Just put down reading the mind-numbing work of Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion. To even start writing a critique of this work is pretty daunting. First, I am a believer, not an atheist like Dawkins is. However, I do believe in science and have a healthy progressive mindset. I was never indoctrinated nor was I ever made to worship or read ancient literature of Hinduism, which I was born into. My curiosity in theology of Hinduism piqued as I hit late 20s and it has continued ever since. I have always been a great fan of evolutionary biology, buying and reading Dawkins masterwork The Selfish Gene back in the 90s. The God Delusion mainly attacks Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It never raised any points on Hinduism or Buddhism since Dawkins himself avowed that he isn't too familiar with these religions. I wish he becomes and then writes something to address these religions as well.
Whether you are a believer or not, is I recommend you to read The God Delusion (TGD) with an open mind. I immensely enjoyed some of the topics such as science advancing our thinking, heath-care progress, increased awareness against dogmas among others about which Dawkins passionately writes. I also should thank Dawkins for rising my consciousness with regards to interest in cosmology and natural history. We all read these things as kids, but the unfortunate thing is that we read them when we could hardly understand them, or at least I could not, back then. I am sure we all did some amazing advanced Physics experiments in high school, but I could actually not make head or tails of them. So from a purely scientific perspective, reading TGD raised my interest in science more than ever.
Some of the chapters in the book might be offensive to a hardcore believer. With an open attitude and a penchant for learning, TGD will make a great reading and by the end of it, you would be really more conscious than you were when you picked up the book. Some of the explorations Dawkins does into the making of the mind (how for instance, people before 1000BC might have thought that the inner voice we all have was actually a divine voice until we gained enough consciousness to think its our own), the duality of mind and matter versus the singularity, etc are very thought provoking. I always believed in the Upanishadic teachings that higher consciousness is not blind faith, the only way to realize this is through constant questioning and endless soul searching. The thought process that works this way, will always give more rewarding answers than the one which takes us through blind faith. If you ever check Upanishads (start with Brihadaranyaka), they always talk about the importance of moving away from elaborate rituals, dogma and idolatry into a consciousness of higher thinking. Idol worship could be a beginning point, a journey towards a destination but not the destination itself. Many of Hinduism ancient teachings focus on matter over mind and life hear in the now frontier than life after death. Look around the wonderful rainbow and regardless of the anatomy of its colors, its still wonderful. Its great to be just alive because we are not going to come back, its important to know that we were cave doweling just a few centuries before and now we are blogging wireless from hot-spots. This amazing technological advancement would never come out of dogmatic thinking, only from scientific rationality and reasoning. God can be realized by helping build a better society and being kind to fellow humans/animals. If we cant be better people to each other, how can rituals and faith per se make us better people and I think this is what Dawkins is trying to say.
The chapter "Why we are good?" is a another great eye opener. Morality is a complex Darwinian process which traces its origin to a couple of traits that evolution has bestowed on us. For one its the selfish trait of taking care of our kins so even if we don't survive, our fellow kins who share a majority of our genetic makeup will. The other evolutionary reason for morality is reciprocity. You scratch my back and and I will scratch yours, this is an important feature of why people could be good, without actually realizing it. Finally, all humans secretly crave for adulation and focus on building a good reputation in the society, this is another Darwinian kicker for being good. Honestly ask yourself, have all the religious people you ever met been good moral humans and all the atheists bad evil people? I sincerely doubt it. I have seen with my own eyes some high-ritual loving, Sanskrit speaking, wise people 'scientifically' reasoning out approachability and other maladies of the ancient society. Any good practice and good intention can become wayward over a few centuries. We can focus on the practice without understanding the intention. I guess Dawkins is also trying to drive the reader towards that end.
I will end the review with Dawkins' own words, "I am thrilled to be alive at a time when humanity is pushing against the limits of understanding".
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