Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion (Unabridged)

The God Delusion is a 2006 best-selling[1] non-fiction book by English biologist Richard Dawkins, professorial fellow of New College, Oxford,[2][3] and former holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford.

In The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that belief in a personal god qualifies as a delusion, which he defines as a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence. He is sympathetic to Robert Pirsig's statement in Lila (1991) that "when one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion."[4] With many examples, he explains that one does not need religion to be moral and that the roots of religion and of morality can be explained in non-religious terms.

In early December 2006, it reached number four in the New York Times Hardcover Non-fiction Best Seller list after nine weeks on the list.[5] More than three million copies were sold.[6]

The book has attracted widespread commentary, with many books written in response.