I’m not an atheist, BUT … Dawkin’s “God Delusion” is brilliant!

The title of this post is a play on Richard Dawkin’s article called I’m an atheist, BUT … which he incorporated into the preface to the paperback edition of The God Delusion. The article expresses his frustration with atheists who agree with his arguments but continue to support religion as a “helpful delusion” or some such twaddle. I share his frustration. In as much as most religionists, and indeed, all religious fundamentalists, see all other religions as false (since they are based on mutually exclusive assertions), atheists and theists differ at most in their disbelief of a single religion (the one held by the theist). Thus most Christians stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the atheists when they decry the absurdity of voodoo or the thousands of gods of Hinduism. And when Dawkin’s book is read as if it were arguing only against all the religions that Christians reject, then few if any Christians would find anything to dispute! They would admit all his arguments in a heart-beat since they do, after all, support their personal prejudices (which in theology is often the touchstone for truth). They have reason to fight against Dawkins only when he steps on their personal religious toes.

I need not repeat how eloquent, erudite, and entertaining Dawkins is as a writer. That’s been done a hundred times before me. But this I will say – while Dawkins does not have the “final word” on the question of God’s existence, he certainly has presented a powerful argument against the continued existence of religious organizations that demand the allegiance of human souls. I’m not an atheist, but I stand with Dawkins and all other freethinking humans who refuse to subject themselves to the  rule of some typically ignorant and deceitful self-appointed self-anointed religious leaders who would rule over our minds and wallets with claims of divine knowledge and threats of everlasting damnation in hellfire. That is something I am now free from, and I thank Richard Dawkins for helping me to clarify my thinking in this area. I strongly recommend everyone read this book.