An Atheist Responds To The God Delusion

[Neon Genesis]

There have been many attempts by different Christian authors on all sides of the religious spectrum to respond to Dawkins' arguments but most of them fall short of what the real problems with The God Delusion is. Most of them either respond with the same 'ol Christian aplogetics Dawkins has already addressed or they focus on criticizing Dawkins' anti-theistic stance but few of them go into a more detailed examination of the flaws of Dawkins' arguments and it seems like there are few atheist responses to Dawkins' flimsy arguments. J.J. Ramsey, the webmaster of this atheist site, Irrational Rationalist, has responded from an atheist perspective to the problems in The God Delusion and I think he does a really good job examining some of Dawkins' more embarrassing mistakes: http://www.irrationalrationalist.com/home/criticisms-of-atheists/reviews I agreed with his criticisms that Dawkins at best has a superficial understanding of religion and has a superficial criticism of the bible. Like, I agree he could have had a more thorough criticism of the Trinity doctrine. Contrary to his claim that he doesn't believe in insulting for the sake of insulting, Dawkins spends the majority of his section on the Trinity ridiculing it because its ridiculous and pointing out that the Trinity is polytheism in disguise. This is not to say I disagree that the Trinity is polytheism in disguise or that I don't think atheists should be free to use ridicule, but if Dawkins hopes his book will deconvert believers, to me this kind of argument is not likely to convince theists other than people who were already on the way out of religion. Dawkins only spends a whole sentence in his section on the Trinity mentioning there's no historical evidence Jesus ever called himself God but he ignores the "clobber passages" in John that Christian apologists typically cite to support their claims. I think Dawkins could have had a stronger argument against the Trinity if he had pointed out the contradictory passages in the Synoptic gospels where Jesus clearly says he is not the Father and if he had went into more serious detail about the history of the Trinity doctrine. Like he could have brought up other "heretical" beliefs about the nature of Jesus that were just as popular at the time, like docetism or Arianism.

[florduh]

I think those who can out-think and out-write Dawkins should by all means do so.

 

While not an all-encompassing response to Christian apologetics and Bible lore, The God Delusion has brought atheism to the forefront. People actually began to think about religion for perhaps the first time in their life and realized that the existence of a god isn't necessarily a given. Dialogue was started and critical thinking enjoyed a platform.

 

I don't think the book was intended to destroy Christianity with logic and reason, detail by detail, but to spur thinking and open minds to new possibilities. Christian apologists and theologians build arguments largely on the Bible, but there are countless other ideas about gods. Perfection is not to be found in holy texts, neither is it found in the works of Dawkins.

[Neon Genesis]

Dawkins did state in his book that the main reason he wrote it was to raise consciousness in all fairness but he also stated in the book that it was his wish that people would become atheists after putting the book down. I don't expect Dawkins to be an expert biblical scholar as he is a scientist, not a historian, but as the review I linked to pointed out, some of Dawkins' most embarrassing mistakes could easily be corrected by doing a quick five minute Google search. Personally, I've enjoyed The Greatest Show On Earth more than The God Delusion.

[StevoMuso]

I think those who can out-think and out-write Dawkins should by all means do so.

 

While not an all-encompassing response to Christian apologetics and Bible lore, The God Delusion has brought atheism to the forefront. People actually began to think about religion for perhaps the first time in their life and realized that the existence of a god isn't necessarily a given. Dialogue was started and critical thinking enjoyed a platform.

 

I don't think the book was intended to destroy Christianity with logic and reason, detail by detail, but to spur thinking and open minds to new possibilities. Christian apologists and theologians build arguments largely on the Bible, but there are countless other ideas about gods. Perfection is not to be found in holy texts, neither is it found in the works of Dawkins.

I live in South Africa where God Delusion was a huge hit. We literally live behind what I call the Zion Curtain - fundamental Christianity is normal over here with 79% of our population actively following the Christian religion.

 

I was inspired to publish my own book after RDs book hit the best-sellers list. It had been sitting on my computer for many years because I thought nobody in my country would read it. I certainly didn't tell people I was an atheist having already lost 2 jobs, a 12 and 1/2 year marriage and most of my friends for saying so in the past.

 

One of my readers said the book should be called "An idiots guide to atheism" and I shudder to think what serious academics will do to my arguments. It wasn't really meant for them. This post is not to plug my book (which is why I haven't mentioned the name) but to say, in defense of RD, that if we can achieve the amount of discussion he has done, even in the religious out-back countries like SA, and the number of converts to truth he has inspired, then we have done well.

 

One of my readers here in SA sent me an email that ended by saying my book was, "the first step for [her] towards doing away with the shackles of religion." I was deeply moved by this, and thankful for being able to contribute to her life. I have spoken to many (and I mean many) people in SA who have said the same thing about God Delusion.

 

So, I agree with Neon Genesis, academically God Delusion may have failed in some respects. But I must also agree with Florduh that inspirationally it has touched many 1000s of people around the world. I'm a huge fan.

[Shyone]

So, I agree with Neon Genesis, academically God Delusion may have failed in some respects. But I must also agree with Florduh that inspirationally it has touched many 1000s of people around the world. I'm a huge fan.

I'm in an agreeable mood, so I agree with everyone!

 

I think that the average Christian, as I was, never even considered whether Christianity was "true" or not; it was just what we were taught. Just a few arguments might have made all of the difference, and exposure to any of the problems of religion would have tumbled a lot of people's faith. It is by auto-ostracism that fundy Christians can isolate themselves from the problems of religion or even the idea that God might be a fantasy.

 

No book is guaranteed to persuade a hard-core fundy that their religion (be it Islam, Christianity or whatever) is not true, but most religious people are not hard-core fundies.

 

And even the fundies sometimes see problems with religion and/or apologetics.

[Franko47]

Agree with all previous posts....

 

While watching a couple of online town hall lectures with Dawkins, I noticed that he can sometimes be a little insensitive to Christians when they come up to the mike. This one guy came up and he was really nice, and told Dawkins that he was a convinced Christian who had accepted Jesus, and that it's hard for him to just accept his arguments and so on, and asked him what he thought. Well, Dawkins nuked him with a rather cruel accusation of the fact that he was living in a dream world, and that his belief in God was irrational, if not stupid.

 

Some people were rather taken aback at this; it's not the answer I would have given for diplomacy's sake. Even Christopher Hitchens has been at times more diplomatic than that, even in his debates with other apologists.

 

I think Sam Harris has likely the friendliest mode of lecturing and debating when it comes down to these four (Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and Dennett) but I kind of get the impression that Dawkins has never experienced many of the emotional and spiritual feelings connected with faith. It seems like that, I know what Neon is driving at.