I'd be interested to know if The God Delusion converts anyone from
having religious beliefs to adopting an atheist stance, but I'm not
getting my hopes up. As Dawkins himself points out, religions
themselves - if not their followers - benefit from tricking people
into avoiding such rational debate in the first place. It probably
doesn't help that this book is filled with similes comparing religions
to everything from the common cold to the tendency of moths to fly
into burning flames. Richard Dawkins doesn't go out of his way to
insult any religions, but if anything the sincerity of his comparisons
probably makes them sound even worse.
For atheists, however, this book is another story altogether. It
should indeed convert people, albeit convert them from vague atheists
to articulate atheists armed with many good points of argument against
the likelihood of any gods existing. This is where the book really
is useful: at preparing atheists to better refute any twisted logic
that a fundamentalist may start to preach when he inevitably imposes
his views upon them.
The God Delusion is largely about Darwinian evolution. As a result,
Dawkins covers a lot of ground already familiar to anyone who has
seen his Christmas lectures, watched The Blind Watchmaker or The
Root of All Evil, or read any of his previous books.
The model of evolution is presented not just as an alternative to
religion as a theory to explain where we come from, but also as a
theory to explain why we are susceptible to religions in the first
place and why religions themselves have mutated into their current
forms over the millennia. The God Delusion therefore also explores
a lot of new territory as Dawkins sets out to show that religions
are inadequate explanations of our origins, unnecessary, and redundant,
and goes on to explain their existence, all in rational, logical,
scientific terms.
My favourite version of The God Delusion is the audiobook, for the
simple reason that Richard Dawkins and his wife Lalla Ward read the
text in enthusiastic yet mild mannered tones of voices that don't
necessarily come across so well on the printed page.
I don't know if it'll convert any religious people, but I'd certainly
recommend it to any atheists who want some good, logical arguments
they can use against religion.