By ROBIN MCKIE, THE OBSERVER
Added: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 23:00:00 UTC

Reposted from:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/roundupstory/0,,2094079,00.html

Sunday June 3, 2007
The Observer

The God Delusion
by Richard Dawkins
Black Swan £8.99

For ungodly folk, the soaraway success of Dawkins's anti-clerical diatribe has been a source of considerable pleasure. Indeed, it has been impossible not to laugh out loud at the injured squeakings of some irate reviewers of the hardback version, a book, we should note, that has sold hundreds of thousands of copies since publication eight months ago. At this rate, Dawkins may become non-fiction's answer to Harry Potter.

Certainly, a lot of people appear to like his views and writing. But not the godly. In droves, they have denounced Dawkins, reactions that may not be that surprising given the author's description of God as 'the most unpleasant character in all fiction ... a misogynist, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully'. But that's Dawkins for you: always pulling his punches.

A certain outrage is therefore understandable. Dawkins's views are just 'a mental illness,' opined one broadsheet reviewer; 'a counsel of despair,' claimed another, while the Catholic Herald accused the author of churning out 'philosophical nonsense'. Best of all, though, was the London Review of Books. Why no reference to the epistemological differences between Aquinas and Duns Scotia? it thundered. As criticisms go, good just isn't the word for that one.

Anyway, you can see why atheists snigger. The first real taste of their own rhetorical medicine and the godly are reduced to incomprehensible, frothing rage. To be fair, they are up against strong opposition. The God Delusion is carefully crafted, elegantly constructed and skilfully argued. And although the author may be rather rude about God and some of his followers, he is still at pains to point out that atheism is no more than a realistic aspiration, not a moral imperative. In fact, disbelief is in our genes, adds Dawkins. 'I have found an amusing strategy,' he claims, 'when asked whether I am an atheist to point out that the questioner is also an atheist when considering Zeus, Apollo, Amon-Ra, Mithras, Baal, Thor, Wotan, the Golden Calf and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I just go one god further.'

And to that, I can only say: amen.

TAGGED: BOOKS, REVIEWS, RICHARD DAWKINS