going to dissuade your parents. Think about it: Very young children, by and large, listen to their parents as the authority on reality. There is probably an evolutionary reason for this: When mankind was still living in the bush the kids who didn't listen to their parents when they were warned that the river was infested with crocodiles probably didn't last long enough to spread their genes. Your parents were indoctrinated, just as I was, to believe what they believe. I got out of religion because my parents gave me a strong sense of right and wrong and, after reading the bible, I was convinced that what I was reading was wrong. Perhaps your parents screwed up by giving you very strong reasoning skills. Chances are your grandparents didn't make the same mistake.

[Nick]

They're so close-minded it's not even funny. My mom grew up in a religious home, but my dad didn't. He just started going to church like... I don't know. Maybe 15 or 16 years ago. And he's so into it.

But yeah, I'll definately read that chapter. I'm really looking forward to it.

[Katelyn]

things happen in everones life. proof is out there. faith is what keeps people going and hopefully you still have that seed from when you used to be a "hardcore christian" and you realize God loves you and is waitng for you to come back to him. dont listen to others. pray about it rather than read a book written by an idiot.

[Nick]

The point of debate is to bring up points that you believe. So please don't attack people when we're debating. It defeats the purpose.

Aside from that. I am in a state of believing in God. I just don't care about him or any of the christian propaganda that I was raised to believe. I was fed christianity from an early age. But then when I got the chance to get out there and experience the world for myself, I realized that people over-exaggerate the greatness of God. People can blame poverty, domestic violence, death, and other things like that on sin. But really, how can you blame sin when the most powerful being doesn't step in and intervene and let justice prevail. It just doesn't happen. So in my mind, why should I worship someone who allows bad things to happen without a second thought? That's not the kind of god I want to follow. It's pointless to a certain extent.

[serpentsings]

here is my opinion. and i have one man to thank.. nietzsche. though his main theory is "God is dead" i am actually going to speak about a different part of his argument. he says that truth is like a leaf. there are a million leaves, and each one not exactly the same.

i was raised from the day i was born in the baptist, christian faith. i chose to be baptised when i was 10 and i cannot deny the fact that i felt something inside of me walk me down to the waters. now. ive also heard songs, been to concerts, read books, and watched movies. ive been in near-death experiences and all of these things can bring that same feeling about. the same... connection (rarely it is) with the world around me. which brings in aldous huxley who said we are all "island universes" in his book The Doors Of Perception. basically you can try to connect all you want and that is really all life, love, and sex is. trying to connect through ions of immense nothingness.

i quit going to church when i was 16 because all of my friends were doing cocaine in the bathroom and i realised... wow... i could go to a park and read a book and be closer to God than i am in these walls. so i did that for awhile. i would go to the park, listen to a cd and sing. or i would write.. or read a book. so since then i have came to this conclusion....

having faith in anything at all whether it be yourself, someone else, god, satan, allah, bacchus or whatever... it takes a strong person to have faith in anything. and since i believe that all religions are the same, just different people see things in different ways.... they are all right.

i still claim christian because thats what i was raised. but im not blind enough to know that a ONE true God can be broken down into the many different gods of greek mythology or be transferred to any other religion. the basic prinicples are all true. live life. and do it in a manner where you can wake up the next morning and say, yes, i still love and respect myself and so should others. and if they dont... fuck it.

but to be honest i have had this memory haunt me for my entire life. i had to be like 2 years old. my grandparents were driving me to their house in the country and i kept staring at the moon. i remembered trying to tell them that there is nothing to worry about, everything is taken care of... someone watches over us.. thats the best description i can give it. my grandparents never could figure out what i was trying to tell them. and thats why i became such a fan of Jim Morrison and started reading writers like Nietzsche and Huxley... because he did. and because jim morrison seemed to think the same as me on that aspect. some of his biggest theories are that we are all born and slowly the world influences us and the important things that we knew and we are born with time lose the magic and complete knowledge of the unknown that we are born with. thats one thing that i always felt... like ive lost the infinite wisdom i was born with.

my idea of heaven would be to explore the magical places i have read about in infinite fantasy books, video games, songs, movies... u get it. just spend one lifetime at a time as my favorite character. or all the characters! who cares?

and if i go to hell... well i guess i either never had a chance... or i just chose to explore the world i live in. and im okay with that.

[Agonies Creep]

I never read it but, I used to smoke weed with this super fucking intellegient science proffesor at the comunity college. He was the kind of guy that you'd talk to him & after 10 miniutes, you'd just be fucking humbled by how smart he was. Not that he was arrogant about it or rubbed it in your face, you just couldn't fail to notice.
We were high one day & started talking about god. He said that most scientist believed that there is a god but, none of the existing religions got it right. They believe there is a god because all liveing things have a DNA structure & all non-liveing things have a chemical structure. DNA & chemical structures are all basically just a mathimatical equation. He said there was just no way that was by chance, that "something" made it that way on purpose & created everything.
I told him that if there was a god, he must not give a damn about this world if you look at the way things are going. He agreed & said that was why he thought no existing religions were acurate but, that in his eyes DNA & chemical structures were scientific evidence that there was a god or "something" that created everything, even if it took billions of years. Maybe we were just high but, I tend to think he could be right. Nobody can actually prove there is a god but, I still haven't seen proof that there isn't.
I don't swallow christianity cuz, if god is the be all end all, super supreme power over all, then why couldn't he come up with a better idea to save mankind than to have his only child nailed to a cross & die in agony? I'd simply have sent a magical cleansing rain & if god couldn't think of that than maybe his judgement isn't so great.
I do pray (alot lately) & it seems to make me feel better. If it turns out that there is no god, I don't feel I'm wasteing my time cuz if it makes me feel better than so be it.