An Intelligent Person's Guide to Atheism [Paperback]

Daniel Harbour (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2004

The debate about atheism has, without doubt, stalled since the time of Bertrand Russell. In this incisive book, Daniel Harbour returns to its core issues - the existence of God, the values of faith, the role of religion in society - and casts them in an entirely new light. The real question, he argues, is how we should consider our urge to understand the world. Only then can we ask ourselves whether atheism or theism forms part of a coherent worldview. This new debate between atheism and theism forces us into an investigation of philosophy, science, history, ethics, and aesthetics, and a desire for intellectual integrity and commitment to truth. It is very far removed from the usual listing of the errors of theism. Nor can atheism be equated with denialism. It holds real and practical implications for the place of religion and the obligations of atheists in our society.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Daniel Harbour is an intellectual steam-roller, combing wide erudition with a razor-sharp mind... Whatever your take on the question of God, this book will challenge and engage you.' Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

About the Author

Daniel Harbour is a gifted Ph.D. student of Noam Chomsky’s at MIT.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Duckworth Publishers (July 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0715632299
• ISBN-13: 978-0715632291
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,348,922 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful, intelligent and convincing study, January 3, 2002

By 

Peter Jennings (Canberra, A.C.T. Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Intelligent Person's Guide to Atheism (Intelligent Person's Guides) (Intelligent Person's Guides) (Hardcover)

This is a thoughtful, well argued book, which approaches a timeless subject from a different angle. Rather than seeking to prove or disprove Old Testament claims, Daniel Harbour argues that theists and atheists have diametrically opposed ways of looking at and explaining the world. Atheism, he says, is a natural result of having a 'Spartan meritocratic' world view. 'Spartan' means starting with as few theories as possible to explain phenomena. 'Meritocratic' means that all theories (even our initial hypotheses) can be changed in the light of new evidence. This contrasts with a 'Baroque monarchical' world view -- 'Baroque' meaning highly elaborate explanations of phenomena (for example, various creation stories), and 'monarchical' meaning that such theories are not allowed to be changed even in light of new knowledge and better understanding.

Harbour in effect argues that a rationalist, scientific approach is the best way to determine the truth. This is an inherently more satisfying and useful way of thinking about human origins (indeed, the origin of everything) than theistic explanations which aren't subject to testing or analysis.

The book draws on a wide range of disciplines from physics and mathematics to chemistry and history as Daniel Harbour builds his case. His writing is dispassionate and convincing and he deals particularly well with the argument from design and the argument from first causes in presenting his case. There is a long and not entirely relevant section dealing with the impact of religion and democracy. Harbour argues that theism is inherently dangerous in democratic societies because successful democracies are built on Spartan and meritocratic worldviews. One doubts this will be well received in the United States! But Harbour's arguments are well worth thinking about. As rationalism increasingly becomes a universally accepted way of thinking surely that means that organised religion must be pushed further to the political margins?

The one drawback to this study is Harbour's rather laboured and mechanical writing style. Parts of the book read a bit like undergraduate essays -- but we could all wish for such intelligent undergraduates! Harbour is likely to produce much better work in the future, but this, his first book, is very well worth reading.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Atheism for the efficiency-minded, September 11, 2004

By 

M. A. Plus "Advanced Atheist" (Mayer, Arizona) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: An Intelligent Person's Guide to Atheism (Paperback)

Harbour articulates what I have long felt: That revealed religions are cluttered with arbitrary and useless beliefs and information that people could just as easily live without. (For example, why should anyone rational care about the genealogies in the Bible full of unpronounceable names, like the conflicting ones given for Jesus in the gospels of Matthew and Luke?) His distinction between "Spartan meritocratic" and "Baroque monarchic" wordviews states exactly what is wrong with the whole premise behind a "revealed" religion, since it is undeniable that one's chances of hearing about it are a function of history and geography. Children learn about Jesus (or Krishna or Muhammad, for that matter) in the same way they learn about Harry Potter, which demonstrates that there is nothing in the natural world which implies the truth of these made-up stories.

The Spartan meritocratic worldview, by contrast, leads to discoveries that in principle anyone could make just from following his own inquiries into reality. Harbour points out that a mathematician in Japan came very close to discovering a key insight of the calculus at about the same time that Newton and Liebniz were working on it in Western Europe, even though the two societies might as well have existed on different planets in the late 17th Century. So it's not surprising that people in many different parts of the world have developed philosophical outlooks that sound somewhat like modern Secular Humanism, ranging from Confucianism in ancient China and certain philosophical schools in India all the way to Hellenistic Stoic and Epicurean philosophy. Secular Humanism, unlike revealed religion, has a better claim to the title "perennial wisdom" because it is implicit in a rational study of the world.

I was especially struck by Harbour's argument that theists' best shot at deriving a god from a parsimonious and plausible set of assumptions came and went with Descartes' philosophical program in the 17th Century. Descartes' argument for a god also implied a theory of physics that just happened to be falsified by Newton's spectacularly successful alternative model. Descartes' candidate for god therefore fell by the wayside along with his physics. If theists haven't been able to come up anything better in the last 350 years or so, maybe they should take the hint and give up on the god business.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars thoughtful, enjoyable, but sidesteps the issue, October 12, 2002

By 

Marty Gardner (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: An Intelligent Person's Guide to Atheism (Intelligent Person's Guides) (Intelligent Person's Guides) (Hardcover)

Daniel Harbour doesn't actually discuss whether God exists or not. The crux of his argument is that religious beliefs are a manifestation of one's larger world view, of which he describes two models: the "Spartan Meritocracy" where things are only accepted as truth after being conclusively proven, and the "Baroque Monarchy" which assumes that received wisdom is true even in the face of contrary evidence. His discussion of these worldviews and their effects on society is very interesting.

My frustration with the book is summed up in the first paragraph:
"I shall not try to prove atheism true nor theism false. Rather, I want to show that atheism is 'superior' to theism." In the realm of science and empirical testing, a premise that can be demonstrably proven is more valuable than one that is purely theoretical. And in Harbour's view, all theories of God remain in the realm of the unproven -- "it is a fact about God that he [sic] has never proved Himself a viable cog, nut, or bolt in any theory of how the world is." This one sentence dismissal of the whole question of God's existence is the cornerstone of Harbour's entire argument -- because God's existence has not been "proven", belief in Him is merely speculative and therefore "inferior" to atheism.

I often feel that Christians make good arguments for why their beliefs are comforting, but not necessarily why they're true. In the same way, I feel that Harbour has convincingly demonstrated the "superiority" of a skeptical worldview. But this does not make it true.