The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

[Intangible]

I am currently reading this book. I have to say I think it is excellent, and I am curious if anyone else has read it, or any of his other books.

I realize this will probably fall on deaf ears, but this topic is not an invitation to the bible bangers to try to have an atheism debate. I just want to hear from others with the same beliefs as myself. I am not trying to personally challenge anyone by posting this. Live and let live.

Tell us your beliefs so that we can know whether we are qualified to discuss this with you.

Personally, I think this is one of his worst books. He should have stuck to science.

I have read the book. I have also read The Dawkins Delusion. I think it's an excellent book. But this is not an invitation for any atheist bangeres to have a theism debate. Live and let live, I say.

BY the way, atheism is NOT a religion, right?
SO why do you want to discuss the book in the religious forum?
Just asking.
...live and let live [img]/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/shocked.gif[/img]

You might be interested in this. Then again, maybe not.

Their disbelief is my strength
MICHAEL COREN
I suppose it’s the greatest joke of all. Deliciously ironic as well. My Christian faith has been profoundly encouraged by those most eager to smother it.

Put simply, I was helped along the road from indifference to belief by the banality of atheism. Since reaching the age of reason, I’ve had the usual old regulars thrown at me. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why doesn’t He make Himself more obvious? Why is evil committed in the name of religion? Throw in the Inquisition, the Crusades and some lies about Papal culpability during the Holocaust and you have the standard God-hating manifesto.

The more I dealt with all this, the more I realized that the very belief being attacked was absolutely and abundantly true. More than this, the reason it was under attack in the first place was precisely because it was true.

The tiniest seeds of my Christianity were planted, I think, much earlier and by an Oxford professor who happened to be one of the finest children’s writers of all time. I was six-years-old when C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe was read to be me by Miss Power — I assume I was also in love with her, and yes my wife does know — at Redbridge School in Essex, England.

Part of Lewis’s gift is that he strokes rather than grabs. As a child from a working-class, secular, part Jewish family, I had no idea then that Lewis was writing about Christ. Leave the beauty and the story to stew for a few years, expose the child to the natural-law certainties given by God that permeate the human condition and then send him out into a series of great universities where atheism is as predicable as self-indulgent moans about tuition fees. To quote the philosopher Pat Benatar: “hit me with your best shot.” So they did.

If God were good, He would make Himself obvious. Not really. God makes himself just sufficiently evident to allow us freedom. If He were easy to find, we’d all believe and thus have no real choice. If He were almost impossible to find, it would be cruel and unfair. He chooses the middle path. He’s there if we seek to look, but not so if we don’t care. He’s the great lover, not the satanic rapist. He desperately wants us to love Him and return to Him, but we have to make that decision ourselves.

Yes, but even people who believe in Him often suffer. And look at all the pain in the world.

Bad things happen to good people because, well, bad things happen to good people. The teachings of Christ do not guarantee a good life but a perfect eternity. These 70 or 80 years on Earth are merely time spent in the land of shadows and, anyway, human suffering is more an indictment of humans than of God. Also, if life has no ultimate meaning and people are often absolute swine, why does any of this matter in the first place?

But Christians are sometimes hypocrites and awful things have been done in the name of Christianity.

Yes, yes, yes! Christians can occasionally not live up to the teachings of Christ. Whoopee. People failing as Christians is not the same as Christianity being untrue, any more than people voting for a poor government is the same as democracy being a failure.

It was popular among rationalist thinkers in the late 19th century to assume that advances in textual analysis, archaeological discovery and scientific breakthrough would disprove the Bible. Not quite. Virtually every time we find out something new in these fields it supports rather than challenges Scripture.

As for crimes in the name of Christ — of course. Crimes in the name of atheism, freedom, love, Canada, everything. It’s human nature. Which is precisely why the supernatural is so important. In fact, Christ Himself tells us that His name will be exploited.

You’re weak, God is a crutch invented by scared and threatened people and the more we know the less we believe.

Could be. Sure, God could be an invention. Then again, absence of God could be an invention — by scared and threatened people who are too weak to follow His laws and are terrified of judgement. Be careful with the notion that knowledge means wisdom. 1930s Germany was one of the most educated and sophisticated cultures in human history. There are twits who do not believe, geniuses who do, and vice versa. It signifies nothing. It was popular among rationalist thinkers in the late 19th century to assume that advances in textual analysis, archaeological discovery and scientific breakthrough would disprove the Bible. Not quite. Virtually every time we find out something new in these fields it supports rather than challenges Scripture.

What became apparent to me was that the opposition to faith was as unappealing and bland as faith was appealing and thrilling. I read, prayed and thought myself into faith more than 20 years ago. It was gradual but inevitable. Miracles occurred but they need not have. I do not need a miracle to remind me that water quenches my thirst. Christ was there in my life, with me and in me and around me. Atheists showed me the way. God bless the little devils.

Then, just recently, the tarnished old arguments from the flimsy and trendy were re-published in new editions by the likes of Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins and we were all supposed to run away and hide. So I read them. Then began to laugh. It’s the emperor and his new clothes. Naked, quite naked.

Nothing new here. Nothing clever or challenging, either.

Busting with errors, hysterical, clumsy, nasty and obviously incredibly frightened. Suddenly, I realize what’s going on. It’s that God again, helping to strengthen my faith. “The best they can do,” He’s saying, “is blast you with the same old nonsense they threw at you when you first thought of coming my way.”
Clever old God. Must remember to thank Him next time on my knees. Thanks for the non-believers, the God-haters, the atheists and all of their kind. Yes, the greatest joke of all.

http://www.christianity.ca/frame.asp?htt...ion/pch0168.htm

[Soundbear]

"God bless the little devils."

and, "Clever old God. Must remember to thank Him next time on my knees. Thanks for the non-believers, the God-haters, the atheists and all of their kind. Yes, the greatest joke of all."

Awesome!! [img]/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif[/img]

[Return of Too Many Daves]

Aydeloof

1.- If this was posted anywhere else it would be moved to the Religion forum. Saying that discussing atheism ie not believing in theism in a religion forum is improper and very naive of you Aydeloof, do I detect a note of prissyness. There is no need to be hostile towards all atheists, to be so really is just as bad as being hostile to all members of any other belief system.

2.- Why should a scientist not write a book about religion? At least some of his arguments are rooted in science. As for the rest of his thesis, well if we limited people to only publishing in their specialist field, the pope would have a lot less to say.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Intangible</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> this topic is not an invitation to the bible bangers to try to have an atheism debate. I just want to hear from others with the same beliefs as myself. I am not trying to personally challenge anyone by posting this. Live and let live. </div></div>
You started this thread by inviting people not to be argumentative, yet you used a pejorative that was clearly a shot at believers..

Very insincere of you. Live and let live, yet you got your shot in.

Bible bangers indeed.

[Intangible]

I do apologize if "bible bangers" was offensive. It was not my intention. I should have said theists.

[Return of Too Many Daves]

Funny how we see things differently. I saw "Bible Bangers" as a shot at a certain subgroup of theists who are quite annoying (certainly many theists agree) who are so incredibly evangelical and just cannot accept that people may want to talk about and share beliefs different from their own. Certainly not a shot at all theists. Even so I saw it as a light hearted tease rather than any kind of attack, interesting how little sense of humour you have about it. I guess we each bring our own baggage.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Return of Too Many Daves</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Funny how we see things differently. I saw "Bible Bangers" as a shot at a certain subgroup of theists who are quite annoying (certainly many theists agree) who are so incredibly evangelical and just cannot accept that people may want to talk about and share beliefs different from their own. Certainly not a shot at all theists. Even so I saw it as a light hearted tease rather than any kind of attack, interesting how little sense of humour you have about it. I guess we each bring our own baggage.</div></div>

When one is not affected by a bias, it is hard to understand the bias.

[Return of Too Many Daves]

True. But I think you may have bit a little over sensitive BECAUSE you were affected.




Now get back to work you "old bible banger".


Feel free to have the last word.

Sure.. right after I get the last word in.

[Karen-Annie]

Read it.....and I agree with the item by Coren that 'loof quoted.There is nothing in it that has not been said many times over.Amazing what publishing company publicists can make the buying public believe......that a whole new way of looking at things and "proof" are contained in a specific book.

There is a big difference in being a theist vs. a "religionist".So many of his arguments blast specific religious beliefs as opposed to a belief in God.And there is NOTHING in the book that PROVES there is NOT God.

[lmags]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Karen-annie</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Read it.....and I agree with the item by Coren that 'loof quoted.There is nothing in it that has not been said many times over.Amazing what publishing company publicists can make the buying public believe......that a whole new way of looking at things and "proof" are contained in a specific book.

There is a big difference in being a theist vs. a "religionist".So many of his arguments blast specific religious beliefs as opposed to a belief in God.And there is NOTHING in the book that PROVES there is NOT God. </div></div>

There is no proof that there is a God either. Either you believe or you don't.

[Soundbear]

Curious what you might think of the Kalam argument, Yellowjeans. Look it up.

[Return of Too Many Daves]

The Kalam argument is a nice way to tie yourself in phylosophical knots, but does nothing to prove or disprove god.

[Soundbear]

It's food for thought to the open mind.