Richard Dawkins. Still the best by far.

[Tero]

Hitch is gone, PZ is a bit silly, never got into Sam Harris but I'll always appreciate Dawk for writing The Blind Watchmaker. That book set me on a path that led me to here.......Fucking Dawkins! What have you done?!?

I was too cheap to buy God Delusion at first. I found these booklets from the 1930s printed in Kansas City. Joseph had burst the religion bubble back then. The ex monk is very anti Catholic.

Who's that, Tero?

Sorry, Joseph McCabe. Google for free library.

[Clinton Huxley]

Hitch is gone, PZ is a bit silly, never got into Sam Harris but I'll always appreciate Dawk for writing The Blind Watchmaker. That book set me on a path that led me to here.......Fucking Dawkins! What have you done?!?

I was too cheap to buy God Delusion at first. I found these booklets from the 1930s printed in Kansas City. Joseph had burst the religion bubble back then. The ex monk is very anti Catholic.

Who's that, Tero?

Sorry, Joseph McCabe. Google for free library.

Born in Macclesfield, down the road from me.

[Tero]

I eventually bought God Delusion. The invisible/imaginary friend was cute. By no means my favorite Dawkins book.

[Thinking Aloud]

I don't get it... TGD was a major disappointment to me, it didn't even give me any better reasons to be an atheist than I had before, or tell me of better ways to express those reasons...

I read it on a whim while travelling one time, and while it didn't give me much that I hadn't already thought of (in my slow slide from Catholicism) it did tell me that a) I wasn't alone, b) many others had had the same ideas, c) there was nothing intrinsically wrong with admitting I no longer believed. It was a confidence-booster, and it also contained the quote that I paraphrase as "atheists just go one god further" that tipped me off the fence.

To that end, as my first exposure to atheism, it was a godsend! <- Deliberate.

[Rum]

I think it was hugely influential without being groundbreaking. Some of the arguments were a bit weak too. I think its main impact was that it had such a high profile as a best seller and probably crystalised a lot of people's thinking..or fence sitting. Not great literature, but massively influential I would say.

[Bella Fortuna]

It was the first book I ever read about atheism and really crystallised what I'd been feeling and got me thinking about things I never really had up until then. It was the gateway for me!

[Thinking Aloud]

It was the first book I ever read about atheism and really crystallised what I'd been feeling and got me thinking about things I never really had up until then. It was the gateway for me!

And then look what happened.

[Svartalf]

I don't get it... TGD was a major disappointment to me, it didn't even give me any better reasons to be an atheist than I had before, or tell me of better ways to express those reasons...

I read it on a whim while travelling one time, and while it didn't give me much that I hadn't already thought of (in my slow slide from Catholicism) it did tell me that a) I wasn't alone, b) many others had had the same ideas, c) there was nothing intrinsically wrong with admitting I no longer believed. It was a confidence-booster, and it also contained the quote that I paraphrase as "atheists just go one god further" that tipped me off the fence.

To that end, as my first exposure to atheism, it was a godsend! <- Deliberate.

Maybe it disappointed me because I fully knew all these things before ever getting the book... I bought it on a whim and out of idel curiosity because I was checking out a bookshop and found it prominently displayed, so I decided to get to know what the hoopla I'd heard about it was.

Nearly disappointed me as much as Da Vinci Code.

[Bella Fortuna]

It was the first book I ever read about atheism and really crystallised what I'd been feeling and got me thinking about things I never really had up until then. It was the gateway for me!

And then look what happened.

All heaven broke loose!

[Tero]

No no! Don't let things crystallize in your brain, you will get Alzheimer's.

[Svartalf]

It was the first book I ever read about atheism and really crystallised what I'd been feeling and got me thinking about things I never really had up until then. It was the gateway for me!

And then look what happened.

All heaven broke loose!

Shows the whatever affixed it in place was of poor quality and shoddily installed.

[Audley Strange]

I think in the light of the Cross waving loonies talking about crusades, homicide bombers, the cult of Derrida and Allahslaves crashing planes into buildings, belief had to be questioned. It was and is one of the most important conversations we as humans must have. Its been the elephant in the room for some time and if anything Dawkins Harris and Hitchens did little but make that discussion public.

That alone makes him important.

[Bella Fortuna]

I just found out he's doing a lecture at Berkeley in October about 'The Magic of Reality' and I'm hoping to take my son to it.

[Sean Hayden]

I concur.

[JimC]

Whatever issues remain from the old RDF, it doesn't change the fact that he has been a ground-breaking communicator on evolutionary science.