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Richard Dawkins' God Delusion Richard Dawkins‘ God Delusion RICHARD DAWKINS’ GOD DELUSION PAWEŁ BLOCH FLAVIUS PUBLISHING HOUSE Original title: Urojony Bóg Richarda Dawkinsa © Copyright 2011 by Paweł Bloch All rights reserved Scientific consultation: Grzegorz Tomkowicz Revision: Krzysztof Szymczyk Translated by Anna Blicharz ISBN 978-83-932765-2-3 WARSAW 2014 Flavius Publishing House 26/10 Bartycka Street, Warsaw 00-716 [email protected] CONTENTS INTRODUCTION.............................................................................. 9 CHAPTER 1 SCIENCE AND GOD ...................................................................14 ‘The God Delusion’ ................................................................................. 17 Argumentation .......................................................................................... 19 Proving the non-existence ..................................................................... 24 The infinite regress .................................................................................. 25 ‘The teapot’ ................................................................................................ 26 Likehood and God ................................................................................... 27 Abstaining from the judgement ........................................................... 28 ‘The atheistic constant’ ........................................................................... 29 Logic, God and evolution ...................................................................... 30 The unproven statements....................................................................... 33 About the complexity and improbability of God ............................... 35 Who designed the Designer? ................................................................ 36 The Book of Genesis, the Gospels and the creation, other dimensions ........................................................................................... 37 The claim of Porphyry of Tyre ............................................................ 37 Conclusion .................................................................................................. 39 CHAPTER 2 IS CONSISTENT ATHEISM THE SOURCE OF EVIL? ... 40 Moral Darwinism ...................................................................................... 41 Consistent atheism vs. moral Darwinism .......................................... 41 The apogee of morality of consistent atheism ............................... 43 Absolutism vs. the opposing views ..................................................... 47 Atheistic moral Darwinism vs. Christian morality in practice .... 51 Abortion ...................................................................................................... 51 Euthanasia .................................................................................................. 55 The moral Darwinist and the Christian, can you be both at the same time? ............................................................................... 60 About the inconsistent atheism and the inconsistent Christianity........................................................................................... 61 About education in religion ................................................................... 62 Redundant statements ............................................................................. 63 Derision ....................................................................................................... 65 Richard Dawkins vs. Mother Teresa of Calcutta ............................ 66 Delusional views of Richard Dawkins ............................................... 71 Conclusion .................................................................................................. 72 CHAPTER 3 ATHEISTIC MORALITY IN THE CONTEXT OF TOTALITARIAN REGIME ....................................................... 73 Communism ............................................................................................... 74 Lenin and his work ................................................................................... 78 The ruined temples .................................................................................. 83 Censorship .................................................................................................. 84 National socialism, Adolf Hitler vs. religion.................................... 86 The tool of totalitarian evil ................................................................. 101 Pius XII and the National Socialists ................................................. 104 Conclusion ................................................................................................ 114 CHAPTER 4 WHO A CHRISTIAN IS? ........................................................... 115 A Christian ................................................................................................ 115 About the behavior of a Christian .................................................... 118 Where do crimes ascribed to the Church come from? ............... 121 Conclusion ................................................................................................ 126 CHAPTER 5 HISTORICAL SOURCES OF CHRISTIANITY .................. 127 The canon of the Gospel..................................................................... 127 The genealogies of Jesus ...................................................................... 138 Further questions concerning Jesus’ origin .................................... 140 The registration during Quirinius’ government ............................ 141 Whether population census was conducted according to the families of Israel? ............................................................................ 144 The inconsistency of the evangelical descriptions of the birth and the early years of the life of Jesus ...................................... 148 Herod the Great and ‘the massacre of the innocents’ ................ 150 Josephus Flavius, history and the Gospels ..................................... 152 Jesus preaches to the world ................................................................. 159 The interpretation of the New Testament ..................................... 160 The salvation of man ............................................................................ 163 Conclusion ................................................................................................ 164 SUMMARY .................................................................................... 166 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................... 170 INTRODUCTION There is such a concept that has accompanied human civi- lization since the dawn of time. It has fascinated and attrac- ted millions of people from time immemorial. It became the subject of reflection of philosophers, artists and scientists. This concept is God. Many wonder: Does He really exist? If so, what is His role in human life? If not, why does He have so many followers? The endless dialogue continues between two great stances of philosophy. The correlated concepts of God and atheism are constantly arguing about the truth and crossing in the battle for human beliefs, generating feelings of fascination and controversy at the same time. This dis- pute, which caused great hopes and disappointments, the one that engaged numerous philosophers, the one of a con- siderable signification in human life, is fundamental to the present cogitation. Recording the past, we discover that the religious beliefs played an essential role in the history of civilization. Howev- er, the value of these beliefs has declined due to the power- ful front of the anti-religious movements, which emerged in the recent centuries. There appeared many literature writers, who expressed religious skepticism in the pages of their works. Currently, at the beginning of the twenty first cen- tury, this front is represented by a number of the promi- nent and renowned leaders. Richard Dawkins, the Oxford professor, who endeavored to support the achievements of 10 RICHARD DAWKINS’ GOD DELUSION his predecessors with his personal opinion and promote atheistic beliefs around the world, is included in this group. His book, The God Delusion, has become popular among thousands of readers, who accepted its content with great enthusiasm. Nevertheless, there is a number of such rea- ders, who express strong criticism for Richard Dawkins’ view, recognizing it as the unjustified and based on false premises attack on religion. Reading the title of the book written by the Oxford scientist – The God Delusion, it is worth highlighting that the notions of God and religion as delusion were already known in the literature of past eras. Such a formulation may be found in the works of one of the fiercest atheists of the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century, Donatien- Alphonse-François de Sade, known as the Marquis de Sade - the man completely devoid of values, deprived of elementary fairness, claiming to be guided merely by egoism, pleasure and moral corruption. This philosopher wrote: ‘The God Delu- sion is just a chimera and his unreasonable existence was ac- cepted exceptionally by the insane’1. Karl Marx – the preemi- nent representative of the communist theory also appeared on the horizon. The leaders of the world’s largest systems of the collapse of humanity and the enslavement, employed his ideo- logy. Marx, a professed atheist, wrote: ‘The abolition of reli-
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