As if I needed this book. But I rescued it from a library’s “free book” bin, figuring its author, Richard Dawkins, is always a hoot.
I outgrew God as a small child. Sent to a Sunday school teaching Bible stories, I was gobsmacked when realizing the adults believed them. Discussing this with my mom, she finally said, “Well, you believe in God, don’t you?” I answered yes. But knew I was lying.
Dawkins starts with the most obvious point, which ought to gobsmack any religious believer. If you’re a Christian, it’s usually because your parents were. Had they been Hindu, worshipping thousands of Gods, you would too. What makes your faith true and all others false? Yet you’re sure of it. Many Christians even believe Hindus will burn in Hell.
Well, at least “Abrahamic” religions get close to the true number of gods. Off by just one.
Dawkins soon tackles what the Bible says about Jesus — a mess of contradictions. His “virgin” birth actually derives from the Gospel of Matthew’s writer mistranslating, from a prophecy in Isaiah, a word that could merely have meant “young woman.”
The New Testament’s four gospels were actually a selection out of many. One that was lost and verifiably rediscovered only decades ago, in an ancient scroll, was the Gospel of Judas. I kid you not. In it, Judas says he wasn’t “betraying” Jesus but helping him fulfill God’s plan.
To sacrifice himself on the cross and thereby expunge Adam’s “original sin” that condemns all humanity. Every element of that story is a moral obscenity.*
Yet believers deem the Bible the fount of all morality. Dawkins goes on to recap plenty more awfulness there: Abraham and Isaac, Job, Jephtha (look that up), and on and on.
I’ve sometimes imagined publishing a volume titled The Good Book with nothing but story after story, verbatim from the Old Testament. Its main character the worst monster in all fiction.
Being non-sectarian, Dawkins also has his way with Mormonism. The invention of Joseph Smith, literally a convicted fraudster, who pretended to translate a new Bible from ancient golden plates no one ever actually saw. I’ve read it, impressed by the literary imagination there. Featuring, Dawkins says, “things which are positively known, from scientific evidence, to be absurd: complete and utter made-up nonsense.” Including Native Americans being descended from ancient Israelites. (DNA says no.) Yet serious sober people solemnly believe this stuff and have built monumental churches to it.
Dawkins doesn’t mention that Smith, once he’d gained a sizable following, announced that God told him men should take multiple wives. Smith himself then promptly grabbed dozens. For so many religious hucksters like him, it’s all really just a means to get laid.
Dawkins also discusses “miracles.” Often supposedly accredited by eyewitness testimony. But, says Dawkins, we know people make stuff up all the time. Something I never forget (like with alien abduction stories).
Thus using Occam’s razor — for any conundrum choose the explanation requiring the fewest assumptions. Similarly, Dawkins invokes philosopher David Hume’s formulation. Any such case presents two possibilities: 1) it really happened, or 2) the witness was lying, mistaken, hallucinating, misreported, or tricked. Which would be more miraculous? Always choose the likelier one.
Dawkins writes that every glass of water you drink contains some of Julius Caesar’s pee.
Well, likely a molecule or two, out of the 10 trillion trillion in a glassful, all the world’s water being continually recycled. All 1.4 billion cubic kilometers, equaling about 4 trillion glassfuls. “What??” I said — knowing a trillion is only a thousand billion (and the world has 3 trillion trees). So I asked an AI to do the calculation, and it immediately answered 4 sextillion glassfuls. So Dawkins goofed by a factor of a billion. Nobody’s perfect.
Nevertheless, 10 trillion trillion molecules is a big number, I hate to think how much paper it would fill just writing it out. So it’s not crazy that at least one of those molecules was once peed by Caesar.
* It proceeds from all people being Adam’s descendants. However, going back just ten generations, a person has thousands of ancestors, of which Adam would have been just one. What’s the sense of his sin tarring everyone? If it was a sin. If he existed. But rationality can’t be applied to religion. (That’s what “faith” means. Just shut up and believe.)