richard_dawkins_-_the_god_delusion
T II E G O D H Y P O T H E S 1 S 35anorexia, arms dealers, blacksmiths, broken bones, bombtechnicians and bowel disorders, to venture no further than the Bs.And we mustn't forget the four Choirs of Angelic Hosts, arrayed innine orders: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues,Powers, Principalities, Archangels (heads of all hosts), and justplain old Angels, including our closest friends, the ever-watchfulGuardian Angels. What impresses me about Catholic mythology ispartly its tasteless kitsch but mostly the airy nonchalance withwhich these people make up the details as they go along. It is justshamelessly invented.Pope John Paul II created more saints than all his predecessorsof the past several centuries put together, and he had a specialaffinity with the Virgin Mary. His polytheistic hankerings weredramatically demonstrated in 1981 when he suffered an assassinationattempt in Rome, and attributed his survival to interventionby Our Lady of Fatima: 'A maternal hand guided the bullet.' Onecannot help wondering why she didn't guide it to miss himaltogether. Others might think the team of surgeons who operatedon him for six hours deserved at least a share of the credit; but perhapstheir hands, too, were maternally guided. The relevant pointis that it wasn't just Our Lady who, in the Pope's opinion, guidedthe bullet, but specifically Our Lady of Fatima. Presumably OurLady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady ofMedjugorje, Our Lady of Akita, Our Lady of Zeitoun, Our Lady ofGarabandal and Our Lady of Knock were busy on other errands atthe time.How did the Greeks, the Romans and the Vikings cope withsuch polytheological conundrums? Was Venus just another namefor Aphrodite, or were they two distinct goddesses of love? WasThor with his hammer a manifestation of Wotan, or a separategod? Who cares? Life is too short to bother with the distinctionbetween one figment of the imagination and many. Having gesturedtowards polytheism to cover myself against a charge of neglect, Ishall say no more about it. For brevity I shall refer to all deities,whether poly- or monotheistic, as simply 'God'. I am also consciousthat the Abrahamic God is (to put it mildly) aggressively male, andthis too I shall accept as a convention in my use of pronouns. Moresophisticated theologians proclaim the sexlessness of God, while
36 T H E G O D D E L U S I O Nsome feminist theologians seek to redress historic injustices bydesignating her female. But what, after all, is the difference betweena non-existent female and a non-existent male? I suppose that, inthe ditzily unreal intersection of theology and feminism, existencemight indeed be a less salient attribute than gender.I am aware that critics of religion can be attacked for failing tocredit the fertile diversity of traditions and world-views that havebeen called religious. Anthropologically informed works, from SirJames Frazer's Golden Bough to Pascal Boyer's Religion Explainedor Scott Atran's In Gods We Trust, fascinatingly document thebizarre phenomenology of superstition and ritual. Read such booksand marvel at the richness of human gullibility.But that is not the way of this book. I decry supernaturalism inall its forms, and the most effective way to proceed will be to concentrateon the form most likely to be familiar to my readers - theform that impinges most threateningly on all our societies. Most ofmy readers will have been reared in one or another of today's three'great' monotheistic religions (four if you count Mormonism), all ofwhich trace themselves back to the mythological patriarchAbraham, and it will be convenient to keep this family of traditionsin mind throughout the rest of the book.This is as good a moment as any to forestall an inevitable retortto the book, one that would otherwise - as sure as night followsday - turn up in a review: 'The God that Dawkins doesn't believein is a God that I don't believe in either. I don't believe in an oldman in the sky with a long white beard.' That old man is anirrelevant distraction and his beard is as tedious as it is long.Indeed, the distraction is worse than irrelevant. Its very silliness iscalculated to distract attention from the fact that what the speakerreally believes is not a whole lot less silly. I know you don't believein an old bearded man sitting on a cloud, so let's not waste anymore time on that. I am not attacking any particular version of Godor gods. I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everythingsupernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will beinvented.
- Page 2 and 3: Also by Richard DawkinsThe Selfish
- Page 4 and 5: TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS61-63 Uxbridge
- Page 6 and 7: ContentsPrefaceChapter 1Chapter 2Ch
- Page 8 and 9: Tread softly, because you tread onm
- Page 10 and 11: PrefaceAs a child, my wife hated he
- Page 12 and 13: PREFACE 3If you feel trapped in the
- Page 14 and 15: PREFACE 5herding cats, because they
- Page 16 and 17: PREFACE 7Free Inquiry, especially,
- Page 18 and 19: A D E E P L Y R E L I G I O U S N O
- Page 20 and 21: A DEEPLY RELIGIOUS N O N - B E L I
- Page 22 and 23: A D E E P L Y R E L I G I O U S N O
- Page 24 and 25: A D E E PLY R E L I G I O U S N O N
- Page 26 and 27: A D E E P L Y R E L I G I O U S N O
- Page 28 and 29: A D E E P L Y RE L 1 G I O U S N O
- Page 30 and 31: A D E E P L Y R E L I G I O U S N O
- Page 32 and 33: A DEEPLY R E L I G I O U S N O N -
- Page 34 and 35: A D E E P L Y R E L I G I O U S N O
- Page 36 and 37: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 31The God of the
- Page 38 and 39: T H E G O D H Y P O T II E S I S 33
- Page 42 and 43: T H E G O D H Y P O T H E S I S 37M
- Page 44 and 45: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 39although it ha
- Page 46 and 47: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 41enterprise. Ri
- Page 48 and 49: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 43God; because,
- Page 50 and 51: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 45Anecdotes of s
- Page 52 and 53: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 47Carl Sagan was
- Page 54 and 55: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 49Huxley was not
- Page 56 and 57: T H E G O D H Y P O T H E SIS 51can
- Page 58 and 59: T H E G O D H Y P O T H E SIS 53in
- Page 60 and 61: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 55McGrath goes o
- Page 62 and 63: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 57the Cambridge
- Page 64 and 65: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 59unequivocally
- Page 66 and 67: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 61non-interventi
- Page 68 and 69: T H E G O D H Y P O T H E S I S 63s
- Page 70 and 71: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 65Another typica
- Page 72 and 73: T H E G O D H Y P O THESIS 67NOMA -
- Page 74 and 75: T H E G O D II Y P O T H E S I S 69
- Page 76 and 77: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 71longer based o
- Page 78 and 79: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 73advanced techn
- Page 80 and 81: A R G U M E N T S F O R G O D ' S E
- Page 82 and 83: A R G U M E N T S F O R G O D ' S E
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- Page 88 and 89: A R G U M E N T S F O R G O D ' S E
T II E G O D H Y P O T H E S 1 S 35
anorexia, arms dealers, blacksmiths, broken bones, bomb
technicians and bowel disorders, to venture no further than the Bs.
And we mustn't forget the four Choirs of Angelic Hosts, arrayed in
nine orders: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues,
Powers, Principalities, Archangels (heads of all hosts), and just
plain old Angels, including our closest friends, the ever-watchful
Guardian Angels. What impresses me about Catholic mythology is
partly its tasteless kitsch but mostly the airy nonchalance with
which these people make up the details as they go along. It is just
shamelessly invented.
Pope John Paul II created more saints than all his predecessors
of the past several centuries put together, and he had a special
affinity with the Virgin Mary. His polytheistic hankerings were
dramatically demonstrated in 1981 when he suffered an assassination
attempt in Rome, and attributed his survival to intervention
by Our Lady of Fatima: 'A maternal hand guided the bullet.' One
cannot help wondering why she didn't guide it to miss him
altogether. Others might think the team of surgeons who operated
on him for six hours deserved at least a share of the credit; but perhaps
their hands, too, were maternally guided. The relevant point
is that it wasn't just Our Lady who, in the Pope's opinion, guided
the bullet, but specifically Our Lady of Fatima. Presumably Our
Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady of
Medjugorje, Our Lady of Akita, Our Lady of Zeitoun, Our Lady of
Garabandal and Our Lady of Knock were busy on other errands at
the time.
How did the Greeks, the Romans and the Vikings cope with
such polytheological conundrums? Was Venus just another name
for Aphrodite, or were they two distinct goddesses of love? Was
Thor with his hammer a manifestation of Wotan, or a separate
god? Who cares? Life is too short to bother with the distinction
between one figment of the imagination and many. Having gestured
towards polytheism to cover myself against a charge of neglect, I
shall say no more about it. For brevity I shall refer to all deities,
whether poly- or monotheistic, as simply 'God'. I am also conscious
that the Abrahamic God is (to put it mildly) aggressively male, and
this too I shall accept as a convention in my use of pronouns. More
sophisticated theologians proclaim the sexlessness of God, while
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