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The God Delusion
The God Delusion UK.jpg
Author Richard Dawkins
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Subject Criticism of religion
Genre Science, philosophy
Publisher Bantam Books
Publication date
 2 October 2006
Media type Hardcover, Paperback, Audio book, E-Book at Google Books
ISBN 0-618-68000-4
OCLC 68965666
211/.8 22
LC Class BL2775.3 .D39 2006
Preceded by The Ancestor's Tale
Followed by The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

The God Delusion is a 2006 best-selling,[1] non-fiction book by English biologist Richard Dawkins, professorial fellow of New College, Oxford,[2][3] and former holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford.

In The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that belief in a personal god qualifies as a delusion, which he defines as a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence. He is sympathetic to Robert Pirsig's statement in Lila (1991) that "when one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion."[4] With many examples, he explains that one does not need religion to be moral and that the roots of religion and of morality can be explained in non-religious terms.

As of January 2010, the English version of The God Delusion had sold over 2 million copies.[5] It was ranked second on the Amazon.com best-sellers' list in November 2006.[6][7] In early December 2006, it reached number four in the New York Times Hardcover Nonfiction Best Seller list after nine weeks on the list.[8] It remained on the list for 51 weeks until 30 September 2007.[9] The German version, entitled Der Gotteswahn, had sold over 260,000 copies as of 28 January 2010.[10]

The book has attracted widespread commentary, with many books written in response.

Background

Dawkins has argued against creationist explanations of life in his previous works on evolution. The theme of The Blind Watchmaker, published in 1986, is that evolution can explain the apparent design in nature. In The God Delusion he focuses directly on a wider range of arguments used for and against belief in the existence of a god (or gods).

Dawkins identifies himself repeatedly as an atheist, while also pointing out that, in a sense, he is also agnostic, though "only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden".
Dawkins had long wanted to write a book openly criticising religion, but his publisher had advised against it. By the year 2006, his publisher had warmed to the idea. Dawkins attributes this change of mind to "four years of Bush".[11] By that time, a number of authors, including Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, who together with Dawkins were labelled "The Unholy Trinity" by Robert Weitzel, had already written books openly attacking religion.[12] According to the Amazon.co.uk retailer in August 2007, the book was the best-seller in their sales of books on religion and spirituality, with Hitchens's God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything coming second. This led to a 50% growth in that category over the three years to that date.[13]

Synopsis

Dawkins dedicates the book to Douglas Adams and quotes the novelist: "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?" The book contains ten chapters. The first few chapters make a case that there is almost certainly no God, while the rest discuss religion and morality.

Dawkins writes that The God Delusion contains four "consciousness-raising" messages:
  1. Atheists can be happy, balanced, moral, and intellectually fulfilled.
  2. Natural selection and similar scientific theories are superior to a "God hypothesis"—the illusion of intelligent design—in explaining the living world and the cosmos.
  3. Children should not be labelled by their parents' religion. Terms like "Catholic child" or "Muslim child" should make people cringe.
  4. Atheists should be proud, not apologetic, because atheism is evidence of a healthy, independent mind.[4]

"God hypothesis"

Chapter one, "A deeply religious non-believer", seeks to clarify the difference between what Dawkins terms "Einsteinian religion" and "supernatural religion". He notes that the former includes quasi-mystical and pantheistic references to God in the work of physicists like Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, and describes such pantheism as "sexed up atheism". Dawkins instead takes issue with the theism present in religions like Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism.[14] The proposed existence of this interventionist God, which Dawkins calls the "God Hypothesis", becomes an important theme in the book.[15] He maintains that the existence or non-existence of God is a scientific fact about the universe, which is discoverable in principle if not in practice.[16]

Dawkins summarises the main philosophical arguments on God's existence, singling out the Argument from design for longer consideration. Dawkins concludes that evolution by natural selection can explain apparent design in nature.[4]

He writes that one of the greatest challenges to the human intellect has been to explain "how the complex, improbable design in the universe arises", and suggests that there are two competing explanations:
  1. A hypothesis involving a designer, that is, a complex being to account for the complexity that we see.
  2. A hypothesis, with supporting theories, that explains how, from simple origins and principles, something more complex can emerge.
This is the basic set-up of his argument against the existence of God, the Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit,[17] where he argues that the first attempt is self-refuting, and the second approach is the way forward.[18]

At the end of chapter 4 ("Why there almost certainly is no God"), Dawkins sums up his argument and states, "The temptation [to attribute the appearance of design to actual design itself] is a false one, because the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the designer. The whole problem we started out with was the problem of explaining statistical improbability. It is obviously no solution to postulate something even more improbable".[19] In addition, chapter 4 asserts that the alternative to the designer hypothesis is not chance, but natural selection.

Dawkins does not claim to disprove God with absolute certainty. Instead, he suggests as a general principle that simpler explanations are preferable (see Occam's razor), and that an omniscient or omnipotent God must be extremely complex. (Dawkins argues that it is logically impossible for a God to be simultaneously omniscient and omnipotent.) As such he argues that the theory of a universe without a God is preferable to the theory of a universe with a God.[20]

Religion and morality

The second half of the book begins by exploring the roots of religion and seeking an explanation for its ubiquity across human cultures. Dawkins advocates the "theory of religion as an accidental by-product – a misfiring of something useful"[21] as for example the mind's employment of intentional stance. Dawkins suggests that the theory of memes, and human susceptibility to religious memes in particular, can explain how religions might spread like "mind viruses" across societies.[22]

He then turns to the subject of morality, maintaining that we do not need religion to be good. Instead, our morality has a Darwinian explanation: altruistic genes, selected through the process of evolution, give people natural empathy. He asks, "would you commit murder, rape or robbery if you knew that no God existed?" He argues that very few people would answer "yes", undermining the claim that religion is needed to make us behave morally. In support of this view, he surveys the history of morality, arguing that there is a moral Zeitgeist that continually evolves in society, generally progressing toward liberalism. As it progresses, this moral consensus influences how religious leaders interpret their holy writings. Thus, Dawkins states, morality does not originate from the Bible, rather our moral progress informs what part of the Bible Christians accept and what they now dismiss.[23]

Other themes

The God Delusion is not just a defence of atheism, but also goes on the offensive against religion. Dawkins sees religion as subverting science, fostering fanaticism, encouraging bigotry against homosexuals, and influencing society in other negative ways.[24] Dawkins regards religion as a "divisive force" and as a "label for in-group/out-group enmity and vendetta".[25]

He is most outraged about the teaching of religion in schools, which he considers to be an indoctrination process. He equates the religious teaching of children by parents and teachers in faith schools to a form of mental abuse. Dawkins considers the labels "Muslim child" or a "Catholic child" equally misapplied as the descriptions "Marxist child" or a "Tory child", as he wonders how a young child can be considered developed enough to have such independent views on the cosmos and humanity's place within it.

The book concludes with the question whether religion, despite its alleged problems, fills a "much needed gap", giving consolation and inspiration to people who need it. According to Dawkins, these needs are much better filled by non-religious means such as philosophy and science. He suggests that an atheistic worldview is life-affirming in a way that religion, with its unsatisfying "answers" to life's mysteries, could never be. An appendix gives addresses for those "needing support in escaping religion".

Critical reception

The book provoked an immediate response, both positive and negative, and was published with endorsements from scientists, such as Nobel laureate and co-discoverer of the structure of DNA James D. Watson, Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, as well as popular writers of fiction and the illusionists Penn and Teller.[26] Metacritic reported that the book had an average score of 59 out of 100.[27] The book was nominated for Best Book at the British Book Awards, where Richard Dawkins was named Author of the Year.[28] Nevertheless the book received mixed reviews from critics, including both religious and atheist commentators.[29][30] In the London Review of Books, Terry Eagleton criticised Richard Dawkins for not doing proper research into the topic of his work, religion, and setting up a straw man to make his arguments against theism valid.[31] Austin Cline responded by saying that Eagleton did not make his own religious disposition clear: "It would also have been more honest for the reviewers themselves to make it clear that they have a problem with anyone calling into question their treasured religious beliefs."[32]

Oxford theologian Alister McGrath (author of The Dawkins Delusion? and Dawkins' God) argues that Dawkins is ignorant of Christian theology, and therefore unable to engage religion and faith intelligently.[33] In reply, Dawkins asks "do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in leprechauns?",[34] and—in the paperback edition of The God Delusion—he refers to the American biologist PZ Myers, who has satirised this line of argument as "The Courtier's Reply".[35] Dawkins had an extended debate with McGrath at the 2007 Sunday Times Literary Festival.[36] Eastern Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart says that Dawkins "devoted several pages of The God Delusion to a discussion of the 'Five Ways' of Thomas Aquinas but never thought to avail himself of the services of some scholar of ancient and mediaeval thought who might have explained them to him ... As a result, he not only mistook the Five Ways for Thomas's comprehensive statement on why we should believe in God, which they most definitely are not, but ended up completely misrepresenting the logic of every single one of them, and at the most basic levels."[37]

Christian philosopher Keith Ward, in his 2006 book Is Religion Dangerous?, argues against the view of Dawkins and others that religion is socially dangerous. The ethicist Margaret Somerville,[38] suggested that Dawkins "overstates the case against religion",[39] particularly its role in human conflict.

Many of Dawkins' defenders claim that critics generally misunderstand his real point. During a debate on Radio 3 Hong Kong, David Nicholls, writer and president of the Atheist Foundation of Australia, reiterated Dawkins' sentiments that religion is an "unnecessary" aspect of global problems.[40] Dawkins argues that "the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis like any other".[41] He disagrees with Stephen Jay Gould's principle of nonoverlapping magisteria (NOMA). In an interview with the Time magazine, Dawkins said:
I think that Gould's separate compartments was a purely political ploy to win middle-of-the-road religious people to the science camp. But it's a very empty idea. There are plenty of places where religion does not keep off the scientific turf. Any belief in miracles is flat contradictory not just to the facts of science but to the spirit of science.[42]
Astrophysicist Martin Rees has suggested that Dawkins' attack on mainstream religion is unhelpful.[43] Regarding Rees' claim in his book Our Cosmic Habitat that "such questions lie beyond science; however, they are the province of philosophers and theologians", Dawkins asks "what expertise can theologians bring to deep cosmological questions that scientists cannot?"[44][45]
Elsewhere, Dawkins has written that "there's all the difference in the world between a belief that one is prepared to defend by quoting evidence and logic, and a belief that is supported by nothing more than tradition, authority or revelation."[46]

Debate

On 3 October 2007, John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, publicly debated Richard Dawkins at the University of Alabama at Birmingham on Dawkins' views as expressed in The God Delusion, and their validity over and against the Christian faith.[47][48][49] "The God Delusion Debate" marked Dawkins' first visit to the Old South and the first significant discussion on this issue in the "Bible Belt".[50] The event was sold out, and the Wall Street Journal called it "a revelation: in Alabama, a civil debate over God's existence."[51][52] Dawkins debated Lennox for the second time at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History in October 2008.
The debate was titled "Has Science Buried God?", in which Dawkins said that, although he would not accept it, a reasonably respectable case could be made for "a deistic god, a sort of god of the physicist, a god of somebody like Paul Davies, who devised the laws of physics, god the mathematician, god who put together the cosmos in the first place and then sat back and watched everything happen" but not for a theistic god.[53][54][55][56]

Reviews and responses

Responding books

Critics have reacted strongly to Dawkins' arguments, and many books have been written in response to The God Delusion.[72] For example:

Legal repercussions in Turkey

In Turkey, where the book had sold at least 6000 copies,[73] a prosecutor launched a probe into whether The God Delusion was "an attack on holy values", following a complaint in November 2007. If convicted, the Turkish publisher and translator, Erol Karaaslan, would have faced a prison sentence of inciting religious hatred and insulting religious values.[74] In April 2008, the court acquitted the defendant. In ruling out the need to confiscate copies of the book, the presiding judge stated that banning it "would fundamentally limit the freedom of thought".[75]

Dawkins' website, richarddawkins.net, was banned in Turkey later that year after complaints from creationist Adnan Oktar (Harun Yahya) for alleged defamation.[76] By July 2011, the ban had been lifted.[77]