The God Delusion

Richard Dawkin's new book The God Delusion is nearly upon us and reviews have started to appear. Obviously, some people are going to love it, especially if they mistook Sam Harris's rant, The End of Faith, for an intelligent analysis of religion.

Andrew Brown kicked things off in the Guardian with his article (that I linked to earlier in the week as well) taking serious issue with where Dawkins is coming from. Even more revealing were the cries of pain from Dawkinites in the comments section:

"I've now read this several times and I'm still boggling. It is just utter rubbish. Why are the religious allowed to publish this sort of drivel?"

"That's why I, and perhaps others, f**king hate religion Mr. Brown. Get it ? F**king HATE it. Or is that just jeering, smug atheism as well?"

"No, it calls for intelligence, which those who adhere to religious beliefs not only lack (as it is impossible to hold a religious belief and to be intelligent), but openly disavow. Hence religion is nothing more than a grotesque display of wanton stupidity and should be ridiculed and derided at every possible opportunity."

"but they are deluded fantasists!!!"

The review that Brown refers to in the opening sentence of the article above was for Prospect Magazine and it now on-line here. Needless to say, he eviscerates Dawkins's book from the standpoint of an intelligent atheist. His main attack is on Dawkins's blind spot, shared by most denizens of the Secular Web, that atheism has never caused anything bad to happen. I'd like to review the book myself but my wife has forbidden me to line Dawkins's pocket by buying it. I tell me myself it can't be as bad as Harris's but Andrew Brown seems to think it might be.

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