You get a better view with socialist resistance SOCIALIST RESISTANCE is a monthly marxist • Please put me in touch with the nearest Socialist EDITORS: Terry Conway, John Lister, Liam MacUaid. EDITORIAL BOARD : Tami Peterson, Kathy Lowe, Piers Mostyn, Karen O'Toole. DESIGN: John Lister SPONSORED BY: International Socialist Group, Socialist Solidarity Network and individuals including Patrick Baker, Andrew Burgin, Brenda and Brian Bushell, Mathew Caygill, Duncan Chapple, Julian Coppens, Frances Curran, Norma Dowd, Andy Gibbons, Jamie Gough, Catriona Grant, Marcus Greville, Patrick Hall, Rick Hatcher, Wayne Holmes, Nick Lidgett, Frank McMahon, Alan McCoombes, Martin Milne, Piers Mostyn, Liz Peretz, Sue Phillips, Surykant Raithatha, Norman Traub, Rick Simon, Colin Smith, Murray Smith, Sarah Taversham, Doug Thorpe, Tony Traub, Tessa van Gelderen, Bill Walton, Roger Welch. Published by SOCIALIST RESISTANCE, PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU. Printed by Web Press International, London EI5. Sat 18 November LONDON Islamophobia and the "war on
A People's Assembly with Tony Benn, Moazzam Begg, Jeremy Corbyn MP and others. 10am to 5.30pm Camden Centre, Judd St, WC1 Saturday 25th November NOTTINGHAM Nottingham Defy-ID are holding a Defy-ID National Gathering from 11am onwards at The Sumac Centre in Nottingham, to discuss opposition to ID Cards and the National ID Register. http://www.nottingham-defyid.org.uk/ Sunday, 26th November LONDON "Building bridges, not walls", a conference about twinning with Palestine. Speakers and workshop leaders from Britain and Palestine. Organised by The Britain Palestine Friendship Forum. Visit www.twinningwithpalestine.net. [email protected]
WANTED Ecosocialism or barbarism? SR Forum December 2 Thursday 30 November LONDON Love Music Hate Racism fundraiser :Babyshambles, The View, DJ Cameo, Metroriots, The Paddingtons, DJ Statik, Hypa Fenn, Marcie Phonix and many others. Fabric, 77a Charterhouse St, EC1. The Deceptionist £16 (+ booking fee) from www.ticketweb.co.uk Friday 1 December LONDON Movimientos and Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign gig with live band and DJ. Red Rose Club. If you like what you've read or you want to find out more about Socialist Resistance, get in touch with us by ringing 020 8800 7460, or email SUBSCRIBE! paper. Our subscription rate is 1 year for £12 (UK), £15 (Europe) or £20 (other overseas). For Name more details fill in this coupon, ticking the appropriate box and send to us at: PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU Please make cheques payable to RESISTANCE Saturday 2 December LONDON Ecosocialism or barbarism. Can capitalism solve the ecological crisis? Socialist Resistance day school. University of London Union. Malet Street To book your seat at the event for £10 waged or £6 unwaged, email us at contact@ socialistresistance.net or call us on 020 8800 7460. You can save £2 by buying your ticket in advance: send a cheque for £8 or £4, payable to Resistance, PO Box 1109, London, N4 2UU 26 January 2007 OXFORD Swinging against the bomb CND Benefit Concert with the Oxford Classic Jazz Band. Holywell Music Room Oxford, 7.3010pm. Debbie Arthurs, and James Evans. Tickets £10, £8 concessions. For more information contact [email protected] For tickets tel: 01865 798600
the new paper. donation of £.. Phone Address email The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, Bantam Press £20 Reviewed by Liam Mac Uaid The resurgence of religion as a form of cultural identity, mass political expression and community solidarity has been one of the most dismal phenomena of recent years.
Yet many of those who would describe themselves as secularists or atheists are increasingly reluctant to contest the absurdity of religious belief as an idea. That's why Richard Dawkins' new book is very timely.
Respect for religion has become the orthodoxy. Dawkins has responded by writing a summary of the principal scientific and philosophical refutations of religious belief.
For the most part he trains his fire on various brands of Christianity, pointing out that this is the set of beliefs with which he is most familiar. However his anti-religious arguments can be applied with equal validity to Islam, Hinduism or the gods of the ancient Greeks.
Readers who have not grown up in a religious environment can have, at best, an abstract understanding of the grip that a bundle of prohibitions, speculations and exhortations can have on those who take them seriously. Believers take it for granted • Please send me a year's subscription to I enclose £12 • £15 • £20 • I enclose a RESISTANCE readers' group.
/Mobile that they communicate directly with their god and he or she is aware of everything that they, and everyone else on the planet, does, says and thinks.
By way of illustration Dawkins recounts a conversation that the anthropologist Pascal Boyer once had with a Cambridge University theologian.
When told that Boyer had once studied a tribe with a strong belief in witches power to spoll crops tie teologlal remarked, "you have to explain how people can believe such nonsense."
Dawkins points out that this Christian theologian believed that a man born without a father died for three days and then disappeared into the sky.
Dawkins writes as a liberal rationalist. He is equally contemptuous of all forms of religious superstition. This is the book's strength.
He's at his weakest when trying to explain the resurgence of religion. He essentially identifies it as a type of collective delusion. He is unable to trace the ideological connection between the hopeless lives that hundreds of millions of people live or the comparative weakness of the forces representing alternative ideologies.
Anyone looking for a good, clearly written hatchet job on the absurdities of religion to give as a Christmas present has had their prayers answered by this book. • • Age .... Post Code..