They didn't explicitly say it but how that reveals the ignorance of dawkins here is that the attacks he chose were
effectively fended off hundreds or in some cases thousands of years ago by theology and apologetics. It's not just that the refutations are old, it's that they're old
and convincing.
Which is not to say that the conversation is over, or that the theologians are correct. But that an informed argument would be to address the (ancient) refutations to the naive attacks, rather than to simply restate the naive attacks as if they are insightful.
The points he raises in that book aren't going to be novel to pretty much anyone. Most believers will recognize them from their own minds. Probably no modern person is a "pure" believer: we are all exposed to and familiar with the mechanisms and logic of unbelief. Believers experience belief more as an inconsistent state, or an active effort or choice, than a simple delusion they are unable to perceive. There's a very interesting conversation there that dawkins wasn't willing or maybe able to have.
Charles Taylor's "a secular age" is one place where you could pick up the conversation our society has been having with itself for centuries about the mechanisms, role & effects of belief, delusion, religion & faith if you were interested in it as a practical or philosophical question and not as a battlefield for self aggrandizement as dawkins clearly was.
Which is not to say that the conversation is over, or that the theologians are correct. But that an informed argument would be to address the (ancient) refutations to the naive attacks, rather than to simply restate the naive attacks as if they are insightful.
The points he raises in that book aren't going to be novel to pretty much anyone. Most believers will recognize them from their own minds. Probably no modern person is a "pure" believer: we are all exposed to and familiar with the mechanisms and logic of unbelief. Believers experience belief more as an inconsistent state, or an active effort or choice, than a simple delusion they are unable to perceive. There's a very interesting conversation there that dawkins wasn't willing or maybe able to have.
Charles Taylor's "a secular age" is one place where you could pick up the conversation our society has been having with itself for centuries about the mechanisms, role & effects of belief, delusion, religion & faith if you were interested in it as a practical or philosophical question and not as a battlefield for self aggrandizement as dawkins clearly was.