Richard Dawkin's 'The God Delusion'

“You could almost define a philosopher as someone who won’t take common sense for an answer”- This quote, found in Richard Dawkin’s The God Delusion, has stuck with me ever since I read it as a young primary school student. At first glance, philosophy can seem a rather redundant pursuit, asking questions that already have an answer. Yet once considered these posed questioned such as ‘Is murder wrong?’ incite deep thought into how there are grey areas of deciding morally or how logic can define everyday lives. Furthermore, thousands of years of philosophy has been religiously motivated with some of the greatest intellects being linked to faith, so I see the two as historically ingrained, integral to each other’s concepts and thoughts.
Having done Religious Studies throughout my school career, themes of faith were apparent to me. However, the depth and detail with which we covered subjects, which had been nothing more than footnotes before, astounded and fascinated me. One that to me was captivating was the idea of who Jesus was in a historical context. To a more contemporary scholar such as E.P Sanders, whose book The Historical figure of Jesus I have read, he is a failed eschatological prophet. But to a conservative scholar such as Ian Howard Marshall, he is a divine figure preaching a coming Kingdom of God. Both of their thoughts did not shake their belief in the Son of Man. Philosophy, on the other hand, was a contrasting story; having never deliberated it at such a high level, I was instantly enthralled. I consumed all the content I was presented with. Having since read around the content with books such as 'A History of Western Thought' by Stephen Trombley, which helped inform me of the very origins of philosophy in antiquity, and other similar titles being my stable, I discerned that this is a subject for me. A topic that particularly incites keen interest is ethical systems to use for moral dilemmas. We each as individuals hold our own values and ideas on what is right and wrong. However many scholars have attempted to either prescribe a meaning to ethical terms or tried to invent a methodology to tackle life with. The range of approaches, from the almost infamous Utilitarianism formulated by Bentham and Mill to the more doctrine-based Natural Moral Law, shows the complexity of the problem and how humans struggle to reach an agreeable pattern. But this strife through diversity is exactly why I am fascinated by the subject and the challenges it presents. Doing Maths A-Level alongside my other choices, I have