Atheists Reflect on the Impact of The God Delusion Ten Years After Its Release

[rug]

Last edited Sun Oct 2, 2016, 02:23 PM - Edit history (1)

October 2, 2016
by Hemant Mehta

It was 10 years ago today when Richard Dawkins‘ book The God Delusion was first published in the UK. The book went on to sell more than 3 million copies and, anecdotally, led countless people away from the religions of their youth. In fact, you could argue that The God Delusion has created more atheists than any other book in history… with the sole exception being the Bible.

I asked a number of atheist authors and organizational leaders for their thoughts on the book’s legacy, and this is what they said.

David A. Niose, Legal Director for the American Humanist Association and author of Nonbeliever Nation:

Back in 2006 the secular movement was in a different place, just finding its momentum. Myspace was the dominant social media back then, and atheists were just beginning to become more visible. The End of Faith by Sam Harris had generated some excitement, but nobody knew that there were more big atheist bestsellers to come. I remember getting an early copy of The God Delusion and being so impressed with how eloquently and methodically Richard had driven home the argument against theism and for atheism. I’d like to say that I knew that the book would be a smash hit, but in truth I can only say that I hoped it would be. As a secular activist (at the time I was on the (American Humanist Association) board and the (Secular Coalition for America advisory panel) I was hoping that the book would circulate far and wide, because I knew that most who read it would seriously question the validity of traditional religious thinking.

Fortunately, those hopes were realized, as the book really took off and created a lot of buzz. As a result, there can be no question that secular organizations such as the AHA and the SCA benefited greatly. I can’t tell you how many times people I’ve met at conferences and other secular events have told me that they found the movement after reading The God Delusion. Also, on a personal note, I can say that my first book, Nonbeliever Nation, owes much to Richard and The God Delusion. It was because of the success of The God Delusion that major publishers were willing to look seriously at atheist titles, and I doubt that there would have been much interest if Richard and the other New Atheists had not proven that there was a mass market for atheist literature. And Richard’s enthusiastic endorsement of Nonbeliever Nation — which my publisher put right on the front cover — was huge.

Robyn E. Blumner, President & CEO of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science and CEO of the Center for Inquiry:

Traveling with Richard Dawkins as he promotes his ideas on science and secularism, I have had a front-row seat to see the impact of Richard’s books. People standing in line to obtain Richard’s signature are uniformly excited to be near the man who inspired them with his eloquent pen. This is true for all of Richard’s books, but none more so than The God Delusion. Phrases such as “your book changed my life” and “your book put into words everything I was thinking” are gushingly offered by fans who want to convey their gratitude for helping them see the true nature of reality. Like no other book of its kind, The God Delusion caught the zeitgeist, acted as a lifeline to people who felt alone in their religious doubts, and galvanized a movement.

Richard could have had a celebrated and noncontroversial life as a famous evolutionary biologist. Instead, he took head-on the most ingrained myth mankind holds. The God Delusion is a paean to clear thinking and reason. It asks mankind to give up ancient fairytales in exchange for the truth about the wondrous universe we all inhabit. Then, to bring this cause to even more people, Richard established the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science, which is also celebrating its ten-year anniversary. If that isn’t heroic, I don’t know what is.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2016/10/02/atheists-reflect-on-the-impact-of-the-god-delusion-ten-years-after-its-release/

[Jim__]

1. Your link doesn't go to the article - it goes to "post a new thread on DU." - n/t

[rug]

2. Fixed. Thanks.

[Jim__]

3. Some ten year old reviews are still worth reading.

One review worth revisiting is Terry Eagleton's review which appeared in the London Review of Books. A brief excerpt:

...

The Christian faith holds that those who are able to look on the crucifixion and live, to accept that the traumatic truth of human history is a tortured body, might just have a chance of new life – but only by virtue of an unimaginable transformation in our currently dire condition. This is known as the resurrection. Those who don’t see this dreadful image of a mutilated innocent as the truth of history are likely to be devotees of that bright-eyed superstition known as infinite human progress, for which Dawkins is a full-blooded apologist. Or they might be well-intentioned reformers or social democrats, which from a Christian standpoint simply isn’t radical enough.

The central doctrine of Christianity, then, is not that God is a bastard. It is, in the words of the late Dominican theologian Herbert McCabe, that if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you. Here, then, is your pie in the sky and opium of the people. It was, of course, Marx who coined that last phrase; but Marx, who in the same passage describes religion as the ‘heart of a heartless world, the soul of soulless conditions’, was rather more judicious and dialectical in his judgment on it than the lunging, flailing, mispunching Dawkins.

Now it may well be that all this is no more plausible than the tooth fairy. Most reasoning people these days will see excellent grounds to reject it. But critics of the richest, most enduring form of popular culture in human history have a moral obligation to confront that case at its most persuasive, rather than grabbing themselves a victory on the cheap by savaging it as so much garbage and gobbledygook. The mainstream theology I have just outlined may well not be true; but anyone who holds it is in my view to be respected, whereas Dawkins considers that no religious belief, anytime or anywhere, is worthy of any respect whatsoever. This, one might note, is the opinion of a man deeply averse to dogmatism. Even moderate religious views, he insists, are to be ferociously contested, since they can always lead to fanaticism.

...

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. The countless millions who have devoted their lives selflessly to the service of others in the name of Christ or Buddha or Allah are wiped from human history – and this by a self-appointed crusader against bigotry. He is like a man who equates socialism with the Gulag. Like the puritan and sex, Dawkins sees God everywhere, even where he is self-evidently absent. He thinks, for example, that the ethno-political conflict in Northern Ireland would evaporate if religion did, which to someone like me, who lives there part of the time, betrays just how little he knows about it. He also thinks rather strangely that the terms Loyalist and Nationalist are ‘euphemisms’ for Protestant and Catholic, and clearly doesn’t know the difference between a Loyalist and a Unionist or a Nationalist and a Republican. He also holds, against a good deal of the available evidence, that Islamic terrorism is inspired by religion rather than politics.

more ...

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. Threatening hell to force or scare people to do the right thing is not right. Promise heaven?

Atheists who do the right things without fear of hell but because it is good have a much greater moral authority.

If some religious people do the right thing without regard to fear of hell and without being bribed by a promise of heaven, then religion is useless for it's most touted benefit.

[stone space]

7. Atheists who hammer on nuclear weapons have greater moral authority than Christians who do likewise?

Atheists who do the right things without fear of hell but because it is good have a much greater moral authority.

How does that work, exactly?



Larry Cloud Morgan, hammering on a nuclear missile silo.

"They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks"--Isaiah 2-4

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. That depends whether you think beating swords into plowshares is better than

That depends whether you think beating swords into plowshares is better than "Onward Christian Soldiers" or Dominionism or Nuclear Eschatology.

One of the things about bibliomancy: It's capricious and self-contradictory.

Some christians may seek to follow Isaiah 2-4 on its inherent merits or because a prophet commanded. Some may even do so without knowing of the text.

The point of the statement was that people who do good works for paybacks or avoidances of some kind are doing it not for inherent charity but to receive payback or for avoidance.

Just because two people do the same act does not mean they have the same authority.

Which had more moral authority, Paul Ryan's photo op in the 2012 campaign cleaning clean pots in a soup kitchen or the volunteers actions cleaning them before he showed up?

[stone space]

9. You didn't answer my question.

Do atheists who hammer on nuclear weapons have greater moral authority than Christians who hammer on nuclear weapons?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

10. Yes I did. It is the kind of question that cannot be given a Yes or No answer. . . . nt

[stone space]

17. Sure it can. It's a small group of people.

It is the kind of question that cannot be given a Yes or No answer.

We're talking about a very specific movement composed of between 100 and 200 people.

Why can't the question be answered?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

19. Because, as I stated, it depends on several factors. I even gave an analogous example.

Like I said, it can and was answered, but it can't be answered with a simple Yes or No answer any more than the question, for example, "When you post on DU do you have moral authority?" The answer to that example could not be a simple Yes or No answer.

[stone space]

14. Your question answers itself. The True Scotsman is likely not the one there for a photo op.

Which had more moral authority, Paul Ryan's photo op in the 2012 campaign cleaning clean pots in a soup kitchen or the volunteers actions cleaning them before he showed up?

But in the case of my question, politicians rarely show up at a military base to literally hammer on weapons systems, because doing so entails some risk and significant legal sanctions in the form of prison sentences that could last decades.

That depends whether you think beating swords into plowshares is better than "Onward Christian Soldiers" or Dominionism or Nuclear Eschatology.

Never heard of that last one, but I certainly have a preference for beating Swords into Plowshares over onward Christian soldiers.

I am posting this at DU, after all.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

16. Here's a powerful tool

It's called a search engine. Many people use them. Google http://google.com is a prime example. You type in a search key like "nuclear eschatology" and it comes back with the first page of a long list of pages you might like to to go to. There is even a very short excerpt for each to guide you in your choice. For example you might choose http://jaar.oxfordjournals.org/content/LI/1/3.extract which was the one at the top of the list.

[Goblinmonger]

11. Are they doing it because they fear hell if they don't?

Then, yes, those doing it because they think it is right have greater moral authority than those doing it to avoid hell.

You question was answered; you didn't just like the answer.

[rug]

12. It's not binary. It can be done for both love and fear.

You forget your catechism. It's still in there whether you like it or not.

[stone space]

13. I'm talking about real people in the real world who hammer on weapons systems.

Do atheists who hammer on nuclear weapons have greater moral authority than Christians who hammer on nuclear weapons?

This isn't some exercise in make-believe. This isn't some fairy tale where you get to make up your own hypotheticals.

This is a conversation grounded in the real world. It's about real people.

This is about real atheists and real Christians who hammer on real weapons systems in the real world.

These are the folks who we are talking about.

This isn't a large group of people, and there's no need for silly hypothetical stereotypes.

[AlbertCat]

15. I'm talking about real people in the real world who hammer on weapons systems.

How many can there BE?

Have you got a list?
Then we can go thru each person one by one and decide.

[stone space]

18. Somewhere between 100 and 200 people.

How many can there BE?

[AlbertCat]

20. Somewhere between 100 and 200 people.

Well, not enough to fill the average school auditorium...but still...


You're gonna have to somehow discover each one's true motivation for the act to discover.... what are we trying to find out again?....

Who has what? The most "moral authority". Seems to me faith or not in some ancient superstitions is beside the point. It's their personal motivation. Are they practicing true altruism or looking for a display of such to appear to be more moral than the average person? That you can never know for sure.... because you cannot read minds.


Pretty dumb discussion really.

Next.... how many angels can sit on the head of a pin?!

[rug]

5. That's devastating.

And prescient.

Like the puritan and sex, Dawkins sees God everywhere, even where he is self-evidently absent. He thinks, for example, that the ethno-political conflict in Northern Ireland would evaporate if religion did, which to someone like me, who lives there part of the time, betrays just how little he knows about it. He also thinks rather strangely that the terms Loyalist and Nationalist are ‘euphemisms’ for Protestant and Catholic, and clearly doesn’t know the difference between a Loyalist and a Unionist or a Nationalist and a Republican. He also holds, against a good deal of the available evidence, that Islamic terrorism is inspired by religion rather than politics.

You're right, that perspective is needed.

I hadn't read this review. Thanks for posting it.

[AlbertCat]

6. "infinite human progress"

Not worth reading after that bunch of malarkey. Dawkins, and science itself, does not think "infinite human progress" is...a thing.

Where the reviewer got that from was his ass. It's not in the book.

The rest is mainly word salad supported by the useless discipline of theology. And ridiculous hyperbole about devoted religionists "wiped clean from human history"....good grief. Wow! This book IS more powerful than god, n'est pas?

Pretty lame.

[MisterP]

21. and Ahmed Mohamed's 15/16 now

[rug]

22. It will be interesting to see how people look back upon their opinions in another ten years.

I imagine many will look back at their behavior with the same chagrin as upon looking at an old, faded tattoo, or an old hairstyle.

"Did I actually do that? Did I actually look like that?"