Customer Reviews

Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

*This absolutely excellent work is a very precise deconstruction of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, charting the historic origins and evolution of these three closely related monotheisms.

*The original title in French is "Traite d'Atheologie", which accurately describes the contents. Here in Canada, the English translation's title is "In Defense of Atheism", which is unfortunate, the tone of the book being far from defensive (It's rather scathingly critical).

*Onfray is a very popular French philosopher, and I tremendously enjoyed his literary style: it's both flowery and ... meaty.

*The author obviously spent a tremendous amount of time pouring over the so-called "holy" texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (and other books). There are no factual errors in his work to my knowledge.

*Critics complain Onfray ignores the good side of religion. Well, he doesn't: he just dismisses it as relatively insignificant compared to its atrocious side.

*Onfray interestingly observes that even though our western societies are now secular, they are still pretty much stuck with judeo-christian values
(See for example the institution of marriage or the bioethics debates).

*I highly recommend this book, that I just finished reading today in its
original language.

An age of rational inquiry, the Enlightenment, constellated with the genius of Voltaire, Descartes, Kant, et.al. followed by an age of "suspicion" that included Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud - these two great periods gave mankind the philosophical tools to question the authority of and ultimately see the damage perpetrated by the three dominant religions. Onfray's indictment of religion is laced with sarcasm for its banner of "brotherly love". He reviews its complicity in thirty centuries of crimes and injustices. As for the authority of their holy books, they are a hodge-podge of improbabilities, fables and - an this is critical - enough contradictions and inconsistencies to justify virtually any act of violence against the non-believer.

Onfray outlines the similarities of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. He then sketches the growth of their influence. In the end Onfay offers readers a choice. On the one hand we have reason, knowledge, freedom, pride, democracy, equality of the sexes, the joy of sex, and a passion for this world. Religion offers us dogma, faith, a distrust of science, submission, theocracy, guilt, misogyny, sexual repression, and an unhealthy focus on an afterlife. Simply stated, Onfray's manifesto starts from a flat rejection of God - and an afterlife that discounts this precious life - as a fiction in the face of what is obvious - extinction.

For all the promise of secularism - its greatest victory is the separation of church and state - we are still in a religious era. Still, Onfray sees signs of turbulence that signal a tectonic shift into a transitional post-religious age. But he chides the post-Christian secularist movement for not being "militant" enough (viz. too accomodating) in its opposition to all religious thinking. Borrowing from Nietzsche, he says, and this is where he loses me - we can choose not to make a choice - in this application, between "Israel" and the goals of an Iranian revolution. His point: all the religions are equally bad. From this side of the Atlantic (Onfray's book has been translated from his native French), it appears that cracks in the Judeo-Christian religious world are coincident with the eruption of militant, political Islamic states. Pragmatism and morality suggest siding with the better of the two.

So is Onfray unfair? Is he inclined to bully his case? Not the point. This is a polemic intended to shake the rafters. The ideas rush with energy and passion (I count one sentence with over ninety words!). Open your mind and you will read this book with rapt attention.

This book is beautifully, graciously and thoughtfully written. Conceptually clear and brilliant, Monsieur Onfray advocates philosophers, instead of priests, rabbis or mullahs, be our representatives. Who are these, his philosophers? The laughers, the cynics, the radicals, the atheists, the sensualists and voluptuaries, though he rarely names names. I did find three in the course of the book: Nietzche, Gilles Deleuze, and Jeremny Bentham (particularly Bentham's work, "Deontology"). Monsieur Onfray's analysis of Christian, Judaic, and Islamic faiths, all three united under the point of view of "hatred of life" (in conjunction with suppression of sex and advocacy of violence), is quite readable, fair, and clear. Monsieur Onfray makes clear as well that Hilter was a Roman Catholic and the Catholic Church, without question, supported Nazism. Monsieur Onfray's analysis is such that Catholicism appears to be the worst evil suffered in the West thus far. However, in his discussion of the Muslim faith, he reveals how frighteningly violent it is, particularly should it get a good foothold in the West. (Shades of Sam Harris's point of view about Islam in his book "The End of Faith"!) Michael Onfray, in the last pages, speaks of the "final battle" (post-Christian experience) which, he asserts, is "already lost." He wants us to live in a de-Christianized society, but it is as if this idea is really but a dream. Social critic and author Curtis White has an important insight that Monsieur Onfray (and Sam Harris as well) might do well to consider: the Manichean conflict between atheism and religion is less significant to the future of the West than the evils that have been created in the West by state/corporate capitalism, particularly in the United States. This book is well worth the purchase price. I have no regrets. We can dream. It's a treasure.

Michel Onfray's "Atheist Manifesto" is the latest of many recent books about religion, atheism and secularism. This book is not a scientific study or an attempt to disprove the religions, but a philosophical polemic against religions (an "Atheological treatise" as the original French title would translate) and a call for a post-Christian secularism.

Onfray is an atheist but he doesn't seem to be attempting to convert anyone to atheism, and indeed, his writing style is not likely to convert believers. Instead, the book is a polemic reflection about the effects of religion and a call to reason, probably aimed mostly at fellow atheists.

An interesting chapter of the book is spent deconstructing the myth of Jesus and how Christianity came to be the world's biggest religion and how some of it's teachings (especially those of Paul) may have come to be.

Another large portion of the book explains why religion has been the monotheistic teachings have caused so much evil. It's all very true but not exactly news.

The real purpose of the book comes in the last few pages, where he returns to something he wrote about in the beginning of the book. Here he says the choice is not between western Judeo-Christian values and Muslim values, but between religion and secularism. According to Onfray, much of the current secular values have their roots in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and he calls for a post-Christian secularism with post-Christian ethics.

Onfray is obviously a very knowledgeable philosopher and he makes many good points. The book is probably aimed at atheists and philosophers. It's not a book to start with for those new to atheism or those with only a sporadic interest in ahteism or religion, but at the same time, for the already-convinced atheist, such as myself, there's really not much new to be found in this book.

The 2 last reviewers said it all. I would like to add that the book presents a very difficult topic and is very easy to read due to the clear balanced way Mr Onfray exposes his point of view. Loved this book. A must read as we go into this complex century.You don't have to be an atheist to like this book,you have to have an open mind.

This book (Atheist Manifesto, translated by Jeremy Leggatt from Michel Onfray's French) was a pleasure to read as it retained much of that foregone existentialist slant that continental philosophy (in perhaps the most famous form; Nietzsche) is known for. Onfray writes beautifully and sets the pace from the start (page 3) by stating that his "atheism leaps to life when private belief becomes a public matter, when in the name of a personal mental pathology we organize a world for others." His book proceeds in 2-3 page bursts and exudes a robust knowledge of information that one could spend a great deal of time independently researching and expanding, certainly without loss. Cheers to Onfray for another stellar book that we in the epicenter of religious lunacy are privileged enough to read.

Admittedly, this book (paperback) was purchased because the title and bookcover (features an angel lying down on what looks like tarmac the front, Onfray in black on the back, standing in what looks like a gallery, with a vacuum cleaner pipe at his feet) appeared "affected" and I thought "this should be good" wryly. Having just read Dawkins' book "The God Delusion" and found it dry, even if well-argued, one-eyed and uninspiring, this seemed to offer a completely different approach and take on the debate. A friend mentioned that perhaps Dawkins means to approach the debate stridently, as a clear strike for the opposing view. No quarter is given by Dawkins to religious belief, even to the men of cloth, such as Spong, whose intellect yet he seems to esteem. Onfray seems less enthused by that approach to the discussion it seems, and isn't inclined to vitriol.

This is an eccentric and easier read than Dawkins' text. An entirely different take on the debate on the place and impact of religion in society. In this case monotheistic religions, their history and ongoing impact. Onfray ambles, it is an intriguing amble if you can stay the distance, he takes the materialists' line, is somewhat concentrated on the monotheistic religious documentary evidence being compositions over time by various and sundry, that they are patchy documents, potentially fraudulently copied and transcribed, out of date, and contradictory in the life principles promulgated. Many of the approaches and decisions in life are, so the fact these texts are too doesn't strike as particularly revealing, or that they are held up as doctrine, and truth, well, is contradictory, he makes the case for this clear. He reaches into a discussion on common humanity (that is revealed in theism), but doesn't push it far enough. There are some insights, but, this needs articulating more coherently yet. By the end of the book some sharper points popped out, such as:

"This relativism is crushing. In its name and in the name of secularism, all discourse carries equal weight: error and truth, the false and the true, the capricious and the serious, Myth and fable, weigh as much as reason. Magic counts for as much as science. Dream for as much as reality. But all discourse does not carry the same weight: the discourse of neurosis, hysteria, and mysticism proceeds from another world than that of the positivist. We can no more tolerate neutrality and benevolence toward every conceivable form of discourse, including that of magical thinking, than we can lump together executioner and victim, good and evil."

Onfray can be terse in his criticisms of these religions, and this is one morsel. The edition read is translated into English from French, but irrespective of language, this engaging tone pervades and adds to the reading experience. To wit:

"Eve's descendents must hold their husbands in awe and refrain from teaching or from trying to control the supposedly stronger sex. Temptresses, seductresses, they may of course hope for salvation, but only in, through, and for motherhood."

The analysis of Paul (of Tarsus) is interesting:

"This comes close to a straightforward acknowledgement of the logic of compensation that held captive the hysteric who collapsed on the road to Damascus. From the starting point of his own dilapidated physique, Paul militated for a world that resembled him."

The underlying psychology and human desire for and value placed in belief needs more insight and debate, bring on more philosophers. This was a good read, Onfray has "style" and his substance touches on some kernels of thought that need wider discussion, he finishes with:

"I persist in preferring philosophers to rabbis, priests, imams, ayatollahs, and mullahs. Rather than trust their theological hocus-pocus, I prefer to draw on alternatives to the dominant philosophical historiography: the laughers, materialists, radicals, cynics, hedonists, atheists, sensualists, voluptaries."

One ponders that his dinner parties would be sumptuous and very entertaining!

This book is beautifully, graciously and thoughtfully written. Conceptually clear and brilliant, Monsieur Onfray advocates philosophers, instead of priests, rabbis or mullahs, be our representatives. Who are these, his philosophers? The laughers, the cynics, the radicals, the atheists, the sensualists and voluptuaries, he writes, though he rarely names names.

I did find three names in the course of the book: Nietszche, Gilles Deleuze, and Jeremny Bentham (particularly Bentham's work, "Deontology").

Monsieur Onfray's analysis of Christian, Judaic, and Islamic faiths, all three united under the point of view of "hatred of life" (in conjunction with suppression of sex and advocacy of violence), is quite readable, fair, and clear. (Onfray does not himself in his book use the term "hatred of life" per se as a philosophical concept(a term I borrow from Schopenhauer), but his philosophic meaning nonetheless is abundantly and perfectly clear.)

He declares unmistakeably that Hilter was a Roman Catholic and the Catholic Church, without question, supported Nazism. Monsieur Onfray's analysis is such that Catholicism appears to be the worst evil suffered in the West thus far. However, in the discussion of the Muslim faith, Monsieur Onfray reveals how frighteningly violent it is, particularly should this faith get a good foothold in the West. (Shades of Sam Harris's point of view about Islam appear with "The End of Faith" as well with a good many other writers, including Mark Steyn's "America Alone.")

Monsieur Michael Onfray, in the book's last pages, speaks of the "final battle" (post-Christian experience), an event, he asserts (sadly but pragmatically), which is "already lost." Monsieur Onfray wants us to live in a de-Christianized society, but it is, for him, as if this idea is really after all just a dream. (Social critic and author Curtis White has an important insight that Monsieur Onfray (and Sam Harris as well as Mark Steyn) might do well to consider: the Manichean conflict between atheism and religion is less significant to the future of the West than are the evils that have been created in the West by state/corporate capitalism, particularly in the United States.)

This book is well worth the purchase price. I have no regrets about the purchase or the read. Michael Onfray is French, and so the reader does find him saying in the end, at least we can dream -- of a better, clearer world, one without the bitterness of religious strife in it. The book is a treasure. It's not the last word, but it's a sanely, beautifully worded respite from the insane, international world scene.

While this is certainly an interesting read, it isn't quite was I expected. Onfray disses the three theistic religion completely, based on moral and historical arguments - and it is fun. Talking about founders of world religions as one would talk about any other person, he takes the discussion to the level it ought to be. Unfortunately, and somewhat ironically, Onfray is preaching to the choir, and even worse, he is expecting the reader to be quite the skeptic in the face of religion, while at the same time accepting his own arguments without checking the facts -there are no footnotes. There is also no bibliography or "helpful reads" section, despite a few hundred pages' worth of statements in the areas of theology, ethics, law, psychology and ancient history. In addition, while I agree with Onfray's original thesis, the narrative style is repetitive and preachy.

I had for a long time believed that god's & religions were an invention of man. This publication was a terrific aid in discovering what I needed to decide that I was a humanist, a polite label for an atheist. You too will enjoy this book if you are looking for proof of what cannot be found in any bible.