Reddit Reddit reviews The God Delusion

We found 18 Reddit comments about The God Delusion. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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18 Reddit comments about The God Delusion:

u/einTier · 4 pointsr/atheism

I came to atheism late in life. It was a strange thing for me, there was no story to tell like there is for those who suddenly find Jesus. I just woke up one morning and realized that not only did I not believe in God, I hadn't believed in quite some time. I always explain it like having a beach house and every year the ocean washes a little of the beach away. One day, you wake up, go out on the porch and realize there's no longer a beach -- the water is lapping at your back deck. When did the beach cease to exist? It's hard to say, even if you went and looked at the beach every morning, which you probably didn't. You just know there isn't a beach anymore and it's time for new plans.

Since I came to it so late in life, I got to look it from a much more adult perspective and got to really understand it. Hopefully, I can help you understand your son.

  1. First, understand that atheism isn't really a religion, though many try to classify it that way. You don't need a word that describes your disbelief in Santa Claus, the Chupacabra, or any other number of mystical beasts. However, because religion is so pervasive in our society, we need a word to explain that we don't believe the accepted narrative.

    That said, we're kind of all over the place. Some of us kind of disbelieve a little, like my girlfriend. She really wants to believe there's a God of some sort, and she tries continually to find evidence. I'm a little more strong in my atheism, I don't believe there's a God and I've stopped looking for Him. I'd be perfectly happy with a God worth worshipping, but I'm living my life as if there is no God. Others are more militant, and some are out to convert others. But there's no universal string that ties us together other than our lack of belief. We're as different as any other general subset of the population. You might as well ask what people who like Chinese food believe in.

    Because of that, you're not going to find the Tabula Rasa you're seeking. It doesn't exist. We don't have a holy book. We don't even have real tribal leaders. I can recommend some reading, though. I highly recommend Richard Dawkins as a primer, and in particular, I found The God Delusion to be really helpful in understanding my atheism. Before that, I was really uncomfortable with the label "atheist" and preferred the less loaded term of agnostic. However, after reading that book, I found that atheist really was accurate and it didn't have to mean "complete and absolute knowledge of the non-existance of God" or even "I hate religion".

    Dawkins doesn't suffer fools lightly and he can be sharp at times, but he generally wants people to understand and is trying to talk to all audiences, not just the already converted. Authors like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris can be fun to read for someone who has already acknowledged their atheism, but they are preaching to the choir and their books pull no punches. They aren't going to convert anyone. I highly suggest staying away unless you want to be angry.

  2. Almost all of us go through this phase. It's part of the reason why r/atheism is kind of considered a circle-jerk around here and why people generally don't stay very long. It's a very confusing time when you're newly atheist. You really don't know what you believe, only that you know you don't believe what you did before. I would say it's very similar to going through a divorce and you can expect a lot of acting out. There's a part of you that's bitter because you feel you've wasted some part of your life chasing something that doesn't exist. You've been lied to and that hurts. You probably denied yourself certain pleasures because you believed them to be sinful and that makes you angry because those opportunities are gone now. Quite frankly, some of it is just reveling in the blasphemy you were prohibited from engaging in before.

    However, there are some of us that are legitimately upset and angry. Many of us lose family members over our atheism. My mother has disowned me because of it, and that's not uncommon. All of us lose friends over it. Some of us lose jobs or won't be promoted because we're perceived as not moral. A friend of mine has told me that while he likes my company, he could never hire or work for an atheist because he doesn't trust them. For all the talk of religious persecution, try walking around just one day as a vocally out atheist. There's a reason why the majority of us are silent and only talk openly about it in safe places such as this.

    Your son is probably looking up anti-religious articles and books and such because it's the easiest way for him to find confirmation of his disbelief. A lot of the anti-religious stuff he's posting is probably helping him understand why he stopped believing the way he did. Understand that he may be going through a period where he hates religion, but it's not that he's anti-God. It's very difficult to be against something you don't believe in, and this includes the devil. He may well be anti-religion and that may or may not pass. Atheists often find that religion seems to do a lot of evil in the world (terrorism, hateful laws, justification for immoral acts such as slavery) and that can be painful to witness.

    If it's any consolation, I find myself fascinated by religious objects and I tend to collect them. My bookshelf is filled with religious texts and I have many representations of religious beings in my apartment. I find it incredibly interesting the power that someone can ascribe to a mere object or idea.

  3. Understand that atheism isn't a lack of moral character. This is one of the first misconceptions that I find that the religious have. When you believe that your moral character derives from a holy text, it's hard to understand how you could derive it absent that text or one similar to it. But that's not true, and you do it every day. There are moral judgements you must make every day that your religious text cannot help you decide. There are moral judgements you make that your religious text would mislead you about. For one, you would never condone slavery, yet your Bible tells you exactly how to treat your slaves and which people are ok to keep as slaves. You don't need your Bible to tell you that slavery is wrong. I don't need my Bible to tell me that stealing is wrong. I know that I would hate it if someone stole from me, and therefore, I do not steal from others.

    If anything, I feel more moral and more obligated to be moral now that I'm an atheist. I know that sounds odd, but please hear me out. I feel this is the only life I get. This is the only life you get, and the world as it is today is the only world we get to experience. Because there is no better place, I want to make sure I leave this world better than I found it. I want to leave you with a life that is as good as it could have been while still living a life that is equally good for me. I suspect your son feels the same way, because moral people are moral without religion.

    I know you want to reach your son and teach him good values and good morals and how to make good decisions, and quite frankly, it is your obligation to do so. However, you will have a harder task because you can no longer argue from authority. You're right that you can't say, "do this because God says so." It won't matter to him any more than "do this because Santa will love you" would matter to you. No one could point to Christmas stories or point out that bad kids get coal because you don't believe and you've seen plenty of bad kids who didn't get coal at all. Instead, you'll have to make logical arguments about why things are bad. For instance, you don't want him to have sex. That's probably unrealistic, because studies show that kids have sex whether they are religious or not. We are simply built to have sex when we hit adolescence and our bodies compel us to do it. Abstinence worked fine when we all got married at 15, but it works much less so now that we're waiting until our late 20's. Instead, explain that people can legitimately be hurt by sex when its done for amoral reasons. Explain that at his age, he doesn't have the experience to understand the complex feelings and emotions that go into it. He probably won't understand that, so you'll also have to council him that if he is going to do it, here are many ways to do it safely so that he doesn't end up with a kid. Explain that having a child at a very young age requires tremendous sacrifice and is emotionally and financially difficult. Doing it when you are not prepared likely means that many of his dreams will be unachieveable.

    Of course, this doesn't help you if you think premarital sex is sinful. He is going to have a different idea about that and there's not a good logical argument that can be made. However, you can make sure that his decision to have sex doesn't result in terrible consequences. That's kind of how you'll have to frame everything from now on.
u/scorpionMaster · 2 pointsr/kindle

Only good ones I've found Are Dawkins' The God Delusion and America's Test Kitchen: Pancakes and Waffles. Second one is a bit borderline on the "science" genre, I suppose, but it's better than nothing, right?

u/happyface710 · 2 pointsr/TrueAtheist
  1. Strong theist. 100 per cent probability of God. In the words of C.G. Jung: "I do not believe, I know."

  2. De facto theist. Very high probability but short of 100 per cent. "I don't know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there."

  3. Leaning towards theism. Higher than 50 per cent but not very high. "I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God."

  4. Completely impartial. Exactly 50 per cent. "God's existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable."

  5. Leaning towards Atheism. Lower than 50 per cent but not very low. "I do not know whether God exists but I'm inclined to be skeptical."

  6. De facto atheist. Very low probability, but short of zero. "I don't know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there."

  7. Strong atheist. "I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung knows there is one."

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_of_theistic_probability

    Read this book:
    http://www.amazon.com/The-God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins-ebook/product-reviews/B003JTHWJQ/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Delusion
u/fduniho · 2 pointsr/DebateReligion

For Atheism:

  1. Superstition in All Ages by Jean Meslier - a comprehensive treatise against religion, written between 2 and 3 centuries ago.

  2. The Religion Virus: Why we believe in God by Craig A. James - explains how religion and particularly belief in God is due to memetic evolution.

  3. Atheism: A Philosophical Justification by Michael Martin - a comprehesive overview of arguments for and against the existence of God.

  4. Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Daniel Dennett - explains why the idea of evolution is so powerful an explanation of things, it acts as a universal acid against supernatural beliefs.

  5. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins - specifically addresses the idea of God as a supernatural creator

    For Christianity:

  6. The Five Great Philosophies of Life by William De Witt Hyde - covers Epicureanism, Stoicism, Plato, Aristotle, and Christianity, explaining the value in each.

  7. Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas - a comprehensive and detailed examination and defense of Christian beliefs

  8. The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus by Bruxy Cavey

  9. Unspoken Sermons by George MacDonald

  10. Descent Into Hell by Charles Williams - a novel
u/Quock · 2 pointsr/exchristian

Popular Richard Dawkins books are The God Delusion and The Selfish Gene. I haven't read the Selfish Gene yet, but I have read the God Delusion, and it is a very good book. It may be a tad technical if you aren't well versed in science, but it's still very manageable.

The late Christopher Hitchens wrote a very famous book called God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Admittedly, I have not read this one either, but it's an atheist staple.

The Skeptic's Annotated Bible is next on my reading list (as you can tell, I have a HUGE reading list...), but also widely regarded as an amazing piece of literature for rational thinking.

I'm sure others can suggest more specific books, but these are the basics as far as I know.

Edit: Definitely forgot to mention that the Skeptic's Annotated Bible can be found online. I assume that this is in it's entirety?

Edit 2: Found this list on GoodReads.com. Seems to be another good resource for finding books :). Happy reading!

u/xlava · 1 pointr/atheism

No problem. Yeah I feel like thats a question people harp on. If god does exist and he seriously is so close minded that he'll send me to hell for not believing in him, but he'll send a mass murderer (who went to confession right before he died) to heaven.... lol fuck that, I don't even know what to say to such a distorted system of justice.

Anyway...

http://www.amazon.com/The-God-Delusion-ebook/dp/B003JTHWJQ/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333947248&sr=1-1

Buy the ebook/kindle book. You can access it via kindle app for your iPhone, and on amazon.com on your PC. Simply create an account through paypal to pay for it, or buy a visa gift card from a store so you don't have to use parents credit card.

Then log off amazon, clear your history, and nobody will be the wiser.

u/NeverForgetTheFuture · 1 pointr/atheism

Utter bullshit. The Kindle version of God Delusion is right here. It's the very first result when you search through the Kindle App on the iPhone/iPad. God Delusion is very much available to US readers through both the Apple and Amazon distribution channels. To the extent that people outside the US do not have it available, well, that's on the publisher(s), not Apple/Amazon.

u/ftctkugffquoctngxxh · 1 pointr/clevercomebacks

Most atheists don't actively work on "intensifying" their belief like some religious people do. But if anyone wants a serious suggestion check out The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.

u/theclapp · 1 pointr/atheism

The God Delusion for Kindle for $6.29.

There are Kindle clients for Windows, Mac, iPhones, and several other platforms.

u/Ohthere530 · 1 pointr/TrueAtheism

Atheism is spreading and seems to be getting more socially acceptable in many parts of the US. That is a social phenomenon worth studying.

Atheism itself (non-belief in any gods) isn't much of a belief system, but it is often associated with other beliefs. In that sense, there are "atheistic mindsets" worthy of study. Some atheists focus on the reliability of the scientific method and skeptical thinking more generally. Others focus more on the discovery that their childhood religion seems not to make sense. There are probably other clusters of "atheistic thought".

I don't agree with everything they say, but "prominent atheists" like Dennett (link and link) and Dawkins (link) have certainly influenced my thinking.

There are interesting polls (link and link) that give a broad-based sense of what people think about religion and atheism.

How to keep up with atheism? My three main sources are amazon, google, and reddit.

u/ethicsengine · 1 pointr/atheism

Oh man, you've hit on a really hard topic.

First off, before I get into any of the juicy topics, let me say this: Consider where your parents are coming from based on their views. An analogy: If you were evacuating a building on fire and saw someone who didn't know they are in danger, would you try to notify them? For the sake of argument, let's say yes (I expect so). They see this world as a building burning down and they view themselves as trying to warn us of the danger we are supposedly in. Expand this to the fact that they are your parents and as their kid, you told them you are walking back into a burning building. They are literally scared for you. Irrationally scared, but still scared non the less. I am not sure if your short term situation or plans, but in the long term you need to accept that they are not going to share your views and may not accept you. Don't let them abuse you! They have to independently accept you for who you are or you need to distance yourself if they don't. Take care of yourself, maintain your dignity and self respect, and make decisions that make you happy and lead you towards living a happy and fulfilled life.

Some information on their reaction:

> I tried to be gentle about it and not criticize her but she kept telling me to defend why I didn't believe in God, and then when I answered she was like "you're trying to disprove God and attack my beliefs" . she later said I was being rude, (I was being as respectful as possible) when I explained that she said I was being "politely rude"???? But because of my beliefs I obviously thought she was a moron and I reject her values. (I never called her a moron and I said that I respected her faith and I didn't want this to be a source of contention for us)

Let's step back and parse this. Typically, strongly religious people follow a form of ethics called "Theological Ethics." The theological ethics system may incorporate other forms of ethics such as utilitarian, kant or phenomenological, but it is ultimately rooted in theology. Do [Action] because god demands it in or through [insert religious book, prophet, etc...]. In their view, all ethics and morality flow only from god. If god says give to the poor, you give to the poor. If god says kill that tribe, you kill that tribe. All ethics and morals are literally rooted in their version of god.

So, when you say "I don't believe in god," many people will imply "therefore I am not a moral person" OR "you think I am an idiot because I need god to work out what is right or wrong." In some cases, a person "without god" is seen as downright evil. However, we know that people can be moral and develop an ethics system without attributing it to or believing in god. We often follow heuristics such as the golden rule, informed consent or "no person is a means to an end."

Some theologians argue that this is only by the grace of god that he has allowed us to be a tool for good despite disbelieving, never mind that in many religions we are still considered doomed to eternal torment no matter how much good we do in the world and that an immoral or amoral person who believes in god has a higher chance into being accepted into paradise over an atheist who genuinely wanted to help others.

A few things you can do is work out why you can continue being a good person without needing to believe in a god. I personally see value in both society and individuals. I want the world to be a better place so that I can enjoy less violence, longer healthier lives. I want to see people individually succeed because it betters our society. Society is made up of individuals. Because life is precious, and this is our one life, we must make the most of it but not at the expense of others because their life is precious too. Informed consent is incredibly important. A society following informed consent reduces or prevents rape, murder, irresponsible or malicious human testing, robberies, etc...

Anyways, if you are interested in ethics and morality in the context of atheism and why reason will likely lead to a more just society, you should pick up a copy of The Moral Arc by Michael Shermer. http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Arc-Science-Better-People/dp/0805096914

If you're interested in why atheism and why you don't need religion to be moral, you should pick up a copy of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins (who is giving an AMA this may 27). https://www.amazon.com/God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins-ebook/dp/B003JTHWJQ

I personally think you will have a hard time converting your family to atheism, but if you want to shore up some of your arguments about why atheism, you should pick up a copy of A Manual for Creating Atheists by Peter Boghassian. I don't recommend you actively seek out these conversations with your family at this point, but they can help give you a better grounding about your belief system (yes, atheism is a belief system). http://www.amazon.com/Manual-Creating-Atheists-Peter-Boghossian/dp/1939578094

To conclude, don't stop loving your parents but don't let them abuse you either.

[edits for minor typos and formatting]

u/sektober · 1 pointr/atheism

Try this link instead.

u/iamtimeless · 1 pointr/AskReddit

Children do not have the mental capacity to detect bullshit, hence the need to proactively inoculate them against religious beliefs. Evolution has bestowed an innate belief in God and a sense of an afterlife because of the way our social structures evolved. There are two separate parts in the brain that deal with others.

  • The Lateral cortex deals with perception of self and others bodies and physical attributes

  • The medial frontal cortex deals with perception of self and others emotions, beliefs, desires and intentions

    If you attack me and I hit you with a rock and kill you, my lateral cortex knows that you are dead. However, there was no need for my medial frontal cortex to have the same notion. In fact, believing you are still alive, though not physically, allows my brain to think about why you tried to attack me so I can take further action. It wouldn't be very advantageous to cease to be able to think about why you attacked me the split second you died. These parts of the brain, seemly providing incongruent information, are the basis for why people believe in "souls." The person you are thinking about is both dead and not dead to you, at the same time.

    I won't debate religion with you because it will be a waste of my time. However, I encourage you to read the following books:

    Why We Believe In Gods

    The God Delusion
u/Katholikos · 1 pointr/CasualConversation

No problem, friend.

For an argument against religion, I'd highly recommend the famous The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. It's very well-received and typically considered one of the best arguments against.

For an argument in favor of religion, I haven't read it yet, but I've heard very good things about Five Proofs of the Existence of God by Edward Feser.

They go well together, because the Five Proofs book tries to make arguments with specific reference to The God Delusion, but of course there are tons of other resources you could use instead. Either way, if you do decide to read through them, hopefully it at least gets you thinking a bit, even if it doesn't sway your opinion at all! :)