The God Delusion
Yes, yes, I know! I should be posting about things that I am doing in the development industry. I just keep finding these great books to read and can’t put them down long enough to play with any development in my spare time (plus i am usually all coded out after work).
I picked this book up at a bookstore in Calgary a couple months ago and finally decided to dig into it, and I am very happy that I did! While I could see how a lot of people could find that the contents either outraged them or was really breakthrough, I was a little bit different.
I found the God Delusion to be a very well written book with lots of solid arguments against religious belief. What was not groundbreaking for me was that I had formed a lot of these opinions on my own over the past while.
Growing up in Canada must be different than growing up in the United States. When I was a child I was put in a Roman Catholic school system and my family went to church every Sunday. As time went by we all started forming our own lives apart from each other and over time religion played a smaller role in our lives. I saw this as normal amongst my friends and their families despite most being raised Roman Catholic. From the sounds of the book there is a LOT more pressure in other countries to conform to religious beliefs from family, school and friends. I have no doubt that if I told my family I am an atheist they would think no less of me (but who knows).
There were some smaller pieces of this book, little tid-bits of information about different religions, which I had no idea about and was grateful to learn about. A great amount of time was dedicated to the theory of evolution, but what I found really intrigued me were the details regarding the Bible. I have never read the Bible and have only heard select passages from it. I had no idea how violent a book it actually it.
That is all for now! If you get the chance, I suggest reading this book no matter what your beliefs may be. It is always good to have some knowledge of what is going on outside of your personal beliefs. I am starting on Sophie’s World tonight. It is a book that has been recommended to me numerous times and I am finally going to find the time to read it. It is fairly easy to find time to read these days, having just moved to another country and being busy with work. Whenever I need a break I just sit back in a coffee shop and read for a bit, very relaxing.
Mom
Interesting comments about this book.
Being raised as a Roman Catholic doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to conform to the religion, in it’s strictess sense. Look at your father and I – yes, we believe in God, but no, we don’t go to church every Sunday and there are certain things in the regilion that we don’t follow. But deep down, I think there will always be a part of me anyway, that can’t get away from how I was raised and the beliefs that I was taught.
As for you, now that you are an adult, your choices (religious or otherwise) are your own and we will not change our opinion of you no matter what your religious beliefs are. As parents, we were there to provide you with direction and guidance that we believe helped you to grow up to be a good person and make wise life choices.
fxnull
asking question is the beginning of faith….
our history is full of violence, fell of grace and as scripture witness, we felt violently.
only throught compassion we can survive.
Josh
“I have never read the Bible and have only heard select passages from it. I had no idea how violent a book it actually it.”
If you’re happy reading snippets of the Bible from a book that is out to discredit it and are happy to just have that book (and others like it) as your only source of information regarding God and the Bible, then I can see that you’re not really looking for a balanced argument or to be challenged in any way and are searching more for a way to affirm your ideas of what you already believe.
There are parts of the Bible that have a lot of violence in them because they are an historical document that give details of wars, right down to very personal killings (like a woman driving a tent peg though a kings head as he slept in her tent). But, there is so much more written in the Bible that isn’t violent which you’ll never see if you don’t actually open it.
If you’re interested in getting a good overview of world religions then I’d recommend “A Spectators Guide to World Religions” by John Dickson (He’s a Christian, but he’s made a huge effort to present the 5 major religions of the world as accurately and authentically and as respectfully as he can by having everything written in the book proofread by solid believers of each faith). Even if you don’t think any of the faiths are the true it’s still a good source of information about what others believe in order to understand their values.
Since I am a stranger to you I don’t expect my words to carry much weight, I just think that you owe it to yourself to spend time looking a both sides of the atheism vs God argument with as open a mind as you’re able. If after that you’re still fully convinced that there is no God then at least you can say that you’ve thoroughly researched both sides and have come to an informed point of view about why you believe that your original view was true. A second hand opinion doesn’t carry as much weight as one formed by your experiences and research.
By the way thanks for posting such a lot of great, helpful stuff on your blog, I’m starting to get back into Flash and Papervision at the moment and trying to build a portfolio website. All this 3D website stuff makes me burst at the seams with creative excitement