The Wall Street Journal notes that "promulgating atheism has become a lucrative business. According to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, in less than 12 months atheism's newest champions have sold close to a million books. Some 500,000 hardcover copies are in print of Richard Dawkins's "The God Delusion" (2006); 296,000 copies of Christopher Hitchens's "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" (2007); 185,000 copies of Sam Harris's "Letter to a Christian Nation" (2006); 64,100 copies of Daniel C. Dennett's "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon"; and 60,000 copies of Victor J. Stenger's "God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows that God Does not Exist" (2007). "
But do people read these books? Or is it like Tom Wright said about the God Delusion that it was a book that when you put it down, it was very hard to pick up again!
I've not heard of the last one by Stenger. By even Dawkins standards it is over the top. Even though Dawkins suggests that God is highly improbable, he does not say that his case can be "proven".
Sam Harris is even more of a Ranter than Dawkins:
''We have names for people who have many beliefs for which there is no rational justification. When their beliefs are extremely common, we call them 'religious'; otherwise, they are likely to be called 'mad,' 'psychotic' or 'delusional.' '' To cite but one example: ''Jesus Christ -- who, as it turns out, was born of a virgin, cheated death and rose bodily into the heavens -- can now be eaten in the form of a cracker. A few Latin words spoken over your favorite Burgundy, and you can drink his blood as well. Is there any doubt that a lone subscriber to these beliefs would be considered mad?'' The danger of religious faith, he continues, ''is that it allows otherwise normal human beings to reap the fruits of madness and consider them holy.''
Dawkins, writing in the Times, says Harris is not being over cynical! Dawkins himself has this argument:
"You say you have experienced God directly? Well, some people have experienced a pink elephant, but that probably doesn't impress you. Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, distinctly heard the voice of Jesus telling him to kill women, and he was locked up for life. George W. Bush says that God told him to invade Iraq (a pity God didn't vouchsafe him a revelation that there were no weapons of mass destruction). Individuals in asylums think they are Napoleon or Charlie Chaplin, or that the entire world is conspiring against them, or that they can broadcast their thoughts into other people's heads. We humour them but don't take their internally revealed beliefs seriously, mostly because not many people share them."
Dawkin's then goes on about the brain's power to create illusions, concluding: "I say all this just to demonstrate the formidable power of the brain's simulation software. It is well capable of constructing "visions" and "visitations" of the utmost veridical power. To simulate a ghost or an angel or a Virgin Mary would be child's play to software of this sophistication"
This shows just how close Terry Tommyrot was!
Tommyrot: Of course, there's no shortage of liars in the world, and undoubtedly some people who claim to have had these 'Richard Dawkins experiences' are deliberately telling fairy stories, but, you know, the human brain is a very, very complicated thing… and conjuring up an imaginary Dawkins would be child's play for it. Christopher Robin had Binker. I had the slimy custard man. I suspect that something very similar is happening with people who claim to have seen a Richard Dawkins, or heard his voice, or felt his touch.
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