The God Delusion

To start out this blog, I will mainly be posting reviews of books and websites that I have read and viewed that have shown that there are signs of intelligent life out there. To give you a little background about myself and those that will be posting to this blog. Just over a year ago my husband and I started fervently discussing our mixed feelings about organized religion. We had both been raised in good (sometimes debatable) families and had always been taught not to question our faith. Now don't take this wrong, our parents encouraged us to seek out that tingly feeling that tells a person that something is true or not and being like most people that fall to peer pressure, we probably testified at one time or another during the early years of our lives to having felt that little tingly feeling and claiming to know that our beliefs were unquestionably true. This is not something that I am very proud of as I see now that it lead to much bias and hypocrisy in my life. To continue my background, my husband and I decided to leave organized religion at that time and since then have sought out a broader understanding of religions effect on humanity and evidence behind all that we deem as truth.

A good friend of mine had already started this journey many years ago and suggested a book to help me start my search for truth and reason in this world. The book was called The God Delusion by British biologist Richard Dawkins.




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 observation in Lila that "when one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion." (Dawkins, Richard (2006). The God Delusion. p. 406.)

This book is hard to get into at first as Dawkins spends much time in the first of the book presenting background and evidence as to why he believes that there is almost certainly no God. Much of this is filled with biological and scientific examples. The remainder of the book discusses the effects of belief in God on humanity (morality and religion). The first part is the hardest to read, but is necessary to fully understand and appreciate the argument. By the time I got to the end of this book, I never wanted it to end. Dawkins brings up many thought provoking arguments that every person should have the chance to reflect on at some point in their life. This book is a must read for anyone searching for an honest and reasonable view on religion.