God, in books: Richard Dawkins, R. Crumb and making the case for God

In books this Sunday, we look at God. And may lightning not strike us by beginning with Richard Dawkins, mobbed by fans at an atheist convention. Susan Salter-Reynolds talks to him about his new book.

In "The Greatest Show on Earth," he's more proactive, laying out the issue of evolution and natural selection with subheads like: "WHAT IS A THEORY? WHAT IS A FACT?" He writes of "softening up" his readers, as if kneading dough. By mid-book, however, Dawkins is his old scientist self, delighted by his subject, tossing off phrases such as: "What happened next is almost too wonderful to bear."

This is the upside of popular science writing. It's why Carl Sagan, Stephen Jay Gould and Stephen Hawking left their labs to write. They trade in awe, the desire to restore to science the sense of sublime wonder that drew them to it in the first place....

Dawkins is very keen to establish that his new book is not "The God Delusion." He wants, as much as possible, to distance it from conversations about God. "I have a strong feeling that the subject of evolution is beautiful without the excuse of creationists needing to be bashed," he says.

Two other books also take on evolution... the evolution of religion. Reviewer Jack Miles writes:

Can the later scriptures of West Asia -- the Jewish and Christian Bibles and the Koran -- be read as the record of a process of human domestication, a further taming and gentling of mankind over time? In "The Evolution of God," Robert Wright argues laboriously that they can indeed be so read.... Karen Armstrong would unhesitatingly dismiss Wright's vision of a deity inferred from the evidence of human evolution as a lamentable instance of the mistake lying at the core of the West's disaffection from received religion -- namely, regarding the case for God as one to be made from such evidence. "The Case for God" is in fact largely an elaborate history of the spread of this mistake from the late Middle Ages to the present.

These authors are probably not the readers R. Crumb is worried about when he writes that he may offend with his new "The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb." David L. Ulin writes:

In Crumb's interpretation, [Tamar's] is the story of a "fiercely determined woman, [who] takes it upon herself to ensure the survival of her lineage." That is what Genesis is about, and by portraying it in all its messy humanity, with blood, fear, violence and even graphic sex, Crumb strips away millennia of interpretation, returning this core text to an unexpected accessibility.

See our preview of "The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb," in bookstores on Oct. 19. The excerpt opens with the story of Lot in the town of Sodom.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Richard Dawkins. Credit: Houghton Mifflin

Comments

[Charles]

What about "God is Not Great", by Christopher Hitchens?

[Joel Montes]

I can't wait to read an illustration or interpretive account of the evolution of Shakespeare's "Romeo & Juliet", T.V. monitors to HDTV, or how about do-it-yourself manuals. Evolution as the narrative voice for everything from psychology, philosophy, history, sociology, religion, et al, is turning into the academic "boogie man". It/he/she is everywhere!!!

[JR Jake]

I find the best book to know about the relationship between God and man in still the Bible. It amazes me how He has allowed man to create the environment where we find ourselves today. He did not have to intercede but minimally because He has allowed us to make our mistakes, and we have by the bucketfuls. If this is not the most valuable lesson we can ever learn about human nature and man's propensity to go their own way, we will never learn.

So if people want to read the Bible and no other instrument of education, you will find a direct correlation between our decisions and the outcomes we produce. I enjoy man's take and interpretation about God; but that is an absolute decision that each of us have to make. Your relationship with God should never be forced or taught as to how and what God is in relationship to YOUR life. Good article.

[Dan B]

Another great book by Dawkins. A valiant attempt at bringing light to the darkest cornors of reason and delusion (without going on the offensive).

A very scientific and astute book, pointing out the facts and letting the reader dead with what it means in relation to their beliefs.

I don't think any book on evolution, creation or God is a bad thing. Even creationist propaganda is useful, even if their balls out mistakes, fumbles and lies lead people to question as a whole the dogmatic view of modern religion.

If you believe their case that there can be no truce between evolution and God....and you then read about the FACTS that support the "theorum of Evolution" and see the amount of wishful thinking needed for the existence of a God....logically this can only lead you to one place.