The God Delusion

Book: The God delusion
Author Richard Dawkins

The God Delusion was the May book of the Bangalore politically inspired book club.  Written by a famed atheist, the book questions the existence of God and asks questions such as - Why we believe? Why should we pray, origins of God, Is creationism scientific? While doing so, it adds a lot of "masala", lot of anecdotes, funny quotes and an admitted bias in language during its criticism.

The starting point of this book is what gets one going; Why a discussion on God such a taboo in public? We can talk about politics, cricket, astronomy, but when somebody starts a discussion on creationism, or God, suddenly you are in some "sacred" (pun intended) territory and all discussion stops. This book is one such attempt to bring out a discussion.

For me, the first half was just masala, repeated mocking of religion. But in later chapters, as it talks about evolution,  thats when it gets interesting.  Dawkins, first, applies evolutionism to counter creationism but then he also applies it to origin of Gods, the roots of morality.  The line of argument gets quite fascinating here. Dawkins picks up an arguments, follows it up and then sometimes discards if it does not fit the evolutionary process. Morality stems from religion, this is a complete non-sense and Dawkins does a nice job discrediting this point.


Perhaps, the most meaningful chapter comes in the end when Dawkins talks about childhood and religion.    Should children be taught religion? Childhood being a stage when things are internalized very quickly, especially a thing which requires blind belief and no questioning. Dawkins makes a strong case that religion should not be taught to children. From a marketing standpoint, this is the best time to keep your customers loyal. While  science at one end end is taught in a step-wise manner, while every lesson of science is preceded by question everything, religion is just the anti-thesis of it.

Overall, this book is a good one if somebody needs points to articulate against religion. It shines in bits and pieces but there is a lot of bias that has gone in writing into it. It is interesting to read reviews of this book. People who like it (like me) feel somewhat satisfied and believers who hate it  often claim that this book has no substance but they themselves offer no critique on the things that are talked about in it. Negative reviews soon result in mindless bashing like Dawkins will go to hell etc.


This meetup was better than the others, 4 people showed up including me but three of four had read this book. So, the discussion that followed was more meaningful. But since most of us are converted atheists, it was little bit one sided.

dada, how foolish you are!

So, i was in library looking for a book on Theban stories. I will write about them in another post. In the lowest rack of Greek literature started Indian literature and there was an anthology of Rabindra Nath Tagore there. I just picked it up and in my usual style opened a random page and started to read. But it was no longer an ordinary random page, even though I am yet to read complete book, that page is the best page of the book. There were two poems that i have copied below. I should not waste any words describing the poem because when you will read it, you will understand.

The first one is The Astronomer from his book - The Crescent moon
The Astronomer

I only said, "When in the evening the round full moon gets
entangled among the beaches of that Dadam tree, couldn't somebody
catch it?"
But dada laughed at me and said, "Baby, you are the silliest
child I have ever known. The moon is ever so far from us, how could
anybody catch it?"
I said, "Dada, how foolish you are! When mother looks out of
her window and smiles down at us playing, would you call her far
away?"
Still dada said, "You are a stupid child! But, baby where
could you find a net big enough to catch the moon with?"
I said, "Surely you could catch it with your hands."
But dada laughed and said, "You are the silliest child I have
known. If it came nearer, you would see how big the moon is."
I said, "Dada, what nonsense they teach at your school! When
mother bends her face down to kiss us, does her face look very
big?"
But still dada says, "You are a stupid child."


Next one is a parable from The Gardener

At midnight the would-be ascetic announced:
“This is the time to give up my home and seek for God. Ah, who has held me so long in delusion here?”
God whispered, “I, ” but the ears of the man were stopped.
With a baby asleep at her breast lay his wife, peacefully sleeping on one side of the bed.
The man said, “Who are you that have fooled me so long?”
The voice again said, “They are God, ” but he heard it not.
The baby cried out in its dream, nestling close to its mother.
God commanded, "Stop, fool, leave not thy home' but still he heard not.
God sighed and complained, “Why does my servant wander to seek me, forsaking me?”

Tagore mentioned that it is very difficult to retain the spirit of a poem after it is translated to some other language. Indeed, how true it is. While reading the astronomer, a person who had lived in Bengal (IIM Calcutta does not count :)) would experience greater joy. My joy is second grade as i am an Indian and for foreigners, it would be third grade. But the spirit of the poem is so strong that everyone will enjoy.

Crescent moon can be read here.

The reason the second poem is so interesting to me is i like the concept of having a character GOD and writing his lines. You can get away with anything because GOD is saying it, on the other hand, the responsibility of what you write is enormous. I remember Woody Allen has tried it and given GOD a satirical angle but in a nice manner. But here Tagore writes like a GOD about GOD and is so simple and direct.

This weekend is going to a Tagore weekend. It has only started.

Does God exist

I dont want to go into the run of the mill debate on this topic. For people who believes that there is no debate on this topic, i kindly refer them to this wiki link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_of_God


Rather, I just googled "god exists"
and came across this link : http://www.everystudent.com/features/isthere.html

Now firstly i make no claims about the validity, correctness about the article nor do i wish to substantiate the authority of the author on the subject. But what interested me was the fifth point in the article and particularly the following text:

"To be honest, I also had another motive. As I challenged those who believed in God, I was deeply curious to see if they could convince me otherwise. Part of my quest was to become free from the question of God."

I completely agree on this point. I am forever interested if the believers can convince me otherwise. I do not believe that i can do the vice versa i.e. prove the believers that they are wrong. Its impossible because its a belief and you can make some one believe but you cant make someone disbelieve (stupid argument, but it works ), because thats the basic idea of a belief (its axiomtic otherwise it will be a fact), therefore it is self-resursive if you can see. So the only way to come out of recursion is that it has to come from inside, the return call has to be inside the function, from outside it is just an infinite loop. But it would be great if they can do so and convince me that i am wrong because mine is a incremental interactive function which modifies as per the inputs given to it. And moreover this changing attitude is also considered as a negative point.

I see all this very differently. Firstly, i do not wish to represent all the atheists. I see all my beliefs or disbeliefs as my own and things that i have to sought it out myself. But i see that believer always happen in groups. I have never seen a procession carried by non-believers but there have been plenty from the other side.

While writing, i observe i have again deviated from the main point. That point mentioned in the article is taken against me and i do not see any justification. What follows in that article is total gibberish (to me ofcourse). But isnt it good that we have taken a stand and viewing this belief critically. I like the idea that i am questioning this belief. There is a trick here. If i say i do not believe that 2+2=4, then it means that i believe that 2+2 is not equal to 4. but when i say that i do not believe in the existence of God, it does not mean that i believe that God does not exist. It merely says that i do not believe in the existence of God. The algebra of logic does not work here. And thats what my stand is on the whole issue.
To make a formal stand, assume a finite state machine with only 3 states - A ,B and C. A has one self loop and and arrow to B. I am currently at A i.e. i do not believe in existence of God. By assuming this questionable attitude, it can only lead me to B i.e. i believe. But it can never take me to the state C which says that I refute the existence of God. I come up with this fancy theoretical models because i like to do such idiotic things and there is no other pleasure. To a reader i am almost sure, it appears stupid and i dont disagree with you.