The God Delusion and associated press

September 25th, 2006 - 12:55 | 2 comments

The Flying Spaghetti Monster gets a mention in Richard Dawkins’ Newsnight interview from last Friday, in which he talks about his latest book: The God Delusion. Jeremy Paxman does a better job than most by asking some interesting questions, and I think the answers do a great deal to clarify the usual misconceptions about criticism of religion by atheists. The best Dawkins interview I’ve heard was on the Point of Inquiry podcast, where the humanist presenter raised the most reasonable counter-arguments I know of, and there was a genuine discussion between them.

Like Ophelia Benson, I didn’t know about richarddawkins.net - not sure how it managed to slip under the radar. I think it was launched a few months ago as a companion to his new book, as well as a front for the new foundation. I really like books with accompanying websites that provide responses to criticism as well as links to related material and reactions to recent events. The Freakonomics blog is a great example of this.

I picked up The God Delusion at the weekend¹ and it’s certainly an entertaining read thus far. The second chapter has some fascinating information on the religious proclivities of the USA’s founding fathers. I’m trying to take my time as I find I don’t absorb information when I read this kind of book too quickly. I read Blink on a single plane flight, and now find it’s all a muddle in my head. RD is at my local civic hall in a couple of weeks - I did a double-take when I first saw the newspaper ad - and I’m hoping to have finished the book by then. He’s being interviewed by David Freeman - anybody know who he is?

it’s rather a lot cheaper on Amazon! They seem to think it’s not released yet, mind [↩]

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2 Responses to “The God Delusion and associated press”

1 Malcolm Sep 25th, 2006 at 1:27 pm

Dawkins likes the Flying Spaghetti Monster, he mentioned it on “Heaven & Earth” again, and Thor and his hammer. He should throw in a few more Gods for lambasting, e.g. Ganesh the Elephant God, or the Cosmic Turtle. He seemed to enjoy the show, being on fine pugilistic form against a christian Oxford chemist who had arguments, but who Dawkins was easily trouncing. Gloria cut him short just as he was going in for the kill (”Don’t I get a right to reply to that!” he said with that wonderful tetchiness that we all love.) Then there was Ruper Everett, who laid into Roman Catholicism. Great show! Should it be re-titled “Anti-Heaven, Pro-Earth”? Dawkin’s book is half price at Amazon, and number 1 on the bestseller list. Come on folks, keep it there until Xmas. Give it as presents to wind up your religous relatives, hand it out at Xmas eve services - that would be a nice irony.
2 Andrew Sep 25th, 2006 at 1:42 pm

Sounds like a good show! I’ll have to look for clips.

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