| Description |
463 pages ; 21 cm |
| Note |
Originally published: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co., 2006. |
|
Includes "Preface to the paperback edition" and corrections ; preface ©2008. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 427-448) and index. |
| Contents |
A deeply religious nonbeliever. Deserved respect ; Undeserved respect -- The God hypothesis. Polytheism ; Monotheism ; Secularism, the Founding Fathers and the religion of America ; The poverty of agnosticism ; NOMA ; The great prayer experiment ; The Neville Chamberlain school of evolutionists ; Little green men -- Arguments for God's existence. Thomas Aquinas's "proofs" ; The ontological argument and other a priori arguments ; The argument from beauty ; The argument from personal "experience" ; The argument from Scripture ; The argument from admired religious scientists ; Pascal's wager ; Bayesian arguments -- Why there almost certainly is no God. The ultimate Boeing 747 ; Natural selection as a consciousness-raiser ; Irreducible complexity ; The worship of gaps ; The anthropic principle : planetary version ; The anthropic principle : cosmological version ; An interlude at Cambridge -- The roots of religion. The Darwinian imperative ; Direct advantages of religion ; Group selection ; Religion as a by-product of something else ; Psychologically primed for religion ; Tread softly, because you tread on my memes ; Cargo cults -- The roots of morality : why are we good? Does our moral sense have a Darwinian origin? ; A case study in the roots of morality ; If there is no God, why be good? -- The "good" book and the changing moral Zeitgeist. The Old Testament ; Is the New Testament any better? ; Love thy neighbour ; The moral Zeitgeist ; What about Hitler and Stalin? : weren't they atheists? -- What's wrong with religion? : why be so hostile? Fundamentalism and the subversion of science ; The dark side of absolutism ; Faith and homosexuality ; Faith and the sanctity of human life ; The great Beethoven fallacy ; How "moderation" in faith fosters fanaticism -- Childhood, abuse and the escape from religion. Physical and mental abuse ; In defence of children ; An educational scandal ; Consciousness-raising again ; Religious education as a part of literary culture -- A much needed gap? Binker ; Consolation ; Inspiration ; The mother of all burkas. |
| Summary |
Dawkins argues that belief in God is irrational, and describes examples of religion's negative influences on society throughout the centuries, such as war, bigotry, child abuse, and violence. |
| Subject |
Atheism.
|
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Religion.
|
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Irreligion.
|
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Atheism. |
|
Religion. |
| Genre |
Controversial literature.
|
| ISBN |
9780618918249 (paperback) |
|
0618918248 (paperback) |
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