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The God Delusion | 
 enlarge | Author: Richard Dawkins
Publisher: Mariner Books
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
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Rating:  1283 reviews
Sales Rank: 302
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 464
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.4 x 1.3
ISBN: 0618918248
Dewey Decimal Number: 211
EAN: 9780618918249
ASIN: 0618918248
Publication Date: January 16, 2008
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Product Description
In his sensational international bestseller, the preeminent scientist and outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins delivers a hard-hitting, impassioned, but humorous rebuttal of religious belief. With rigor and wit, Dawkins eviscerates the arguments for religion and demonstrates the supreme improbability of the existence of a supreme being. He makes a compelling case that faith is not just irrational, but potentially deadly. In a preface written for the paperback edition, Dawkins responds to some of the controversies the book has incited. This brilliantly argued, provocative book challenges all of us to test our beliefs, no matter what beliefs we hold.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1278 more reviews...
 A Waving Banner of Human Thought November 16, 2008
Richard Dawkins carries the banner for Human Thinkingness. As the sciences and social sciences unearth more information about humans, biology, and life, Richard Dawkins uses his penetrating and creative mind to structure a series of arguments against legacy religiousness. Dawkin's arguments are persuasive, humorous, and illuminating to the human condition. Atheism has found its backbone.
Not for a light reading November 16, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
After reading the first couple of chapters, I thought to myself: "Wow, looks like this will be the first 5-star rating I ever give on Amazon!"
Incredibly funny, yet serious and compelling at the same time, organized, smart, well written, and, most of all, well reasoned. "God as the ultimate stinker" argument was just as brilliant as it was hilarious.
But then it got progressively worse. The humor tuned down to sparse jokes and sometimes by the last third of the book disappeared completely.
The arguments, at first so logical and substantiated, became less so. Gallup poles were replaced by anecdotal testimonies, scientific studies turned to personal opinions as to what studies could show had they been conducted, which is not an argument at all. And the final chapter, describing some scientific principles, was outright boring, but that may be because as a science major I found nothing there I didn't know already.
One last complaint is the language. Every page contains at least a dozen words that you'd normally find on a SAT or GRE or something. At times I had to read a paragraph two or three times to understand what was written there (and I actually scored high on GRE). And I could see no reason for using such complicated language. Surely it serves no purpose to make such an important book less comprehensible to the general public.
Despite all that, first impression is first impression, and the book did contain a lot of interesting facts and compelling arguments to warrant 4 stars.
 Entertaining but... November 10, 2008
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
Let me start by saying that I am currently in the middle of a PhD in evolutionary biology, and I also have a bachelors degree in philosophy - specifically focusing on epistemology, science and religion.
Dawkins' book is enjoyable however there are a number of problems. Throughout I couldn't help but feel he is an extremely angry man. He presents a good reason to be angry, but still, something about every sentense felt angry in tone.
Dawkins is not a biblical scholar, nor a philosopher of religion. I would recommend a book such as Stephen Davies introduction to the philosophy of religion for those that are truely interested in evaluating arguments around the hypothesis of a theistic god. Davies goes through theistic and athiestic arguments succinctly and in an easy to understand manner.
What this book does is highlight some of the absurdity present in the major theistic religions and texts. It is often amusing and I do not mean to fully condemn it. It touches on some of the philosophical arguments, but does not critique them adequately. Basically I see this book as what would happen if you got an erudite evolutionary biologist with an antipathy to religion to do some reading on the flaws of major organised religion and report back.
If you want a light book looking at religion and its flaws written well, this is for you.
Must read! November 9, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Transforms the traditional outsiders opinion on religion. With scientific and philosophical logic and reasoning Dawkins transforms religion from a respected honored tradition to what it really is: a mental disorder. God bless you Dawkins. (Pun intended)
An Atheist Handbook November 8, 2008
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
There have only been 719 reviews to date, so far so I thought it needed another. This title, now available in paperback has some comments on criticisms of the hardback edition in a new introduction and amazon are currently offering it at half price.
Why has this book been so controversial? Well Dawkins isn't a theologian (nor does he need to be, but more on that later) he is an evolutionary biologist and is famous from his books wherein he developed the pioneering gene's eye view of evolution (instead of the level of the individual animal) in books such as 'the selfish gene' and 'the extended phenotype'. It seems that being a symbol of modern neo-darwinian theory he found himself the target for the oddest attacks from creationists, people who said his field wasn't a field at all but an ungodly contradiction of the biblical story. In his biology books, Dawkins famously tosses in a few asides about how silly religious faith is and how so many of their holiest observances seem to be based on just so much made-up fairytale nonsense.
Finally it seems that being on the defensive against fundamentalists did not suit his nature and he published his first non-science book - 'The God Delusion'. Despite taking the offensive he keeps firm hold of his scientific methodology and establishes through reason and logic how pretty much everything in religion is wrong. How silly the arguments are for God, how we don't need it for ethics, How it doesn't even provide much comfort and so on.
None of Dawkin's arguments are particularly new and groundbreaking. What he achieves in this book is the rather less revolutionary though incredibly useful act of bringing all the arguments together. This is why I would call it an atheist's handbook. You can neatly look up an argument to trounce a theist and then follow it up with his excellent bibliography. Some of the criticism based on the hardback was due to the fact that Dawkins had no religious training, and he dispenses with this rather juvenile complaint in the introduction to the paperback.
If you're an atheist, you'll love it, if you're someone who just 'doesn't believe in god much' then it might expand your mind and you will probably put it down as an atheist. If you're religious? It will ask you hard questions which I hope anyone reading this will have the courage to do honestly to make them think about what they choose to accept as true.
So far, this is the most important book of the 21st century.
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