Faith in Reason

I finished reading Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion a few days ago, prompting me to be more outspoken about my views. I'm an atheist and not only unafraid of saying it, but proud. Although I've held this position for a while, a public disclosure is a milestone for me, and it represents (on a small scale) an event I'm looking forward to: a social awakening.

A celebrated evolutionary biologist, Oxford Professor, and author (The Selfish Gene), Dawkins presents a compellingly logical yet entertaining and eloquent treatise for atheism that may do better by its constituency than by those it is trying to convert. His intention is to change the minds of the religious to that of reasonable skepticism. Instead, he's preaching to the choir.

I don't mean to say that this is insignificant. The God Delusion and books like it are, I hope, giving the doubters the courage to stand and be counted. Dawkins compares a movement like this to that of the gay revolution, and admitting disbelief to a kind of "coming out." We free-thinkers should demand a change in our circumstances, and the status quo is religiousness; a standard which engenders intolerance, oppression, bigotry, arrogance, child abuse, homophobia, abortion-clinic bombings, cruelties to women, war, suicide bombers, and educational systems that teach ignorance when it comes to math and science.

Seventy percent of Americans believe in angels. Yet The God Delusion has garnered much praise, even in the Bible-belt. God Is Not Great, a similar book by Christopher Hitchens, has had equally surprising success. Are these achievements indicative of a social trend? Are we finally ready to allow logic to prevail? I hope that following generations will be reading our holy texts in schools as literary culture (as we do the legends of Greek and Roman gods) rather than as their educational basis (as the supporters of intelligent design are trying to impose); and use those like Richard Dawkins as an example of enlightened revolutionists. Reason is at a precipice, and I think the coming years will decide if it will fall at God's feet.