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Summary: 95 percent of humanity has the same delusion!
Comment: Richard Dawkins is a modern day "Ebenezer Scrooge" who can't even admit that people sometimes operate from altruistic motives. Why? Because it would actually show that over 3,700 years of moral discourse (much of it, certainly not all, as a result of beliefs about God) have had some effect. Perhaps this is why even the great philosopher Emmanuel Kant was unwilling to dismiss the idea of God from the scheme of things. Maybe Dawkins should go back and read Kant and see why many educated people believe that humanity's "moral impulse" gives credence to a belief in God. Pointing out the past and current shortcomings of organized religion is certainly valid, but as 95 percent of humnity believes in God in some form, to simply label this belief as a delusion is ludicrous.
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Summary: A Waving Banner of Human Thought
Comment: 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.
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Summary: Not for a light reading
Comment: 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.
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Summary: Entertaining but...
Comment: 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.
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Summary: Must read!
Comment: 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)
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