Scott Ewen Art

~~Comic~~ Book Recommendation of the Week

THE GOD DELUSION
By Richard Dawkins

"If atheism had a pope, it would be Richard Dawkins." - Penn Jillette

Richard Dawkins is an English biologist who has written several books on science and evolution. I've only previously read his book The Blind Watchmaker, which describes and explains natural selection in a way that a layperson can fully understand. His new book, The God Delusion, is sort of a follow-up and expansion of his BBC documentary on religion entitled The Root of All Evil?*. Keep in mind I can only comment on the first quarter of the book, having read that much so far.

The book goes into the common arguments for belief in god that tend to pop up from theists, and he shoots them down one by one. Points such as "something so complex as life on Earth must have had a designer," "everything can't have started from nothing, so god must have started it," even the transparent Pascal's Wager ("If you believe in god and are right, you go to Heaven. But if you're wrong you lose nothing") are shown to be completely empty arguments. He then shows the arguments for why there almost certainly is no god, and talks about the harm that religion does to the world, and why it's ridiculous that religion should be treated with a kind of respect and honor that makes it taboo to disagree with.

This book was not really meant for me, as an atheist, since its main goal is to show believers why the only really sane choice is nonbelief. But it is fascinating and I would recommend it to everyone, believer or nonbeliever. I started this review with a Penn Jillette quote (who interviewed Dawkins on his radio show recently, which is how I found out about the book), and I'll end it with one from the back cover:

"The God Delusion is smart, compassionate, and true like ice, like fire. If this book doesn't change the world, we're all screwed."

* The Root of All Evil? has not been shown on American television, and probably won't be anytime soon. A DVD release is apparently forthcoming, but if you'd like to watch it now, you can download part one here and part two here.

On a completely unrelated note, make sure not to install iTunes 7.0.1. I had heard from friends that iTunes 7 has been known to delete mp3s from users' computers. Last night my housemate Kyle told me the new version, 7.0.1, had fixed the glitch. I installed it and the first thing it did was to delete every single mp3 from my hard drive and iPod.

Labels: recommendation