The God Delusion
by Richard Dawkins
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Book Reviews of The God Delusion
Book Review: Massively Flawed, as any RATIONALIST will discover
Summary: 1 Stars
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"The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, is authored by one of the "Four Horsemen" of the New Atheism movement. It is massively flawed, as any RATIONALIST will discover. IRRATIONALISTS endorse the book wholeheartedly, but then, they are not examining the work on the basis of its logic and evidence. It is largely a rhetoric.
One of the salient indications of the author's unobjective standard, is that Dawkins addresses the subject of "God" without "scientific" defnition. For a scientist to disregard this essential requirement in disciplined methodology, is incomprehensible.
It has been argued that Dawkins does offer a definition, but here is what cited as Dawkins' definition:
"...I shall define the God Hypothesis more defensibly: there exists a superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us."--Richard Dawkins
Suffice it to say, that Dawkins is proposing, in addition to a Science for what is NATURAL, that he is practicing a science for the SUPERNATURAL. The irrationalism inherent in such a proposition will be self evident.
Beyond this, Dawkins proceeds to offer a kind of MEME, common to all the Four Horsemen, which is to say that he addresses certain propositions drawn from FUNDAMENTALISM. That this is a higly selective use of argumentative evidence, goes without saying. Dawkins might have actually addressed the arguments and doctrines of religious orthodoxy, but he doesn't. FUNDAMENTALISM serves as a either a convenient Whipping Boy, or at least a Straw Man Fallacy for pillorying religion in its general contexts.
The same flaw in disciplined methodology is evident in the consideration of FUNDAMENTALISM, as is evident in Dawkins' consideration of GOD; that is, neither GOD nor FUNDAMENTALISM is at any point given a working definition.
As a consequence, as Dawkins proceeds with his subject, there is a tremendous philosophical void, where there ought to be substantial meaning to his subject. If all argumentative propositions are foreshortened, by means of Ockham's Razor, it is a natural consequence, that the evidence used will support the foreshoretened proposition.
It is within this constext that Dawkins offers a frequent accusation that the religious follow a BLIND FAITH. Here again, had Dawkins actually examined evidence that is readily available, the orthodox doctrine of SOLA FIDE [Faith & Reason] would have clarified the issue; but then, the facts would show that Dawkins is not specifically accurate nor rational in his assessments of the evidence.
Any rationalist, or a person of philosophical tendency, is going to immediately be alarmed when reading that a "scientist" is engaged in a Theological issue. There is not, nor will there be, nor can there be, a "scientific" definition for God, for the simple reason that God's attributes are in the order of an Infinitude. The proper scope and boundary of science remains with Laws and Theories and Classifications which address Finitudes [measureable subjects.]
So that what one finds in "The God Delusion," is a man who is a "scientist" entering into a Theological activity, as well as a Philsophical activity, and more or less, shifting back and forth without restraint, between three distinctly different disciplines; but reading Dawkins is rather like being the "mark" to Dawkins "con" in the Three Card Monte game card trick. The "con" has tricks, but he certainly is not going to tell you what his "trick" is.
This is generally problematic with all of the current popular publications by "scientists" who employ "God" in their title or subject.
The analogy between the Atheist and the "con" is appropriate, I think, because Atheism is not a philosophy which is intended to inform or educate. It is therefore not surprising, that Dawkins writes virtually nothing which elaborates his philosophy on the subject of Atheism. There is no such thing as an "Atheist Evangelical" for the simple reason that Atheism has no "knowledge" to offer.
Dawkins does not indicate essential facts about the philosophy of Atheism itself. One of the more salient aspects of Atheism, is that it is not a philosophy which has a social utility. Atheism has no use, and it accomplishes nothing, and it has no function. In fact, Atheism is itself, most certainly, a FIDEIST proposition, which is to say, the a priori assumption that God-Does-Not-Exist, is not the conclusion derived from a valid syllogistic premise. It is itself a BLIND FAITH proposition.
As one reads along rationally, it is striking how Dawkins blows his readership about as though with a great wind, while offering little knowledge of his own vessel, even though that philsophical vessel is adrift on vast seas of information.
What the reader discovers is that TGD is a work of Political Philosophy, intended to popularize an attitude of bias and discrimination against the religious.
In this sense, Dawkins Political Philosophy has salient commonalities with fascism, because historically, fascisms share a common historical enemy: Religion. Fascism also has a commonality with New Atheism, in that Fascisms operate with a disregard for Civil Liberties, and the New Atheists collectively neglect to recognize the RULE OF LAW.
The reader may well ask; "Why?"
The reason may be that Religion is essentially a proposition for objective MORALS [Ten Commandments], and the barrier to fascism's removal of a private citizen's Civil Liberties and legal rights, are MORALS. In this sense, and without making the impact of his writing explicit, Dawkins has written an advocacy which portends to limit Civil Liberties, inclusive of religious liberties.
This is why in final analysis, in order to understand Dawkins' book, it is necessary to see it not as a work of science, or theology, and not even Philosophy in its classical sense; but rather as a work of Political Philosophy. Dawkins' political philosophy, like those of all the Four Horsemen, is intended entirely to popularize public discrimination against the religious, for the simple reason that the religious possess political rights.
Dawkins does not of course, make this explicit in his book. That would be giving away his tactic. This is why his book is strongest as a composition for ridiculing PEOPLE, rather than as an exposition in ideology and philosophical concepts. What would most delight popular Atheism, is to entirely disenfranchise the "religious" from the body politic, as raving, irrational, and frothy fanatics, crying out in bloodlust for judgement, condemnation, and fiery Armageddon. Social stereotyping is nothing new. In simplest terms, Dawkins is offering little more than the absolute Ad Hominem argument, suggesting that to be RELIGIOUS, is to be utterly IRRATIONAL.
When Dawkins engages in argumentative propositions for the education of children, his Political Philosophy touches upon the subject of specific Civil Liberties, because the education of children has been identified as a "fundamental parental right" by the U. S. Supreme Court. In this regard, factually, there is no such thing as a "collectivist" right to educate children; but arguments like Dawkins appear when the author is either not knowledgeable about the Law, or chooses to ignore the Law. In the latter case, that is precisely where Dawkins' advocacies emerge as consistent with fascism. They would deny legal rights guaranteed by the U. S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, now held by the individual citizen, and invest those rights in some other entity.
As Dawkins frames his argument concerning the religious education and secular education of children, Dawkins evidences a strking neglect to recognize the RULE OF LAW. This is where Dawkins writes as though blissfully ignorant of the fact that Americans are ruled by Law.
[I saw something similar in Sam Harris' book, "The End of Faith" (another "Horseman" of Atheism. Harris proposed that people were ruled by ETHICS. In fact, Harris also even proposed that Americans were ruled by TABOO.]
This is why Dawkins' book must be seen in its context as a Political Philsophy, rather than as a consideration of a theological or philosophical question; i.e., "Is there a God?" That is not the real issue at all. TGD is an attempt to do precisely what a Political Philosophy is always intended to do. It eliminates political competition from public life.
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Book Review: Good intentions, but not a great book
Summary: 4 Stars
I had been wanting to read the God Delusion ever since my wife read it and told me of how much she enjoyed it. When my wife read it she was somewhere between agnostic and Christian, not quite sure what to believe. She didn't personally believe the Bible literally but she did believe that people with belief were generally good people. After reading this book her opinion changed and she is now an atheist too. So I was intrigued, and as an atheist, I though it would be a good read. I hoped it would be a book I could recommend to any of my Christian friends who were unhappy with their religion and looking for something else to believe in, or not believe in as the case may be. Sadly this book does not fill that role, so I will continue looking for one that does.
Perhaps my expectations were just too high coming in, I found the book rather hard to push through. Maybe it was because I had already come to so many of the conclusions that he did in the book on my own and thus when reading, I was continually waiting for him to get to the point. Or maybe it was because I was hoping for some new insights or ideas, which sadly I found the book lacking in. However some few of the ideas he wrote about in the book (or more often some of the quotes or references) included were very interesting to me. Either thought provoking or interesting to me, I quite enjoyed them. They are the reason I gave the book a positive rating at all. In general I found about 90% of the book to be slow, boring, or just plain poorly thought out. Because of he remaining 10% of the book that I liked and because the book has convinced some people to leave a religion that was detrimental to their health, I gave it 4 stars. For pure entertainment value, or the strength of his arguments I would rate it at a 3 or less.
For a book with the supposed intention of converting religious people to be atheists, I find it lacking. It may be able to help some people who are already on the fence to becoming an atheist. However I think someone who is secure in their religious beliefs would either be too offended early on to actually continue reading the book, or too stubborn in their ways to even consider applying reason (as I see it) to their beliefs. It is hard to try to convince a religious person that science should be used to prove or disprove God when they believe that God is beyond science. If someone believes in spite of all reason that their book contains all that is right and true in the world then wouldn't you be better off using parts of that book as a base for you argument? Granted that is kind of hard when the book contradicts itself. They could always find a counter argument in another passage. But you do have to speak their language if you want to get through to them. It's like trying to argue with someone who speaks French when you are speaking English, it is not going to work.
I think a more noble and more productive goal would be to try to convince those who take their Holy book literally that they shouldn't trust to a book that is several thousand years old and has been translated, and changed several times over its history. Or to change the opinion of people on their stance towards religion. For instance prosecuting people who break the law because of their religious beliefs. If for instance a Muslim family moves to England and follows Sharia law, they shouldn't be allowed to break the laws of England. I'm not saying they should go back to where they came from, but they should be obeying the law of the country they are living in. Just because they believe that Sharia law trumps all other laws, doesn't make it true. Dawkins did get one thing very right in his book. We shouldn't be bending over backwards in an effort to not offend religious people. But if you are trying to change their mind, offending their beliefs is not a good place to start...
For some reason Amazon.com will not let me respond in the usual manner, so I have to add my response directly to my review:
ISSUE THE FIRST
(1) I agree that science cannot explain the supernatural. Luckily I don't believe in the supernatural. There are phenomena that science cannot currently explain. That does not mean that there is no explanation or that it somehow defies the natural laws. It just means we don't understand it yet. Much like cell phones and TV's would seem to be supernatural to primitive humans.
ISSUE THE SECOND
(1) I would disagree that the statement is an A Dicto Simpliciter. Perhaps another qualifier would have been helpful for you, had I said "in spite of all natural reason" would that have been better for you? I find it odd to have to qualify my use of reason to mean reason that is not supernatural, for I don't think the supernatural is reasonable at all. However I wonder why you object to this sentence at all as I'm suggesting that in order to debate the existence of God with a Christan (for instance) you should use the "knowledge" in their own Bible. Perhaps if they are unwilling to listen to Natural reason they will be open to listening to Supernatural reason.
(2) I find this point very odd indeed. I would think that debating a religious person using material from their own scripture would be entirely grey thinking. I am also confused on your use of "unsubstantiated" and "negative stereotyping" as it is a qualified statement. I said "IF someone believes in spite of all reason", not "ALL religious people believe in spite of all reason".
ISSUE THE THIRD
(1) Not really sure why this is even the third issue and not a continuation of the second considering it is the next two sentences in the same paragraph that you are discussing as well as the same argument you are making. Once again you use "A Dicto Simpliciter" for "they" which I already qualified (see above). If "they" had been referring to all religious people or all Christians or the like, you might have had ground to stand on. I believe you do not understand the concept, you couldn't (and yet you did) even accuse me of generalizing here, let alone a sweeping generalization. I am also confused you your use of "Atheist rhetoric", its like you think its a cult or a religious group or something. This is the first book on the subject I have ever read, I'm not part of some group. In fact "These sentences are rather typical of common Atheist rhetoric" might actually be an A Dicto Simpliciter. Perhaps by atheist rhetoric you actually just mean common sense, or reason.
CONCLUSION
Of course its not an objective review, its a subjective review, in fact that is what pretty much all the reviews on amazon.com are... This is not a scientific journal we are talking about here. This is a bunch of people giving their opinions on the books that they have read. It's not a discussion, its not a debate, or at least it shouldn't be. But if you are going to make up a bunch of lies about what someone has posted in their review, I guess it will end up being a debate. Yes I do presume to offer my personal testimony on whether or not I liked a book and why. Regardless of whether or not it is fiction. I am interested in if and why other people liked a book when I am considering purchasing it. If I wanted to make an objective review about the contents of this book, I would have peer reviewed it (assuming I was qualified to even do so).
I also find it amusing that you think that non fiction books need to be addressed philosophically. So all the diet books out there need to be discussed philosophically? But most intriguing of all is why you even bothered to critique my review in the first place. You spent your entire time critiquing paragraph 3 which started "For a book with the supposed intention of converting religious people to be atheists, I find it lacking." From your writing I would guess that you are religious, possibly even studying theology. Are you worried that because I said the book was ineffective at converting people to atheism and you think that will lead to people actually reading it and getting converted? You gave no opinion on what your opinion of the book is, or whether or not you agree with it.
It seems to me that perhaps you just like to practice using your theology, or maybe its a homework assignment from school to argue with an atheist. Do you just sit here all day responding to reviews of this book? I presume that you are learning "A Dicto Simpliciter" in school right now. Did they also teach you to use lots of big words, old latin phrases and to capitalize the big words to make them stand out? I only have a high school diploma, but even I can use wikipedia and google to look up big words. However coming from a lesser education means I try not to be a sesquipedalian like yourself. (But every now and then I can't help myself)
Book Review: Cranes vs, skyhooks: latest round in an endless bout?
Summary: 3 Stars
Please read this objectively before rating its usefulness. My own beliefs are left unstated. With such a controversial topic, the danger is that the star rating gets equated with the rater's agreement of the reviewer's own stated or implied position on God's (non-)existence, not on the reviewer's assessment of Dawkins' own claims for denial of God. I'm summarizing my response to Dawkins as I have hundreds of other books rated by me on Amazon, so I strive here for the same fairness I try to give any author.
After reviewing Christopher Hitchens' "god Is Not Great," Sam Harris' "The End of Faith," and Daniel Dennett's "Breaking the Spell," I now come to the fourth in recently amplified rationalizations that both attack religious credulity and assert scientific inquiry. As a scientist, Dawkins shares with Dennett an ease in explaining laboratory findings. As one tending towards social impacts, Dawkins connects with Harris, whom he often cites. As a popularizer of intellectual currents, Dawkins addresses the same audience as Hitchens. I've found all four books fascinating, and all four have caused me to think harder about my own beliefs; all four also contain flaws in their perhaps inevitably sweeping claims that may not prove major, but nonetheless need to also be addressed respectfully.
I anticipate many who criticize Dawkins may need reminding of his early caution, twice repeated: "I am not attacking the particular qualities of Yahweh, or Jesus, or Allah, or any other specific god such as Baal, Zeus,or Wotan." (31) He counters the "God Hypothesis" of a "superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us," with an "alternative view: any creative intelligence, of sufficient complexity to design anything, comes into existence only as the end product of an extended process of gradual evolution." Creative intelligences come later into the process and cannot have designed it, therefore our attribution to a Prime Mover or Uncaused Cause is incorrect, and so that's the title of his book. He reiterates: "I am not attacking any particular version of God or gods. I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural. wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented." (36)
Dawkins employs the crane, i.e., a process of gradual construction that allows more complex construction from the ground up, rather than a skyhook, i.e., a "deus ex machina" (surprisingly he does not use this phrase) that intervenes in the plans from the opposite direction, and lacks an empirical foundation traceable in the geological and genetic and biological records. Despite his credentials, he does seem to fudge Fred Hoyle's Boeing 747 argument as he does Anselm's ontological proof and Thomistic proofs, causing me to suspect he's stronger in science than philosophy; yet even with his insistent separation of chance from Darwin's theory, I felt as if Dawkins labored to explain this clearly. After he insists that this process is not by chance or by random unplanned happenstance, but by an immensely meticulous and attenuated internal mechanism of advancing by what benefits an organism in its survival, Dawkins enters the territory that Harris, Hitchens, and Dennett have also explored. Religious dictates to truth are undermined by claims using logic, improbability, and lack of external proof. If humans (see Dennett) have an inbred attraction to religion, it's like a moth to a flame-- the insect's been engineered to guide itself by the moon, and has not evolved past the stage of discerning and avoiding artificial light as its beacon.
Here, although compared to a radio interview I heard with him he devotes only a fraction of what I would have expected to this topic, Dawkins adds his own emphasis to the atheists' resurgence. I was peeved by his donnish dismissal of theology itself as a respectable endeavor. This may be logically true by his theorem, but it reeks of Oxonian snobbery. He denies that religious faith should be accorded any automatic respect per se. "The teachings of 'moderate' religion, though not extremist in themselves, are an open invitation to extremism." (306) That is, any appeal by moderate religious adherents cannot be justified anymore than the extremist interpretations, for both ultimately rest on non-demonstrable standards lacking objective verification.
Finally, as with his non-believing colleagues, Dawkins proposes an ambitious counter-attack. Young people, he warns, should not be subjected to beliefs by indoctrination; he agrees with Hitchens that such upbringing amounts to brainwashing. And, as with Harris' urging that if parents simply told the truth to their children, that religion would cease, Dawkins may appear quixotic in such an appeal to reason given our global diversity and immense differences in upbringing. As with Hitchens, Dawkins seeks the long-term vision of humanist nobility, and a sense of our own fragile bursts of life within a universe that on its own terms has plenty to chill, dazzle, and fascinate us.
A few of his points in this predictably ambitious book needed sharper focus. For example, Stephen Unwin's Bayesian argument for God's existence is converted by Dawkins into six points, but Dawkins glosses over them in his criticism. On language drift being probable "by the cultural equivalent of random genetic drift," Dawkins fails to give sufficient explanation. (189) I'd consult Guy Deutscher's "The Unfolding of Language" (reviewed by me) for an up-to-date elaboration.
Dawkins later leaps into the Stalin/ Hitler atheist debate getting tangled in Adolf's profession of such, striving to uphold his main point: "Individual atheists may do evil things but they don't do evil things in the name of atheism." (279) Stalin's "dogmatic and doctrinaire Marxism," however, did encourage mass destruction of cultural patrimony and attacks on religious confessionalists, so I became confused at too hubristic a simplification. In less brutal versions, the clash of secular and religious still causes terror, according to Dawkins. Yet, criticizing the right of the Amish to raise children in "their own" way, Dawkins does not raise the "rumspringa" option, featured as the title of a recent documentary, that allows young Amish a chance to sample the delights of the world outside before they decide to return to their traditions and continue them. Dawkins overlooks this rather sensible "Plan B" when it would have strengthened his argument, if unintentionally, that religiously raised children should be given a chance to question their faith and not be treated as if dissent is never an option.
Inconsistency in the documented nature of Dawkins' enormously complex assemblage of disparate sources deserves mention. While he introduces his quotations, he unevenly cites them in the endnotes. Furthermore, most chapters have but a few numbered references; not all of the texts he uses can be traced to the bibliography. For a controversial book like this, whose references by challengers and defenders will be hunted down, it's important that the same standards of scholarly reference be applied to every quote, summary, or paraphrase in conventional academic form.
When I finished and reviewed Hitchens' (livelier if more pugilistic; however, Dawkins baits the Templeton Foundation very annoyingly too) book a couple of weeks ago, I wondered what would replace the comforts of faith. For Dawkins, the "humanitarian challenge" must replace God. Even if our well-being depended on a belief in God, Dawkins rejects the truth of such a belief. Without independent criteria, it's next to impossible given the physical evidence that a Creator designed the universe. Dawkins here paraphrases Dennett's distinction between belief in God and belief in belief. Dawkins finds that while atheists may well despair, they appear to do so neither more nor less so statistically than their fellow believers. He also asserts non-believers and believers do not differ in basic morality; he favors, naturally, atheists here.
He ends his intermittently engrossing, yet ultimately scattered study with an analogy to "the mother of all burkas," asking us to imagine the tiny slit from which we see the world through our electromagnetic spectrum. This vast scale of improbabilities that allows us to live at this moment may be statistically nearly impossible to understand, but Dawkins inexorably insists that this is the only evidence we have.
Book Review: Five for Science, Three for Humanities, Four on Balance
Summary: 4 Stars
I have seen this argument so many times over the past 40 years; it's as if each new generation has to condemn God to find its own soul. I myself wrote a poem in college once, "Our Father, who art in hell...." You can imagine the sophomoric rest.
There are so many other reviews, I want to use this space to highlight three ideas, point to one posted image, and link to several books that demonstrate that Mike Huckabee has it exactly right: we need God (not the high priests that steal our money to live lavishly) as a foundation for the community of man, as an absolute measure of our morality.
Idea #1: God is or should be a moral standard. Fundamentalists of any stripe that claim to be the sole religion, calling all others unbelievers or heathen or worse, are nothing more than a cult.
Idea #2: Religions are bad in so far as they incite hatred toward others or enrich a few at enormous cost to the many. We do not need intermediaries nor do we need interpreters. God loves us all (including Adolph Hitler and Dick Cheney) and God's love is immutable. We are what we are, and within God's love, we must simply strive to be better, longer.
Idea #3: Engineers and scientists have a very hard time understanding any constructive role for religion. E. O. Wilson has answered the question, "why do the sciences need the humanities," and I will sum it up in one word: Humanitas. There is a spiritual, artistic, ethical, quantum aspect to life that is often best explained through either myths or conventions.
Here are ten books that have informed my appreciation for God, whom I found again, very strongly in my life, six months ago, when everything started going in the direction that I had been struggling to achieve for twenty years, not for myself, but for my children and the future of life.
01 The Complete Conversations with God (Boxed Set) The Bible is useful as a point of departure. It is not a substitute for being right with God, direct.
02 The Lessons of History Morality is a strategic asset of incalculable proportions (a Nobel Prize was awarded in the 1990's to a man who proved that trust lowers the cost of doing business).
03 The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right Rabbi Lerner's book touched me deeply. God is code for compassion, for doing the right thing, for avoiding partisan and fanatic differentiation.
04 God's Politics LP Buy this used, I hope it is reprinted. Religion is like a gun--it is the person who chooses between an exclusive "true believer" role that is hateful, or an inclusive compassion that is respectful of all. I end my review saying he has my vote for Chaplain to the Nation.
05 Faith-Based Diplomacy: Trumping Realpolitik The author is a Navy Captain (O-6) Retired, I know him, and he taught me that faith is a tangible value that can be demonstrated in a peaceful respectful manner, and doing so yields enormous dividends when negotiating or interacting with those whose faith is strong but different.
06 Thank God for Evolution!: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World This is a joyous and worthy celebration of how to deconflict religion and science.
07 Dogs of God: Columbus, the Inquisition, and the Defeat of the Moors I am often shocked by how little the average American knows of history, to include our genocide of the Native Americans, the Puritan exorcism of women as witches, the Catholic Church's inquisition, the crusades, and their all too eager collaboration with the Nazis in administering the Holocaust. This book is as good as any for reflection in that direction.
08 The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History Howard Bloom is a friend, and also the author of Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century. I learned from the latter book that a human brain "locks down" by the age of 30 or so, and whatever good or evil thoughts have been introduced to that mind, are there to stay. He anticipated the Sunni Shi'ite wars (Iran, which is Persian, and the Iraqi Shi'ites, are terrified because they are surrounded by extremist Sunnis led by Saudi Arabia which the US is stupidly arming, and Pakistan, which has the SUNNI bomb, as well as Egypt and Syria, two of the bloodier dictatorships in that region: remember, CIA put the Shah into power, overturning a democratic election in Iran. See also my review of Web of Deceit.
09 Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror There are so many other books I could recommend, but Amazon limits us to ten. See also Looming Tower, The Fifty Year Wound, Sorrow's of Empire, and Wilson's Ghost as well as the DVD Why We Fight. The bottom line is that the US Government and its secret intelligence agencies (I've done it all across that world) are inherently pro-dictator (see Ambassador Mark Palmer's Breaking The Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025. There are 44 dictators remaining, 42 of them are best friends with Bush-Cheney, and of the remaining two, North Korea and Cuba, both are benign in my view, and Cuba has a great deal to teach us about sustainable agriculture, full employment, and free public health care. I have no patience for demagogues, and pray for the day when we can restore the Constitution, the Republic, We the People as sovereign, and Thomas Jefferson's original vision of commerce and peace.
10 American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America is the top book on the evil that is represented by cult-like fundamentalist movements whose preachers can be (not all) hypocritical miscreants who favor homosexuals and drugs when traveling at our expense. American Theocracy and Tempting Faith also fall into this last category, useful for understanding where religion went wrong.
America is in a desperate condition right now because We the People forgot that democracy requires our constant tending--a Republic, if you can keep it. When we allowed the Democratic and Republican parties to disenfranchise the League of Women Voters so they could shut out third, fourth, and fifth parties; when we allowed the FBI to ignore Steve Emerson's PBS special in 1994 on imams on US territory calling for the murder of Americans and the overthrow of the secular government; when we allowed Jeb Bush to disenfranchise 35,000 to 50,000 people of color in Florida, with a brilliant exposure THREE MONTHS BEFORE THE ELECTION, and Al Gore chose to "go along" with this "reasonable dishonesty" so as to reap wealth and celebrity (rather than being shunned for spoiling the party), We the People gave up our Republic.
The image I am loading says it all. That is where a number of us are headed, and we carry God with us in mind and heart and spirit. Most churches and non-profits are nothing more than scams to separate the sheep from their money. Free men, real men, *are* God to the extent that they respect the brotherhood of man, follow the Golden Rule, and respect the Ten Commandments, which are the most helpful guide possible for life in a complex society.
A note on Mike Huckabee: he represents faith in a good way, not the evil way that Cheney harnessed and then dismissed. Mike Huckabee has a vision for a return to a Christian, family-oriented Republic. I share that vision.
Book Review: Evangelical Atheism and its Champion
Summary: 2 Stars
A quick perusal of the above reviews will tell you one thing: people read this book with preconceived notions and then repeat their predefined reaction after reading this book, with few exceptions. The persons that had already read and enjoyed works by Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens will again find validation in this book. The persons that had read them (or not read them as it the more likely case) and found them offensive, will again find someone to vilify. Therefore, I feel it necessary to validate my precontrived notions prior to giving my thoughts on the book.
I believe in God, though I am far from religious. I am politically very liberal and I live in the Deep South, which does not lend well to finding a friendly church. I have actually been asked to leave one over my beliefs, and chosen to leave another following multiple disagreements with the church. My relationship with organized religion is cool at best and mildly hostile at worst. Nevertheless, I have read the Bible in full, and count C.S. Lewis amongst my favorite authors of all time, and approach my religious beliefs with a much more open mind than do many of my Christian contemporaries. Other than my political affiliation, I have found equal hostility toward my beliefs regarding Evolution. I had read Dr. Dawkins elegant work "The Selfish Gene" early in my college career and absolutely loved it. I have since taken many higher level courses in Evolutionary Biology and read several other books on the subject by men like Sean B. Carrol and John Coyne. As a future physician with a strong interest in Infectious Diseases, I consider myself an ardent and active defender of Evolution. All of that said, I think I may be as near to objective in my approach to this book as is possible. However, I know that I can never be fully objective and so, as you read this review, take it with a grain of salt.
I alluded to the works of Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens above ("Letter to a Christian Nation" and "God is Not Great"), and in "The God Delusion" one is to find more of the same ascerbic and condescending approach to the subject of religion. In both of the above books and the one treated here, one word comes to my mind throughout the readings: disdain. In chapter after chapter, Dr. Dawkins discusses each aspect of religion in a tone that drips of sarcasm and the sort of intellectual snobbery made so famous by such pundits as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Dr. Dawkins dismisses everything about religion out of hand. On multiple occasions, he insists that the vast majority of the scientific community are either devoted atheists or uninterested agnostics. He then asserts that even the religiuos must either be putting up a front, or in their belief, are forfeit of any credibility in the intellectual commmunity. After two or three chapters of this sort of attitude, it begins to wear on this particular reader.
Granted, I can understand the reaction in the New Atheist movement (or Evangelical Atheism as I have called it in the past). For a millenia, scientific progress has been staunched again and again by the meddlings of power hungry clergy and close minded reactionaries. Even today, adherents to Evolution, The Big Bang, and other such "contentious" subjects are treated with disdain and hostility on a daily basis and given the sort of media legitimacy that the Anti-Vaccine and Climate Change deniers enjoy. In all cases, the scientific proof is undeniable and has no legitimate detractors in the scientific data, and yet they all receive enough media attention to produce a distinct division in the popular arena. As a person that has grown up in the Deep South, the haven of Evangelical Christian movements and the most conservative of the conservative, I have seen and been a subject of such derision. It is not a good feeling. And yet, in these New Atheists, we see Newton's Law proven. The reaction from this crowd is just as equal in nasty language, open disdain, and unprovoked animosity as their detractors in the very religious and the very conservative. The only difference is that the New Atheists enjoy the cloak of Intellectual Superiority, which they flaunt quite openly (as very evident in many of the above reviews).
Despite my negative perception thanks to his tone and open disregard for any opposing views, Dr. Dawkins is a much more informed and eloquent defender of Atheism (and Evolution before his new favorite cause). In many of the New Atheist works I have read, and in Sam Harris' "A Letter to a Christian Nation," evolution is used as a major plank in the proof against a God. However, in these works, men like Harris are paraphrasing the real scientists like Dawkins without ever gaining a full grasp of the subject. A favorite passage of mine in "A Letter to a Christian Nation," Harris notes that the existence of over 200, 000 species of beatles should be proof enough that there isn't a God. There is no qualifier or further explanation, and it speaks volumes to his poor understanding of the subject. Dr. Dawkins, however, is an enormous mind in the Evolution arena and treats the subject with the proper understanding. Though his disdainful tone remains, he does do service to his cause in clearing up some muddled facts and borrowed figures. He also makes the point to tackle the idea of humans as a special creation by citing the droves of new planets being found throughout our universe. As an evolutionist, I certainly understand his disregard of the Creationist insistence that the lack of a discovery of life outside of Earth is proof that there isn't life out there. Again and again, the Creationist insistence that the lack of intermediate species in the fossil record was proof that there was not one, were over time debunked with the discovery of more and more fossils bearing the overplayed "Missing Link" label. Dr. Dawkins, I repeat, does an amazing job of completely and thoroughly laying down his evidence in this book.ut
One thing that I was excited to read was his more complete treatment of genocide and religious persecution. Almost without fail, the New Atheists will hold up Witch Burnings, the persecution of women in Muslim states, and outright war as many of the gifts of religion. In the next breath, they will usually devalue the work of many of the benevolant missionaries that feed the poor, heal the sick, and build lasting change in the third world based on some of their questionable practices. Some of these practices include the assent to wholesale destruction of communities for the military complex as in the early colonization of the Americas, the refusal to encourage condom use in AIDS ravaged Africa, the sometimes not so veiled trading of care for a conversion, and the perpetuation of female persectution. I have a difficult time completely writing off good works for a few backward ways, but Dr. Dawkins presents his point quite thoroughly. Then Dr. Dawkins takes on the subject of Atheistic Communist states. Until I read this book, I had never seen any of the New Atheists give this subject any opinion. However, Dr. Dawkins almost simply brushes it aside. When confronted with the reality of the genocide committed by communist states that were openly Atheistic and hostile to religious figures in their midst, he writes the activities off as a further extension of religion in the form of Nationalism. I certainly think that this treatment is more than a stretch, and I would have liked to have had a bit more time spent in this subject.
My advice for anyone looking at this book would be to read it if you already count yourself a non-believer or a doubter. You will find in this book a much more thorough and intellectually standardized treatment of the subject. If, however, that you consider yourself a believer, this book will be a very hard swallow for you with almost no benefit. In the end, this book felt almost like the equivilent of being lectured by a Bible thumping, Pentacostal, fire breathing reverend in the reverse. I fear that Dr. Dawkins' association and wholesale engagement in the New Atheist cause will forever color his further work in Evolution. I can only hope that he can put this mantle down long enough to further contribute to his already stellar work in the field of Evolutionary Bilogy.