Customer Reviews

Beginning Apologetics 4: How to Answer Atheists and New Agers

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This does a decent job of what it sets out to do. It gives a quick overview of some (Catholic) Christian arguments against other ideologies.

It is geared toward helping an uneducated believer to start to gain some understanding of some of the defenses of their faith.

As the atheist reviewer stated, this book will not make much difference to someone with a deep knowledge and/or investment in disbelief, but it might be enough to sway a more everyday half-hearted skeptic. But these are the people that Christians are more likely to help see the light anyway.

People who are strongly committed to a certain belief system (or disbelief system) usually need to experience some kind of trauma to shake up their view of the world.

That said, this does lack depth. I am unsure whether this is the writer's fault, or if is just because of the constraints made by the book's short length.

I did not find the arguments in this little book to be much use to me, although perhaps others will. There is not enough information on any of the topics to really substantiate the points that the authors make. In fact, I think that if someone tried to use this book as a primary tool in a conversation with an intelligent and well-educated New Ager or atheist, he would be pretty much shredded. On the other hand, the type size was nice and big.

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"Beginning Apologetics" appears rather like a kind of workbook. It is a brief outline of essential knowledge.

This is one of a series of books published as the "San Juan Catholic Seminars" and I have found that it sames me reading many volumes by reducing its philosophical and theological subjects to an outline.

It rather follows a chronological outline of the history of thought, and in that regard, I was happy to discover a simple outline of the ideas of Thomas Aquinas in the early pages. It is designed to provide arguments against Atheism, which is what the first half of the book is all about. The second half of the workbook is designed to address the subject of New Age ideas.

This is some of the most useful information I have ever found. Not only is it useful for my Christian understanding, it is useful knowledge for writing book reviews, and for engaging in active commentary on book reviews also.



For its price, this book just cannot be beat.


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A friend of mine gave me this book when he found out I was an atheist. The book may give "warm fuzzies" to already established christians, but if a christian thinks he can use the arguments presented in this book against an educated atheist then he's wrong. The book is poorly written and seems to bounce around without giving any definitive proof of anything. As an atheist, I've read much better books defending the faith.

It is interesting to read the non-believers reviews of this item. What do they have to offer? Nothing but death and despair.
Greater minds than their's (e.g. Pascal, Eckhart, Augustine, Socrates, Aristotle) have reached different conclusions and what is their reasoned argument? There is none. They just want to do as they wish with no judgement, that is the story, that is liberalism. Hey, if you are happy to be a nihilist, be Satan's guest.