The God Delusion...?

[Zeph6]

I just began reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and I was wondering if anyone else has read it? What did you think of it? Do you think it's a breakthrough for atheists? Please tell me your thoughts...  

[Edi Gammon]

I read it last year. It was the first atheist type book I bought, and this was about a month after I officially admitted to myself that I was atheist and stopped having anything to do with church.

Before I read it, I didn't know very much at all about the common arguments for and against beliefs in god, and I had no experience with the usual attacks of atheism. I found that I devoured this book really quickly, and went back to reread many sections so I could remember certain things.

Breakthrough? Well, I think that it may be. It really has sold a lot of copies... And there's a proper section labled Atheist/Agnostic books now at Borders book store, which was not there last year. I think that could be at least in part credited to Dawkin's book and the parade of other books on the topic that has followed recently.

It's a great book and I enjoyed it thoroughly (and still do).  

[gallows humour]

Tee hee. Dawkins signed my copy. It's a wonderful book because it's clear, enlightened, and compassionate. It doesn't really have any new information/arguments, but it does list them out in a pleasant and very accessible manner.

It does a very good job of telling you what you already knew. It makes angry atheists like me feel very good. : )  

[Prince Rilian]

My mom bought that book. She thought that the ontological argument meant that you could imagine the most perfect flutterby (or anything) and it would be real, and she was like, "That's obviously false, so why all the fuss?"

But the ontological argument actually starts by saying that "god" is the greatest thing that can be imagined, and it also claims that the greatest thing that can be imagined would be a real thing, because we can conceive of something existing.

The ontological argument might be a little easier to talk about if we equated "great" with "powerful". So, it claims that if you imagine something really powerful, it would be more powerful if it were real, so it must be real, so that it can be "god".

Nope, that doesn't make any sense, either.

So, the problem with the ontological argument is that it assumes that something must be real just because we can imagine it.

This seems really idiotic. Am I over-looking something?  

[gallows humour]

The argument is:

God is the greatest thing imaginable.

If it didn't exist it wouldn't really be all that great, now would it?

Therefore: God exists. talk2hand  

[Prince Rilian]

So, I got it right. You just put it in better and shorter wording.

smile heart  

[D i v i n i t y]

I've read
The God Delusion, The End of Faith, god is not Great.
I wanna get: How to be a good atheist, the portable atheist, and letter to a christian nation.  

[Prince Rilian]

D i v i n i t y

I've read
The God Delusion, The End of Faith, god is not Great.
I wanna get: How to be a good atheist, the portable atheist, and letter to a christian nation.

Of the ones you listed, I've read the 1st, 2nd, and 6th. I own the 5th and the 6th. I wish to read the 3rd.  

[Daffodil the Destroyer]

Honestly, I don't see how any of the classical Aquinas' arguments for the existence of God, or any similar ones, make any real sense. They all seem to be seriously lacking IMO.

I've never read the God Delusion but I've read "Atheism: The Case Against God" and it's pretty convincing.

 

[D i v i n i t y]

Rilian

D i v i n i t y

I've read
The God Delusion, The End of Faith, god is not Great.
I wanna get: How to be a good atheist, the portable atheist, and letter to a christian nation.

Of the ones you listed, I've read the 1st, 2nd, and 6th. I own the 5th and the 6th. I wish to read the 3rd.

I love the third book. :]  

[fhbnfghnbfgbsnbg]

Sadly I've never read ANy of those, and The God Delusion was the only one I've ever heard of...

There was one book called "God: The Failed Hypothesis" that I tried to get when I first realized my atheism... ah, my mother put a stop to that quickly, because me trying to get it was how she found out...

Anyway, that was a year ago, and if it wasn't $30 I'd get it.
Interesting book... it was full of those interesting "X does y. Y does z. Therefore x must equal z. But x does not." deals.  

[gallows humour]

KuroFur

Sadly I've never read ANy of those, and The God Delusion was the only one I've ever heard of...

There was one book called "God: The Failed Hypothesis" that I tried to get when I first realized my atheism... ah, my mother put a stop to that quickly, because me trying to get it was how she found out...

Anyway, that was a year ago, and if it wasn't $30 I'd get it.
Interesting book... it was full of those interesting "X does y. Y does z. Therefore x must equal z. But x does not." deals.

That's called a Syllogism. : )  

[fhbnfghnbfgbsnbg]

Sharp Santini

KuroFur

Sadly I've never read ANy of those, and The God Delusion was the only one I've ever heard of...

There was one book called "God: The Failed Hypothesis" that I tried to get when I first realized my atheism... ah, my mother put a stop to that quickly, because me trying to get it was how she found out...

Anyway, that was a year ago, and if it wasn't $30 I'd get it.
Interesting book... it was full of those interesting "X does y. Y does z. Therefore x must equal z. But x does not." deals.

That's called a Syllogism. : )

Ah, yes, that was it.
The "Law of Syllogism."

It just strikes me as funny that what I used in math class is applied to religion.  

[Iconoclast Enthusiast]

I just finished The God Delusion in the last month or so, and I found it quite interesting. It really helped me flesh out my own ideas, I think.

I'm currently reading a book by A. C. Grayling called Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God, which is very good. It's not a book about atheism exactly. Rather, it's a collection of essays about various issues and ideas (Art, Justice, Religion, etc.) and how they ought to be approached, with most of them containing something or other that indicates that a god isn't necessary (mostly indirectly).  

[ellell89]

I have the god delusion I read most of it but then got really really bored of it just seemed to be the same thing over and over again.