The God Delusion reading begins

Doco notes yet to be continued another night. In the mean-time:

A few weeks ago a work mate of mine started reading a book by Richard Dawkins called 'The God Delusion.' I had heard of Dawkins before, both having read one of his articles on genes and hearing of him as a prominent scholarly figure with aetheist beliefs ad writings. His reputation, the title of the book, the contents pages and the opinion of my work mate all confirmed that I had to buy this book in order to understand where aestheists are coming from.

The topic is of immense interest for me for 2 main reasons. A) I have aetheist and fallen-away Christian relatives/ in-law who passionately disbelieve in Christianity. And B) The majority of humans (to the best of my knowledge,) do not believe in a God and I'd quite like to know where they're coming from. There has to be a good reason for it. Also, no search for truth could be complete without balanced research. At present, the sources of interest are 1) What Chrisitians/ the Bible says; and b) what non-Christian, particularly atheists, say.

So far I've only read his first preface. The preface is basically him responding to a series common criticism he's received because of and/or about his book. Already I've noticed 2 things. 1) That he makes some really interesting points. And 2) That he has some misconceptions about Christians.

The first interesting point he makes is that 'There is no such thing as a Christian child: only a child of Christian parents (p18.)' He reason that it's a common scholarly view that children are too young to develop a religious opinion. That somewhat makes sense as a) religion is pretty heavy and hard to get your head around; and b) Children are fairly trusting - especially at a young age - and will often accept what they're taught at face value. I see what he's getting at - that children brought up as Christians are a) conditioned to believe their 'religion' and develop their values from their childhood; and b) are therefore so firmly grounded in the only thing they've ever known and held dear that they never really get the chance explore 'religion' in all its enormity and controversy before committing to a belief. In essence, that children will 'be' whatever there parents raise them to be.

Now, from the perspective of a Christian parent, and if the Bible is true, then this is in fact a good thing that children are being brought into a relationship with God right away, developing 'godly' lifestyles etc, etc. At the same time, even I'd agree that the one negative thing that comes of it for some people (be it true or not,) is that it leads to a close-mindedness - where they're unable to momentarily step outside their up-bringing and objectively examine the arguments for and against the Bible, God, Chrisitianity - re-evaluating their initial unquestioned childhood beliefs. I think it's a healthy thing to do when your mind is mature enough for it, as then the decision you ultimately make is something you've decided completely for yourself - not as a conditioned creature.

So many more points to cover, but bed-time again.