Richard Dawkins is a brilliant evolutionary theorist, and popularizer of science, but over at the NYT Review of Books, H. Allen Orr isn't very impressed with his recent screed against religion:

Though I once labeled Dawkins a professional atheist, I'm forced, after reading his new book, to conclude he's actually more an amateur.

As Chesterton didn't say: When a man stops believing in God, he'll believe in memes.

Reading this, it seems that the primary premise of the book "The God Delusion" is that God cannot exist because in order to create complex life he would need to be even more complex, and therefore could not spontaneously come into existence.

I'm not even sure how to respond to that - either that a God that was eternal probably didn't come into existence that way, or that the obvious truth is that simple things can create complex things with the addition of only time.

Not sure why this guy is worth reading, if that is his argument. If he is only trying to refute intelligent design, he should rename his book methinks.

Besides, it is so dumb to read books that try to convince you 1) you believe X, 2) X is dumb, and therefore 3) you are dumb. Especially when X doesn't even apply...

Maybe he'll become a televangelistic atheist.

Wow, most readers here seem to have managed to dispense with the religions of their youth but not the belief structures that went with them – let it go! This type of Atheism is not a different religion or belief, it is the absence thereof. The old religious thought ways do not allow one to understand this fundamental difference – of thinking without beliefs. You have a weighting based neural network not a true/false binary computer, please try using it as such.

Even a cursory application of scientific thought to the scientific, mathematical and philosophical evidence will tell one that God in any classical sense is no more a valid theory than say a flat Earth, though it may have useful cultural benefits. The intellectually dishonest Atheist tradition of quietly not mentioning this so as not to be persecuted is wearing very thin. If we do not stand up to fundamentalist religions, then those religions destroy our world anyway. So we are done for either way, hence recent activism.

Obviously God in the infinite set of all sets definition does not exist, our existence proves that, (I am not God therefore God can not be all sets and therefore can not exist, if I was God obviously I would know about it, otherwise I would not be God :-). Of course this in no way disproves the existence of any number of possible gods, (note lower case “g”), but then we are no longer dealing with the absolute all powerful all knowing God, and are back in the realm of the scientific method and useful cultural practises.

My sister’s partner is ordained, and this appears to be kind of how he understands his religion, but then he is not a fundamentalist. I get the impression that it really annoys him how the less able seek fixed beliefs and literal interpretations from the good book, instead of the more general wisdom therein.

"(I am not God therefore God can not be all sets and therefore can not exist, if I was God obviously I would know about it, otherwise I would not be God :-)."

Your thumb is part of you, does it know it?

If you ask the wrong question, you wil never get the right answer. I don't know anywhere major religons say that God is everything anyway.

Pantheism. :)

Dawkins has just written "Executing Saddam Hussein was an Act of Vandalism". http://richarddawkins.net/article,482,n,n

Prior to this, whatever the actual merits of his arguments, he was coming across as merely off-key and clueless as to the real-life effects of his rants.

Now he's obviously just another fool.

A brilliant example of the principle that states "Outside of their own fields, experts are no smarter than anyone else." Just as Einstein, like many other leftists, thought Stalin's show trials were real.

I don't know anywhere major religons say that God is everything anyway.

Orthodox Judaism says precisely that. And IIRC, Maimonides took that notion one step further and claimed that constantly creates every object in the universe, however small, and if that perpetual creation ever stopped even for a second, all reality would cease to exist.

Meant "that God constantly creates..."

Christanity teaches that God is apart from Creation (Apart from the whole Jesus on Earth thing).

Those who have experienced gods cannot ever listen seriously to people like Pete. While I would agree that physical reality, as discoverable through scientific methods, disproves some conceptions of god, it's clearly not true that science can disprove any god.

Indeed, the only god that science can reach is a god intrinsic to the universe, material and finite. Any transcendent god is beyond the reach of science, as is any immaterial or infinite god. More, any god that is emergent from the life of the universe is, while not unreachable by science, clearly beyond our current ability to reach with the science we have.

It's wise not to be too certain of things that are possible, even if they seem nonsensical.

Mike: “Your thumb is part of you, does it know it?”

“Thou art God” :-)

So I am a part of God but do not know it, inferring that there is less than perfect communication within God, inferring God is imperfect and therefore not God.

Mike: “If you ask the wrong question, you will never get the right answer. I don't know anywhere major religions say that God is everything anyway.”

In which case God is a god not the absolute all sets God. Not all knowing, not all powerful, and with objectives not necessarily directly aligned with our own. Such a god is not absolute and therefore not the rational subject of absolute belief. Indeed belief/faith would inhibit a reasonable understanding of such a god. Such a god might be very worthy of our trust, just not our absolute belief.

Jim C wrote:
“Dawkins has just written, "Executing Saddam Hussein was an Act of Vandalism". http://richarddawkins.net/article,482,n,n
Prior to this, whatever the actual merits of his arguments, he was coming across as merely off-key and clueless as to the real-life effects of his rants.”

These are the last two sentences of that article, and they seem to mostly summarize his primary point:

“It is in the nature of research on ruthless national dictators that the sample size is small. Wasn't the judicial destruction of one of the very few research subjects we had – and a prime specimen at that – an act of vandalism?”

Seems to me he makes a very good point here, within its intended context. Unfortunately the greater judicial good mostly necessitates the vandalism of such precious scientific resources in these rare cases. Still, it seems a pity a medical experimentation and knowledge extraction program was not quickly implemented just prior to his execution…

So I am a part of God but do not know it, inferring that there is less than perfect communication within God, inferring God is imperfect and therefore not God.

You can be a part of God but also part of creation -- and it has been observed repeatedly that creation is not perfect.

So, if there is imperfect communication it may be that the receiver is out of order.

"Not all knowing, not all powerful, and with objectives not necessarily directly aligned with our own."

You do not have to be an object to be able to comprehend it or affect it.

I guess it depends on your definition of omniscience or omnipotence. Mine does not include the requriement to be the said thing in question.

God is just anthropomorphized Universe. Get over it :-)

What God is is not encumbered by your belief or lack therof. You don't get to define God, he gets to define you. Get over that :-)