The God Delusion

By: Richard Dawkins

Narrated by: Richard Dawkins, Lalla Ward

Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

Discover magazine recently called Richard Dawkins "Darwin's Rottweiler" for his fierce and effective defense of evolution. Prospect magazine voted him among the top three public intellectuals in the world (along with Umberto Eco and Noam Chomsky). Now Dawkins turns his considerable intellect on religion, denouncing its faulty logic and the suffering it causes.

He critiques God in all his forms, from the sex-obsessed tyrant of the Old Testament to the more benign (but still illogical) Celestial Watchmaker favored by some Enlightenment thinkers. He eviscerates the major arguments for religion and demonstrates the supreme improbability of a supreme being. He shows how religion fuels war, foments bigotry, and abuses children, buttressing his points with historical and contemporary evidence. In so doing, he makes a compelling case that belief in God is not just irrational, but potentially deadly.

Dawkins has fashioned an impassioned, rigorous rebuttal to religion, to be embraced by anyone who sputters at the inconsistencies and cruelties that riddle the Bible, bristles at the inanity of "intelligent design", or agonizes over fundamentalism in the Middle East or Middle America.

©2006 Richard Dawkins (P)2006 Tantor Media, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Richard Dawkins is the leading soothsayer of our time....The God Delusion continues his thought-provoking tradition." (J. Craig Venter, decoder of the human genome)
"The God Delusion is smart, compassionate, and true....If this book doesn't change the world, we're all screwed." (Penn & Teller)
"The world needs...passionate rationalists....Richard Dawkins so stands out through the cutting intelligence of The God Delusion." (James D. Watson, co-discoverer of DNA, author of The Double Helix)

The Atheist Bible

I love this book even though I am not an atheist. I love the intelligence of this book and the systematic approach of all possible aspects of the issues raised by Atheism. Richard Dawkins confronts each issue head-on and rips apart the theist views, often in a very funny way. I also love the back and forth between Richard narrating and a female co-narrator who reads the numerous quotes. It makes it easier to listen to without drifting away. Also Richard is a great teacher as he always re-caps complicated points that makes the reasoning easier to understand. I thinks it's a must read whether or not you believe in God.

The World is Round

It was not that long ago in history when telling someone that "the world is round" would have been viewed as ridiculous, outrageous, or perhaps even illegal. We now take it as fact, but those earlier non-believers faced significant criticism or worse. The same is true about the earth rotating around the sun and hundreds of other facts, which we now take as facts, only because others were brave enough to oppose popular beliefs and speak the truth. Dawkins is one of those brave pioneers, who will go down in history as a bold discoverer, unafraid to passionately share his knowledge. Great interview and a classic must read book.

Atheists of the world Unite

This is a fab fab fab book. I would recomend it to absolutely anyone. Seriously, this should be mandatory reading in American as well as Arabic schools (sorry for the generalization).

This is a stroke of genious and is just what the world needs today.

If you are a person of Faith, I dare you to read this book. I double dare you!

great book

This is one of the most interesting books I've read in the last 12 months. I found it rational and compelling.

Clear, concise, and sharp

I wish I'd heard this earlier in my life. I spent a lot of time dabbling in various religions before rejecting them all. I downloaded out of curiosity this to listen to on a long car trip from New Mexico to Alabama, and it armed me against the army of well-meaning fundamentalists that I usually encounter in that part of the country. I suspect that those who gave this a low review are feeling the pangs of cognitive dissonance that occur when ones dearest-held idealogical views are well challenged.

The beauty in godlessness

I am a scientist, born Jewish, and a long-time pantheist. I am now on the verge of embracing atheism. Having read many books this past year on religion from Sam Harris, Elain Pagels, Francis Collins, and Scott R. Sanders, I was already immersed in this topic of god/not god. Dawkins depth of thinking, breadth of knowledge, and reason and compassion were awesome. Every thinking person should read this book and make a reasoned choice of their own about the value belief, faith, and religion.

Big daddy in the sky

Kids have imaginary friends. Adults have God.

Dawkins points out that religion may simply be a carryover from childhood's imaginary friends. Like adults, children need consolation and inspiration from imagined persons like the trinity and the saints. There is a strong emotional belief in these persons that causes rigidity of thought and has led to enormous harm to society in the form of bombed abortion clinics, and other acts of murder in the name of these imaginary friends. More heinous to Dawkins is inculcating in children a catechism of beliefs before they have critical faculties. This ensures the slavish and blind passage of belief across generations until, it is hoped, they are old enough to read this book.

Dawkins makes it clear that religion is irrational and inhumane. It treats people as passive receptacles not as thinking humans. The privileged social position of religion also means that believers are immunized against criticism and cannot be challenged without the challengers being dismissed as "ungodly".

The back and forth between the two narrators is very effective. Their speaking voices have the clear enunciation of Oxford English.

Overall, the book is a devastating critique of religion. I wish I had had this book for all those college dorm debates.

Perfect...

Cautious, meticulous…every aspect covered from every angle. If you could memorize this book, you could crush the delusions of all the ‘believers’ in the world; all faiths, all delusions. I suppose you could specialize down to sentence fragments, like our religious friends do with their heavily edited, intentionally misinterpreted bibles, korans, and other such books of fiction.

It's just great. I'm listening a second time.

Athiests Rejoice

Any additional comments?

This book addresses and answers nearly every argument the true believers of our world make to convince us that imaginary beings are in charge. Great ammunition when confronted with aggressive proselytizers.

Great objective analysis of all things about god

Great analysis of different things about god and religion. If you often find yourself feeling that there is something wrong with religion this book will help you verbalize these feelings.