torsdag, april 23, 2009

Solveig reads «The God Delusion»: Preface

The atheistic «missionary» Richard Dawkins wrote in 2006 «The God Delusion» - a book that deals with the problem of religion and belief in God, and tries to convince people that believing in God is a delusion, «a false belief or impression» (The Penguin English Dictionary, in Dawkins p. 27). Since I way too often only read books about books, I've decided to read the whole «God Delusion» and comment it on my blog.

PREFACE
Dawkins defines me in his preface as «the victim of childhood indoctrination» (p.25), and challenges me with these words: «If this book works as I intended, religious readers who open it will be an atheist when they put it down» (28). What a statement!
Well, it's nothing new that we are shaped by our environment and that no one lives inside their own protected bubble (and this goes further than just childhood “indoctrination”). So I guess I and Dawkins stand equal – none of us are able to step out of the world we live in!

Dawkins middle name most surely is “Rhetorician”; while further he writes that IF (by any means) I do NOT change my mind after reading this book, it's because I'm one of these “dyed-in-the-wool faith-heads (...) immune to argument”.

Who wants to be called that? Maybe the atheist title doesn't sound so scary after all, compared to “faith-head”... Well, Mr. Darkins hasn't fully convinced me yet! He lets me know that he hopes I'm one of “plenty open-minded people out there”. Hmm, fair enough, but he doesn't seem so open-minded himself:) It will be exiting though to see what happens in the next chapter of the book!


This was the short introduction from me (and Dawkins). Hope you want to follow us further. I feel it's necessary to inform you that I do live in Germany right now. Why is that important? Because that makes my Englisch a bit crappy from time to time:)