Summary Of The God Delusion By Richard Dawkins

In chapter seven of The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins discusses morality is not, in fact, rooted in religion, rather a part of a “changing moral Zeitgeist,” as the chapter title suggests. Throughout the chapter, Dawkins provides evidence from the New and Old Testaments to show the immorality of religion and how it is impossible that morals were a result of religion. Though constructive, Dawkins’ arguments fall weak to some extent. Firstly, he fails to define morality clearly, as it can be subjective. In addition, he narrows the scope of the argument by constructing a diatribe exclusively regarding Abrahamic religions mainly Judaism and Christianity. Lastly, his blatant blame of immorality on religion comes off as ignorant and rather over simplified due to multiple other factors affecting moral or immoral deeds. Therefore, this response will attempt to examine Dawkins argument of morality of religions and the idea of a zeitgeist. It will do so by examining the subjectivity of morality, Dawkins’s limited scope, the zeitgeist, and the immorality of religion.

Dawkins demonstrates the immorality of religion through various biblical stories. He questions the morality of religion through multiple biblical characters, such as Abraham and his wife Sara, whom he married off to a pharaoh, the story of Lot and him impregnating both his daughters, the

This source being the changing zeitgeist. He states that the zeitgeist is wide consensus that can affect religion. However, what Dawkins may not realize, is that religions can affect the zeitgeist. When new religions come about, they introduce revolutionary ideas which affect the general view of certain issues. An example is Islam. Prior to Islam, Meccans were polytheistic would worship idols, but shortly after the rise Islam the general consensus was on monotheism, would that not be a change in the