The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

A preeminent scientist – and the world's most prominent atheist – asserts the irrationality of belief in God and the grievous harm religion has inflicted on society, from the Crusades to 9/11.

With rigor and wit, Richard Dawkins examines God in all his forms, from the sex-obsessed tyrant of the Old Testament to the more benign (but still illogical) Celestial Watchmaker favored by some Enlightenment thinkers. He eviscerates the major arguments for religion and demonstrates the supreme improbability of a supreme being. He shows how religion fuels war, forments bigotry, and abuses children, buttressing his points with historical and contemporary evidence. The God Delusion makes a compelling case that belief in God is not just wrong, but potentially deadly. It also offers exhilarating insight into the advantages of atheism to the individual and society, not the least of which is a clearer, truer appreciation of the universe's wonders than any faith could ever muster.

Richard Dawkins is the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, a position he has held since 1995. The Wall Street Journal said his "passion is supported by an awe-inspiring literary craftsmanship." The New York Times Book Review has hailed him as a writer who "understands the issues so clearly that he forces the reader to understand them too." Among his previous books are The Ancestor's Tale, The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, Climbing Mount Improbable, Unweaving the Rainbow, and A Devil's Chaplain.

Reviews:

"I’ve read this with pleasure and satisfaction. Dawkins is a great rationalist, but he is also a good man. History has seen a number of supreme rationalists who weren’t good at all. He gives human sympathies and emotions their proper value, which is one of the things that lends his criticisms of religion such force, because many religious leaders in the world today – certainly the loudest ones – are men who, it’s obvious to anyone but their deranged followers, are willing to sanction vicious cruelty in the service of their faith. Dawkins hits them hard, with all the power that reason can wield, demolishing their preposterous attempts to prove the existence of God, or their presumptuous claims that religion is the only basis of morality, or that their holy books are literally true."

The God Delusion is written with all the clarity and elegance of which Dawkins is a master. It is so well written, in fact, that children deserve to read it as well as adults. It should have a place in every school library — especially in the library of every ‘faith’ school. Naturally, it won’t. But with any luck, the teachers in these ridiculous establishments will ban it from their shelves, and thus draw the attention of the intelligent pupils in their care to something that might be interesting as well as true.

Philip Pullman, author of the children's trilogy His Dark Materials.

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