God : the most unpleasant character in all fiction

Description

Foreword by Richard Dawkins Dan Barker’s book had its origin, as his Introduction explains, in a single sentence of my own The God Delusion: the opening sentence of Chapter 2. It says that the God of the Old Testament is “arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction” and goes on to list nineteen character-traits which, if they were all combined in a single fictional villain, would strain the reader’s credulity to the point of ridicule. Certifiable psychopaths apart, no real human individual is quite so irredeemably nasty as to combine all of the following: “jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” Contents Foreword Introduction PART I. Dawkins Was Right [img="images/9781454919636_L05.jpg" ""]   1.    Jealous and Proud of It   2.    Petty   3.    Unjust   4.    Unforgiving   5.    Control Freak   6.    Vindictive   7.    Bloodthirsty   8.    Ethnic Cleanser   9.    Misogynistic 10.    Homophobic 11.    Racist 12.    Infanticidal 13.    Genocidal 14.    Filicidal 15.    Pestilential 16.    Megalomaniacal 17.    Sadomasochistic 18.    Capriciously Malevolent 19.    Bully PART II. Dawkins Was Too Kind [img="images/9781454919636_L05.jpg" ""] 20.    Pyromaniacal 21.    Angry 22.    Merciless 23.    Curse Hurling 24.    Vaccicidal 25.    Aborticidal 26.    Cannibalistic 27.    Slavemonger 28.    What About Jesus? Afterword: “A Terrible End” Acknowledgments Credits Bibliography