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Book Club: The God Delusion - non-fiction | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6461 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 1 of 8 05 March 2009 at 8:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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This is a place to read "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkings together and to discuss it. Please post unrelated things in the other Multilingual Lounge threads or your personal language-learning log. To learn more about HTLAL's book clubs, read this thread.
You want to participate? Here's how: 1. Get the book, either in the original English or in a language of your choice. You can probably find it in a local book store and you can definitely find it in an online book store. Maybe your local library will have it, too. 2. Start reading. 3. Post a lot, in any language. Tell us what you just read, how it differs from what you expected, how you like the book so far, what words or sentences you have trouble with, what method (if any) you are using to go through the book, or anything else you want to share. 4. Try to finish the book within a month. The group will start reading the book on March 5th 2009. 5. Prepare for the next book. Next month's non-fiction book hasn't been decided yet, so please help us pick one in this thread. Enjoy! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lindsay19 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5812 days ago 183 posts - 214 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC1 Studies: Swedish, Faroese, Icelandic | Message 2 of 8 05 March 2009 at 11:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'd like to hear what others have to say about this book - I read it when it first came out, so I don't remember all of the details, but I liked it. I might even have read it again, if my ex ever gave me my copy back..
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JonB Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6256 days ago 209 posts - 220 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Italian, Dutch, Greek | Message 3 of 8 06 March 2009 at 8:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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(...)
EDIT I was mildly concerned about this forum's 'no religion' rule. But on reflection I guess it's a case of: 'whatever - who cares?' (In any case, nobody has been truly discussing any of these books...) Edited by JonB on 07 March 2009 at 2:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tricoteuse Pentaglot Senior Member Norway littlang.blogspot.co Joined 6669 days ago 745 posts - 845 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Norwegian, EnglishC1, Russian, French Studies: Ukrainian, Bulgarian | Message 4 of 8 10 March 2009 at 12:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have started reading this book, and I'm pleasantly surprised. I once started reading "The Blind Watchmaker" but had to stop cause I couldn't stand the arrogant tone of the author. This author suffers from that as well, but not as much I think.
I think that it is very helpful that Dawkins lists counter arguments in the introduction of the book and in the beginning (and does away with them), and clearly defines what he is going to talk about. It is a very interesting read, it deals with a lot of the "easy" and "lazy" attitudes towards religion and makes you aware of their weak points. I find this aspect of what I have read so far much more intriguing than the question he seems so obsessed with: the existence of a god, which for me has always been an irrelevant question. However, it is sad that the image I had of the US is already, after 70 or so pages, worse than it has ever been. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Russianbear Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6766 days ago 358 posts - 422 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, Ukrainian Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 8 18 March 2009 at 2:07am | IP Logged | ||
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Since I was the one who suggested this book, I guess I'll join in. I've already read it before, but I wanted to reread it ever since, and this sounds like a good excuse to do just that.
I've reread the introduction and the first couple of chapters by now. To answer Sprachprofi's question of how it differs from what I expected - well, since I've read it before, the book has been pretty close to what I was expecting after the first reading :) I also thought it was a good idea to state the criticisms to his point of view right in the introduction. I don't know if I'd call them 'arguments" though. It is more like objections, rather than full-blown arguments that he tries to do away with there. He will get to more serious, philosophical (or pseudophilosophical) arguments later in the book. Hopefully I haven't given away too much, as I doubt there is such thing as a spoiler in a non-fiction book. As for the first chapter, I found the very notion of the so called "undeserved respect" interesting. I like to think of myself as an independent-thinking person, but in the past I've often been guilty of subconsciously adhering to the "norms" by directing more respect towards religious views of others than those views merited. So I credit this book with the idea that there is too much respect given to the religious beliefs, and that there should be a healthy amount of disrespect toward irrationality of others, even if (or especially if) it hides under the guise of religious beliefs. Dawkins introduces this idea very early, too - so to me this was clearly the highlight of chapter one. He also tackles deism and other non-religious "religious" beliefs of people like Einstein in chapter 1, but while those are important, I thought they were kind of obvious points, while the point about the undeserved respect was new - at least to me. Edited by Russianbear on 18 March 2009 at 2:18am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lindsay19 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5812 days ago 183 posts - 214 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC1 Studies: Swedish, Faroese, Icelandic | Message 6 of 8 18 March 2009 at 2:38am | IP Logged | ||
Which part of The Blind Watchmaker came off as arrogant to you? It has to be one of my favorite books that I actually learned something from, and I can't recall anything particulary offensive in it, (excluding the title, which my very religious cousin sneered at). Also, which other author are you reffering to? These two books were written by the same man. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tricoteuse Pentaglot Senior Member Norway littlang.blogspot.co Joined 6669 days ago 745 posts - 845 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Norwegian, EnglishC1, Russian, French Studies: Ukrainian, Bulgarian | Message 7 of 8 18 March 2009 at 8:57am | IP Logged | ||
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Lindsay19: That explains why I thought the name of the author was slightly familiar when I started with this book! It was almost 2 years since I gave The Blind Watchmaker a go, and from what I remember, it annoyed me that he used the "everyone"-rhetorics, "everyone thinks like this or that...", "no one considers...". It's just a feeling I've got though, cause I remember comparing it to the argumentation of some Swedish feminist against porn in Sweden somewhere around the year 2000, and she used exactly that method, "no woman wants to..." etc. I also think I found him a little bit too self-confident when he stated some things and I was wondering where his references were.
-- I also reacted to the "undeserved respect" aspect. I have never thought of it that way, I always saw it as something obvious that you must be respectful to religious people (probably because historically you would otherwise end up dead...) so that part of the book did open my eyes. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lindsay19 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5812 days ago 183 posts - 214 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC1 Studies: Swedish, Faroese, Icelandic | Message 8 of 8 18 March 2009 at 8:59pm | IP Logged | ||
I understand now; those are things I actually never take notice of - I guess that kind of style could get to people. Did you get to the part about the biomorphes? I thought those were the cutest things! xD 1 person has voted this message useful |
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