Christians: Have you read The God Delusion? If not, why not?

Question

http://richarddawkins.net/firstChapter,1

yes, read "Mere Christianity" - a poorly argued polemic if you ask me. It confirmed C.S. Lewis as the featherweight intellectual I've known from his fiction.

Answer 1

I did. Dawkins is a readable writer. His writing style is interesting. The content is stuff I thought through in my teens, and came to a different conclusion, i.e. that the god I don't believe in is the same one Dawkins doesn't believe in -- the false one promoted by fundamentalists. I still believe in the Living God of the universe as attested to by Jesus.

Answer 2

C.S. Lewis... featherweight intellectual... ???? and a Richard Dawkins that proposes taking children away from parents and keeps saying... "we will figure it out..." but can't acknowledge anything outside his arrogance is an intellectual... proof that the foolishness of God is greater than the wisdom of man!

Even Professor Antony Flew the former atheist (30+ years of speaking as an atheist) that had debated men such as C.S. Lewis recently said that the latest biological research "has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved." He has atleast come close to the truth and become a deist! Richard Dawkins is still hissing and spitting at the mention of his name I saw.

Well then how about reading some of John Polkinghorne's books? Even that puffed up Richard Dawkins has to admit he is a good scientist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Polkinghorne

Answer 3

Good book Brandon. Thanks for digging up the link. I have read many of the books listed in the "No, have you read ..." responses such as The Case for Christ and for Faith, Mere Christianity, just about everything by Lucado. My wife is a Minister and we have quite a library. The middle ground to my way of thinking is Bishop John Shelby Spong 's This Hebrew Lord or Rescueing the Bible from Fundamentalism. They present a nice middle ground - take the Bible as an allegory and learn from it. See God in everything you see and do, not just as the Big Guy with the white beard.

Here is a favourite quote of mine that I think Dawkins would find fit his theology:

"I find it truly stunning how many people can shrug off stuff like this, preferring instead a tiny, cramped cosmos just 6000 years old, scheduled to end any-time-now in a scripted stage show. An ancient and immense and ongoing cosmos is so vastly more dramatic and worthy of a majestic Creator. Our brains, capable of exploring His universe, picking up His tools and doing His work, seem destined for much more than cowering in a corner, praying that some of our neighbours will go to Hell." -- David Brin, commenting on people's
reactions to news of the discovery of Flores Man, especially Creationists')

Answer 4

I easily have, in all probability somewhat below a twelve months in the past, and wasn't extremely inspired. His practise does teach, as he's acquainted with the thank you to apply language properly, yet as a author reading yet another author's artwork, i got here across him somewhat lazy and attempting to "carry forth to the choir." in line with probability attempting somewhat too complicated to elicit an atheist "Amen!" in case you will. To paraphrase the above, it is much less complicated for a "non-author" to be inspired together with his language qualifications, first rate nevertheless they could be, than for a author. I basically study it as quickly as (yet thoroughly), and that i did pass returned over some sections just to be sure I have been given what he grew to become into asserting. The final couple of chapters had a pair issues i might desire to very almost artwork with, yet I think of maximum Dawkins followers could say that those are not the "meat and potatoes" sections of the e book, the needed areas -- if I remember properly, that they had greater to do with substitute dimensions, realities, universes, or some such. for sure he has study the Bible, yet merely adequate to make relaxing of it in a semi-convincing way. i'm specific that there are some Christians who've study much less of it than he has, nevertheless. i got here across countless gaping flaws that I desire I had copied and written down why they have been flaws, if basically to place them as solutions to such questions as this. some have been Biblio-historic, a minimum of as understood via Christians, and a few have been logical. Having pronounced all this, it remains that i'm no longer via any stretch of the mind's eye a scientist, neither is he via any stretch of the mind's eye a "scientific apologist."

Answer 5

I read it last year - I like the way he writes.

I can understand why xians would not want to read it cos it may invite them to think - to question what this big Invisible Sky Critter (ISC) in the ether is all about.

They can't come to terms with the fact the scammers and leaders of men have used religion as a management tool.
The peasants are much easier (and more cheaply) controlled if they believe there's an ISC watching them 24/7; it does away with the need for security cameras if you can foster a decent breed of paranoia.
.

Answer 6

Yes dear, and I bought a case full . They make splendid christmas present, together with The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Answer 7

I have no interest in reading it.
Thanks for asking, though.
I've heard negative things about it. The author's view is skewed.
Thanks to Todd for the links.
I wonder why you think a Christian would be interested in such a book. Have you read C.S Lewis? THE CASE FOR CHRIST?
Have you read Max Lucado?
Why not?

I suspect your reasons are the same as mine concerning RD's book.

Answer 8

Yawn... yes I've read some of his stuff, and other fiction too and it's not worth bothering reading any more. His assumptions and prejudices and pride and self engrandizement are extreme and the fact others seem to follow them is sad. God sent his son to die for our sins and he can only see hatred... sad. When I see God I see sunrises, flowers, World Vision, Compassion, Christian Children's fund, Covenant House, Mother Theresa etc. etc.... God's love.

Have your read "Mere Christianity" or the "Dawkins delusion" or the "Case for Faith" or "Case for Christ" or "90 Minutes in Heaven" or the "Greatest Thing in the World" by Henry Drummond or "I don't have enough Faith to be an Atheist" ....??

Here is Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath in debate.
http://www.rzim.org/resources/

May you find truth.
Todd

"Truth is absolute and knowable and must be searched for diligently, but many will try to hide it, deny it or muddy it." - Bia Leung.


Regarding Richard Dawkins Alister McGrath states:
“Such is Dawkins’s unruffled scientific impartiality that in a book of almost four hundred pages, he can scarcely bring himself to concede that a single human benefit has flowed from religious faith, a view which is as a priori improbable as it is empirically false.”
....
"Atheism must indeed be in a sorry state if its leading contemporary defender has to depend so heavily – and so obviously – on the improbable and the false to bolster his case."

Answer 9

Good reading, my point exactly. God is the universe and the creation, not an old man on a throne. The christians take the Bible to literal.

Answer 10

No, I haven't read it. I found 'The Cloud of Unknowing' first, and it explained God to my satisfaction--did a far better job of that than the Bible, in fact.