Upon seeing an advertisement for a book entitled The God Delusion by noted atheist Richard Dawkins, I decided I wanted to read it. I didn’t want to read it bad enough to pay the $27 charge at the local bookstore so I got it through e-bay for $7.98 (including shipping) from a Goodwill store. Thus not only did I save a lot of money but I also did not increase the sales count of this book!
I’m not sure what I expected when I got the book but I can say that I was disappointed that the author writes more from a biased, antagonistic, egotistical mindset than from a reasonable, intelligent position. That is not to say that the author is not intelligent; he definitely is, and he is arrogantly proud of it.
Now when I received this book in the mail, it should have gone into its proper place in line with the books I am currently reading and planning to read. But, curiosity got the best of me so I have pre-emptively read the Preface already. Here, briefly, is the summary of his 7-page Preface:
1. If you are religious, you are a victim of “childhood indoctrination”. The author hopes that his book will reach some of this class of people who are still “open-minded”; those whose “childhood indoctrination…didn’t ‘take’, or whose native intelligence is strong enough to overcome it” (page 6). Personally, like many, many Christians I know, I wasn’t raised in a church going, Christian home. My father was an agnostic when I was growing up and I simply believed like he did (i.e. “if there is a God than why is there war, famine, etc ”). Thankfully, my father did trust Jesus Christ as his Saviour at age 45 (after I had already become a Christian; would that be “reverse indoctrination”?) and was ready to meet the Lord when he passed from this life.
2. If you are an atheist, you are enlightened and “among the educated elite” (page 4). This is the predominant thought process of the atheist; “we don’t believe in God because we are smarter than everybody else”. Don’t believe this? “…atheism nearly always indicates a healthy independence of mind and, indeed, a healthy mind” (page 3). Translated: if you are a Christian you have a mental problem. Yes, they really believe that! The puzzling thing is that atheists are not smart enough to realize how smug and intolerant they sound when they stroke their own ego’s like this.
3. Religious people are “faith-heads” (page 5) while atheists are “free spirits” (page 6). “Faith-heads” sounds eerily like “ditto-heads”, which makes me wonder if the author is a closet Rush Limbaugh fan! This atheist, like most, feels that he is superior because he is a self-proclaimed open-minded free-thinker, which he definitely is not!
I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the book so that I can be more intelligently educated on the delusion of atheism.