Friday, October 13, 2006
Merry ... uh ... Xmas
The staid Times of London is reporting a rather surprising candidate for the best selling book this Christmas: Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. It is already the top seller at Amazon, and is climbing up The Times bestseller chart. Transworld, its publisher, has had to run several reprints since the book was published just over two weeks ago. More than 100,000 copies have now been printed, making it the year’s top-selling science book.I can't quite understand how, from the descriptions I've seen, Dawkins' tome qualifies as a "science" book, but never mind . . .
[Dawkins] argues that monotheism and polytheism are equally absurd and attempts to knock down the 13th-century "proofs" for the existence of God drawn up by Thomas Aquinas.
He attacks more modern concepts such as the "God of the gaps", condemns Creationism and blames religion itself rather than religious extremism for manifestations of fundamentalism, such as suicide bombers in Islam.
In the book he writes: "Some people have views of God that are so broad and flexible that it is inevitable that they will find God wherever they look for him. One hears it said that ‘God is the ultimate’ or ‘God is our better nature’ or ‘God is the universe’.
"Of course, like any other word, the word ‘God’ can be given any meaning we like. If you want to say that ‘God is energy’, then you can find God in a lump of coal."
