I am only a few pages from the end of The God Delusion. I finally resumed my reading, after finishing Guns, Germs and Steel. There are things to research, and things to criticize in the book by Dawkins, but this little tidbit at the end is kind of funny, and indicative of my recurring point of the mindless masses adhering to a religious doctrine. Dawkin's point is this; on the website devoted to the Catholic Encyclopedia, they offer 'proofs' for purgatory. Their proof is that purgatory exists, because people pray for the dead. If the dead went straight to heaven or hell, there would be no point to praying for them. Therefore, purgatory must exist, because people pray for the dead. Here is the passage straight from the website....

III. PROOFS

The Catholic doctrine of purgatory supposes the fact that some die with smaller faults for which there was no true repentance, and also the fact that the temporal penalty due to sin is it times not wholly paid in this life. The proofs for the Catholic position, both in Scripture and in Tradition, are bound up also with the practice of praying for the dead. For why pray for the dead, if there be no belief in the power of prayer to afford solace to those who as yet are excluded from the sight of God? So true is this position that prayers for the dead and the existence of a place of purgation are mentioned in conjunction in the oldest passages of the Fathers, who allege reasons for succouring departed souls. Those who have opposed the doctrine of purgatory have confessed that prayers for the dead would be an unanswerable argument if the modern doctrine of a "particular judgment" had been received in the early ages. But one has only to read the testimonies hereinafter alleged to feel sure that the Fathers speak, in the same breath, of oblations for the dead and a place of purgation; and one has only to consult the evidence found in the catacombs to feel equally sure that the Christian faith there expressed embraced clearly a belief in judgment immediately after death. Wilpert ("Roma Sotteranea," I, 441) thus concludes chapt. xxi, "Che tale esaudimento", etc.,

Intercession has been made for the soul of the dear one departed and God has heard the prayer, and the soul has passed into a place of light and refreshment." "Surely," Wilpert adds, "such intercession would have no place were there question not of the particular, but of the final judgment.

Some stress too has been laid upon the objection that the ancient Christians had no clear conception of purgatory, and that they thought that the souls departed remained in uncertainty of salvation to the last day; and consequently they prayed that those who had gone before might in the final judgment escape even the everlasting torments of hell. The earliest Christian traditions are clear as to the particular judgment, and clearer still concerning a sharp distinction between purgatory and hell. The passages alledged as referring to relief from hell cannot offset the evidence given below (Bellarmine, "De Purgatorio," lib. II, cap. v). Concerning the famous case of Trajan, which vexed the Doctors of the Middle Ages, see Bellarmine, loc. cit., cap. Viii.

Now, I've only read it twice, and can't make heads or tails of it. I cannot find substantial proof for purgatory, but I would have to study it to concur with Dawkins. I think one of the reasons I have a problem with it is the typo in the first sentence, at least I think it's a typo. I think it is supposed to say "sin is in times not wholly". But it is an admittedly very minor point.

About the book itself. I agree with most of what he says. Of course, I'm an atheist. So, there was little point in reading it, and there was little I found that was new. There is also the fact that I've seen a lot of him on the Internet; giving speeches, interviews, and debating. Most everything in the book is covered in one way or another on the Internet. Still, I can say I've read it now, and add it to my list.