Book Review: "The God Delusion", by Richard Dawkins

Genre: "Religion and Philosophy"
   Non-fiction

This book, that I actually only just read last fall, is also a product of one of the four Horsemen, this time, Dawkins, and as I've said before, Dawkins is the fiery proponent of Science over Religion, compared to anti-theism itself (Eventually I'll get around to reading Daniel Dennet's book, so I'll finish a quadrology), another major focal point of Dawkins is his opinions about the effects of religion on children, which I will get to momentarily. If you wish, you can look up multiple experiments he conducts that show his cunning and mockery of silly things such as "psychic mediums" and so forth. So, going off of that premise:

Let the review begin!

The Premise: "Religion is bad", but rather, as the title suggests, religion's "faith centroid", i.e. the deities put forth inward of the religion, basically the entire foundation, is a "delusion", it is something that is a noumenon, it is almost certainly not physical, nor will it ever be. Of course, as us being atheists, we are required, (reluctantly, at times), to talk mainly about the "Desert Trinity", (since they're the ubiquitious assholes (no exceptions, it's all of them (all generalizations I make are false))), however, as is with the "New Wave of Atheism", a discussion also turns its head and focuses on certain aspects, typically considered "innocuous" by the mainstream trinity (except the fact that they're "wrong"), are just as egregious (specifically certain actions of particular sects of Buddhism and other related religions, as well as animistic religions), as any atrocities they've committed since the advent of their reigns. 

Part 1: "Why there is almost certainly no God"

Dawkins is what you could call... "Old". Regardless, Dawkins explicitly states the definitions of Agnosticism and Gnosticism, that I think is an excellent point to use on a scale, shown below:

My Real problem is more about how "obnoxious" or "pretentious" they are about it, follow any discussion of [X religion] vs. Atheism, and it's ineluctable, people claiming to be "Agnostics", or "I don't give a fuck about religion"-ists, and think that absolving themselves of an inexorable "ultimatum" makes them better.

Moving past my indelible hatred of "agnostics", I believe it important to actually talk about the book; Dawkins is a man fond of math, fond of science, and very fond of Darwin. So, Dawkins elucidates why he believes there is certainly no God, going off of mathematical probability, as well as the effects on them resulting from monumental leaps and bounds made in the last few decades of (rather) unbridled scientific inquiry (the 80's was a good age, since everyone was doing cocaine. Everyone.).

"The God Hypothesis": Dawkins begins with his analysis of the "God Delusion" by basically creating an "abstract", like that of academia, summarizing his points and elaborating briefly on what exactly he will describe and analyze. Thusly, Dawkins differentiates between the common "Deist"/"Pantheist" Gods (Such as Einstein's), and that of an anthropomorphic, personal God, one multitudes of "flocks" (diction chosen) arrogantly arrogate their entire adult (and sometimes young) lives. As a devoted scientist, Dawkins, reluctantly and temporarily, performs the ascription of "Hypothesis" to the God claims, giving it momentary credibility (and thusly, falsibility), simply for the sake of adjucating, like any valid hypothesis must be put under, and to (hopefully) persuade people to remove the shackles of their credulity (I commit this, unfortunately, but with people instead, I'm a very trusting individual; I don't prevaricate, as much as people impugn that. Mendacious individuals are obdurate reprobates (any redundancy intended), linguistically meretricious mountebanks, and deserve any aspersions they receive), an unfortunate predecessor toward(s) extreme penury of critical and perspicacious thought.
As any sagacious and intelligent individual knows, learning as much as one can about a subject is never detrimental (unless it's porn), unfortunately, the non-detrimentality does not extend to indemnifying its infallibility, quite often it does the opposite.

Dawkins accuses the actual theism side of the "ultimatum" (if you so choose) as being the obverse side of the argument on any form of personified God. 

Multiple times, he instantiates practices that religion has... basically fucked over both believers and "infidels" of that religion, such as the re-emergence of Polio in India, because of Islamic fundamentalists propagating the beliefs that vaccinations were actually chemicals implanted to sterilize their population (a stronger strain, too, similar to the phenomenon of excessive uses of anti-bacterial materials leading to super-strains of viruses as well), and, of course, the Bosnian-Serbian conflicts.
Dawkins is (as are Harris and Hitchens) persistently hounded on the "natural selection" topic, since a majority of the public (America, I'm looking at you) believes it to be synonymous with "chance". This is obviously not the case, because "Natural Selection" has the fucking word selection in it. Anyway, since they must constantly answer these questions, I will posit it, for you, the people, as to prevent from making fools of yourselves. Because I love you.
Natural Selection is "defined as the gradual, non-random, process by which biological traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers", i.e. it is not so much, "Survival of the Fittest", as it is "Survival of the Most Adaptable".
Now that your knowledge has increased in size exponentially, I return to a major point in this part of the book, the favorite of scientist's, "Occam's Razor", in such, he suggests that a universe with an omniscient and omnipotent god is much more complex than a universe without one, in that this God would be so much more unnecessary from a scientifically explaining standpoint. It's just too mentally labyrinthine, or convoluted, (so to speak), to be worth considering.

Part 2: "Religion and Morality"

"What is morality?", you, my astute reader is obviously asking yourself after reading the preceding heading, "It's a religious phenomenon, right?", you, my (temporarily) naïve reader, then asks, of course not! This is an atheist book review, you should be ashamed of yourself for asking such a ludicrous question! Anyway, morality has long existed before any bigots came along to ruin everyone's fun (specifically referencing the dominant religions, who claim morality comes directly from their holy texts), and it is only recently that non-religious can openly challenge both that fact, and the other holistically trivial (yet still important!) fact that they're not fucking assholes.

Religious Morality is illogical

Dawkins, ever the evolutionary biologist, continues onward toward(s) his specialty, the direct effects of evolution itself, he contributes to the genetic discussion that altruistic genes, and other respectful gregarious genes are passed down lines, since these traits usually aid in survival, as a larger group has better chances at hunting and protection. And of course, the laughably ridiculous accusation "If you don't believe in God, what's to stop you from raping, stealing, and murdering?", and of course, my ever witty self, retorts, "Well other than the fact that I've never done those, not really having any desire to do those things, of which, you obviously wish to do, since those are the first things to come to mind once you imagine life without God" (Although, I don't believe I've ever heard that question either directed at me or in person, I wait for the day, eagerly).

"Toward(s) Religion": Dawkins has an obvious contempt for religion, more so in specific categories, such as their indefatigable attempts to subvert science, manipulate and subjugate people's lives, indoctrinate, and vitiate any progress humanity can make that disagrees with their anachronistic worldviews. But even more so, Dawkins is an avid proponent/activist toward(s) autonomy for the children of religious parents and communities. Ever the Briton, Dawkins strongly opposes the assignation of "[Religion] Child", such as "Catholic Child", or "Muslim Child", since these attributes are:

1. Inappropriately authoritarian
2. Disrespectful
3. Inciting, and 
4. Foolish.

He likens this to saying one is a "Marxist Child", or "Republican Child", which is simply something people don't do. 

And finally:

My Bit:

I have absolutely no complaints to say about this book, (not that I can remember, of course), but I didn't have any to give about the last ones, did I? And of course, I enjoyed it thoroughly, because the more "intellectual" a book is, the more likely the book is euphuismistic. Of course, the book can be dry at times, since Dawkins is a dedicated proponent of science, and science can be dry sometimes, but it is still definitely worth a read.

I give it a .87 out of .88 arbitrary things.

About the author:

Did you know he was born in Kenya?
He can't be president!

Dawkins is an atheist, a vice president of the British Humanist Association, and a supporter of the Brights movement. He is well known for his criticism of creationism andintelligent design. In his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker, he argues against the watchmaker analogy, an argument for the existence of a supernatural creator based upon the complexity of living organisms. Instead, he describes evolutionary processes as analogous to a blind watchmaker. He has since written several popular science books, and makes regular television and radio appearances, predominantly discussing these topics. In his 2006 book The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion—"a fixed false belief".

Witty Catchphrase