This is an important book. I won’t say it changed my world, but it did change some thoughts. You need to read it.
This is my first introduction to Richard Dawkins, so I didn’t know what to expect. And, at the beginning, I was a bit confounded: I got the sense this would be a religion-bashing tract, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue. That, and it was incredibly dense. I almost stopped.
Maybe it’s my stubbornness, or my need to finish every book I start (the only one I can remember not finishing was The Theory of the Leisure Class, by Thorstein Veblen. That was undergrad, and voluntary reading, so cut me some slack). And I’m glad I did.
Dawkins’ ideas are fresh and refreshing. He has a way of discussing thing, “big” things, in a rational way. I found many of my confusions about religions tackled in this book. (Confusions as to how so many people accept on “blind faith” being one of them – have you seen Jesus Camp yet? – this power-in-numbers, God-elected-me president, if-you’re-not-like-us-you-should-die, “new” American ideal is horrifying.)
In the end, I would say that Dawkins does not condone belief in God. He is an avowed atheist, but I do not think he would try to “un-convert” someone from his/her chosen faith. I do believe he would ask him/her to question his/her belief.
Of course, questionning and looking for evidence goes against Faith, by definition. Oh well. Read it.
As a side note, I found an interesting piece in the NY Times recently about Dawkins and a colleague having trouble getting into a theater showing a creationist documentary they were being quoted in. What is Ben Stein thinking?
Finished: 3/30/08
Pages: 374 (not including notes and appendices)
Running Page Count: 5,455
Posted by acelini 
Deer Hunting with Jesus – by Joe Bageant
April 26, 2008Amy found this book at the library, read it, loved it, and handed it to me. I read it, loved it, and entirely recommend it.
Bageant discusses working class America with such heartfelt honesty – having grown up there himself he pulls no punches – and his words are real. Real to the point of terrifying me. How do we continue to let the rulers that be be rulers? Who else out there feels that the system ain’t working? Who knows how to fix it?
Read this book – it illuminates those that live in the American Shadow.
“We live in an age of corporate dominion just as we once lived in an age of domination by royal families, kings, and warlords. From inside the hologram there is no history, no memory, no way to equate the tribute rendered to the credit card companies, the insurance companies, the IRS, the power cartels, and the home mortgage banks with the kind of debt bondage they actually represent. Yet we must pay such tribute to be allowed to survive in our society, even if that tribute is a trailer at usury rates or allowing a credit card company access to our medical insurance payment history. We must trade liberty and privacy in increments for comfort and perceived security. That has been the Devil’s bargain from the beginning. If middle-class Americans do not feel threatened by the slow encroachment of the police state or the Patriot Act, it is because they live comfortably enough and exercise their liberties very lightly, never testing the boundaries. You never know you are in prison unless you try the door.” (263)
Finished: 4/26/08
Pages: 273
Running page count: 5,728