What I want for Christmas is...an anti-religion rant

October 15, 2006

The Times October 14, 2006 What I want for Christmas is...an anti-religion rantBy Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent A BOOK that rejects religion and argues for the non- existence of God is heading to be the No 1 bestseller for Christmas. Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion is at the top of the bestseller chart of the online bookseller Amazon, and is climbing up The Times bestseller chart. With Professor Dawkins about to travel to the US to publicise the book, sources in online sales say that his atheistic rant against all things religious is already trumping celebrity biographies and could take the top slot at the festival that celebrates the birth of the founder of Christianity. Transworld, its publisher, has had to run several reprints since the book was published just over two weeks ago. More than 100,000 copies have now been printed, making it the year’s top-selling science book. An Oxford science professor, Dawkins, author of The

Selfish Gene, uses The God Delusion to mount a bitter attack on religion in all its incarnations. He argues that monotheism and polytheism are equally absurd and attempts to knock down the 13th-century “proofs” for the existence of God drawn up by Thomas Aquinas. He attacks more modern concepts such as the “God of the gaps”, condemns Creationism and blames religion itself rather than religious extremism for manifestations of fundamentalism, such as suicide bombers in Islam. In the book he writes: “Some people have views of God that are so broad and flexible that it is inevitable that they will find God wherever they look for him. One hears it said that ‘God is the ultimate’ or ‘God is our better nature’ or ‘God is the universe’. “Of course, like any other word, the word ‘God’ can be given any meaning we like. If you want to say that ‘God is energy’, then you can find God in a lump of coal.” Rival science author Stephen Jones,

Professor of Genetics at University College London, whose latest book The Single Helix is due to be published soon, said: “The polls tell us there could be 20 million Creationists in Britain. “Twenty million people will not need a yule log this Christmas, they will be able to burn Dawkins’s book instead. Personally, I do not care if they burn my own books, as long as they buy them first.” Professor Jones, named Secularist of the Year by the National Secular Society last week, said: “To see the forces of irrationality coming back again is depressing. “I find the whole business of believing boring, whereas Richard gets upset and passionate about it. But he’s at Oxford, he’s got time to be passionate.” Terry Sanderson, vice-president of the National Secular Society, said The God Delusion was “selling like hot cakes” from its online shop. “People are feeling that someone has actually said what they are thinking, and has provided

answers for the apparently unanswerable questions that religious people throw at them. Richard Dawkins is energising a huge unbelieving constituency in this country who feel disenfranchised by the present obsession with religion. All power to him, we say.” Kes Nielsen, Amazon’s head books buyer, said it was rare for a serious scientific or philosophical book to top the UK charts. “It seems as though many people are bored with the superficial world of stardom that’s fascinated us for so long.” SURPRISE! IT'S A BESTSELLER Conn and Hal Iggulden’s The Dangerous Book for Boys was the surprise bestseller of

the summer. It taught boys to be boys and flouted PC rules on how we raise the men of the future Another summer hit, Gavin Pretor-Pinney’s The Cloudspotter’s Guide, was rejected by 28 publishers Times writer Lynne Truss struck gold with Eats, Shoots & Leaves, her guide to punctuation, at Christmas three years ago Peter H

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