One of the most interesting books I've read this year is Richard Dawkins' wildly popular The God Delusion.
If you want a quick sampler before plunging in to it's 400-odd pages there are some video versions. Dawkins' gave a TED talk "An atheist's call to arms" can be watched online. His 2-part TV movie "The Root of All Evil?" is also well worth watching (despite the somewhat overstated title).
Dawkins presents, what is to me, convincing arguments as to why God does not exist and why arguments for the existence of God do not hold up to serious scrutiny. He also gives a plausible theory of the roots of religion from the perspective of meme theory.
He then gives his arguments as to why religion is a harmful influence in our world: subversion of science, intolerance, wars and so on. Dawkins provides this as one of the central theses of his book: that religion should not be respected for it's own sake:
"As long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be respected because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect from the faith of Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers."
He thus argues that "moderate" faith, and respect for "moderate" faith, facilitates extremism and terrorism. I put "moderate" in quotes because Dawkins sees no way to differential between "moderate" and "extremist" religion. This to me is a flaw in his line of thinking. It is simple to define "harmful" or "extremist" religion as any religion that defies The Golden Rule. Should I care about someone's private beliefs if they don't impact upon me?
Another distinction that Dawkins fails to made is between spirituality and religious dogma. I have friends who have spiritual beliefs but don't follow the teachings of any church. Can I really argue that their beliefs are harmful to me or society?
While I think the world would be better off without religion, I'm not convinced by Dawkins' call to arms against all religion. This strikes me as a divisive and will just polarise people.
Finally, Dawkins doesn't address the point that religious people, on the whole, are happier than non-religious people. He does mention in passing a quote from George Bernard Shaw:
"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one."
Amusing but not convincing.
