The Irrational Atheist: Dissecting the Unholy Trinity of Dawkins, Harris, And Hitchens [Hardcover]

Vox Day (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 11, 2008

A perceptive examination of modern day atheism, this book challenges the argument that religion and reason are fundamentally at odds—a contention made by three prominent scholars on atheism: Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris. While other religious apologetics have challenged atheism on theological or biblical grounds, this book fights fire with fire, disproving the scholars' logic through modern, secular reason. Rigorously documented and supported by hard factual data, this careful analysis is critical reading for any religious person seeking to rebut the assertions of new atheists and essential information for any open-minded atheist who wants his beliefs to stand on firm ground.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Day does us all a service by exposing as false some of the glib slogans of atheism."  —Todd Seavey, American Council on Science and Health

"Good polemical stuff."  —nationalreview.com

"Whether you embrace Day’s theology or toss it, there is no avoiding the cumulative force of the author's counter assaults or the sting of his wit when it comes to the true focus of the book—atheism’s continuing love affair with nonsense."  —First Things

About the Author

Vox Day is a writer, columnist, software designer and the author of Rebel Moon,

The World in Shadow, and The War in Heaven: Eternal Warriors Book 1. He is the CEO of a technology corporation, writes a popular weekly political column, and maintains an active blog, Vox Popoli, which has 2,500 daily readers.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 305 pages
• Publisher: BenBella Books; 1ST edition (March 11, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933771364
• ISBN-13: 978-1933771366
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (75 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #465,962 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

97 of 119 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining, interesting and slightly bizarre, May 1, 2008

By 

M. D. Colebourne "Blackblade" (UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Irrational Atheist: Dissecting the Unholy Trinity of Dawkins, Harris, And Hitchens (Hardcover)

Despite approaching this from the perspective of a (weak) atheist who has admired Dawkins greatly over the years I enjoyed this book. Anyone who doesn't want to slip into the comfy zone of only ever debating and discussing with people who concur might disagree but, personally, I think that knowing your opponent is preferable. And, when your opponent manages to strike some good blows AND entertain you into the bargain it has to be a good outcome.

Vox Day has, in general, steered clear of cant and, instead, directly addressed the facts and assertions employed by Harris, Dawkins and Dennett and it is here that, for me at least, the book had the most value. Vox has done his research and lucidly sets out his facts. I think that there are clearly flaws in some of the argumentation, as has been pointed out in other reviews, with a-priori assumption of that to be proved being the most common complaint. However, it's entertaining if you like the mental exercise.

Having said that, I would love to have a book from Vox that addresses the fundamentals; my view is that the impact of a fact, for good or ill, has no bearing whatsoever on its veracity. One can argue that atheism or theism leads to better or worse outcomes but it is fundamentally irrelevant to the argument. Ultimately, there is or there is not a God - period.

Therefore it is entirely pointless for either side to argue for or against the existence of God on the basis of whether that means people behave better, do or do not persecute other races or any other consequence; benign or malign. The consequences are our problem.

In fact, I would love to have books from both sides that directly address the fundamentals rather than long treatises on who behaves better, produces better laws etc etc.

However, given that this book does exactly what it sets out to do (attack Dawkins, Dennett and Harris and try to rebut some of their assertions), does it humerously and does it intelligently I would recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone interested in the debate.

67 of 84 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The Irrational...Theist?, February 16, 2011

By 

PrimeTruth - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Irrational Atheist: Dissecting the Unholy Trinity of Dawkins, Harris, And Hitchens (Hardcover)

When I received my copy of The Irrational Atheist I wasn't sure what to expect. While doing research on the internet for opinions about the book I basically found two kinds of reviews: the glowing, `Vox demolishes the New Atheists' review and the `don't bother reading this, the book is full of strawmen and logical fallacies' review. Because the negative reviews almost never gave any examples of the strawmen and fallacies used I began to wonder if perhaps these negative reviews were written by people who just didn't like the book and didn't read it all the way through, so gave it a one-star review anyway to spite the author.

Well, after reading the book myself (cover to cover by the way), I found that the negative reviews were spot on. There are so many problems with the book I think I will begin with what I agreed with the author about because Vox did manage to point out a few major problems with the New Atheists' books. For example, he refuted Richard Dawkins' Boeing 747 argument against god and as far as I could tell showed that Sam Harris' Red State/Blue State argument was not only a poor guide for discerning the morality of individuals, but that it actually showed the opposite of what Harris intended.

Vox was also successful in pointing out the great historical errors that many atheists make: the common mistaken belief that religion is the number one cause of war and that religion has always battled against scientific progress. Now, note that I said the error that many atheists make, and not the New Atheists. This is because the New Atheists have never made these two statements in their books while many "internet atheists" have. So, while Vox wasted an entire chapter and part of another one erecting a strawman against the New Atheists, he did refute those atheists who do make such claims.

Now for the bad...

A lot of reviewers make a lot of ballyhoo about Day's use of FBI data to refute the idea that religion causes a lot of problems in society, but Day actually cherry-picked the data if you look at the 2005 hate crime statistics he used. The fact is that the data flatly refutes Day's claim that religion doesn't cause that much conflict. The fact is that religion is actually the second - yes, read that again, the SECOND - leading cause of hate crimes, in 2003, 2005 and 2006 (those were the only years I checked). Why did Vox's data show the opposite? Well, Day only looked at the figures for murders caused by religious hate crime, not violence and threats of violence. I'm reminded of the book "How to Lie with Statistics" right about now...

When you get to the chapters on the individual atheists, this is the heart of the book that I'd heard was fantastic, but again what I found were several cases of strawmen, Vox taking the New Atheists out of context, and counter-arguments that just did not stand up to the facts when I looked into them.

Take for example the following quote by Vox in the chapter about Daniel Dennett,

"The most interesting thing about Breaking the Spell is not the way it differs from the other three atheists' cases against religion, but the way it specifically refutes them. After Harris does his excellent Chicken Little imitation by clucking about how religion is going to end life on the planet at any moment, Hitchens metaphorically calls the poison control center on it, and Dawkins slanderously asserts that it is worse than child molestation, it comes as a bit of a shock to read Dennett's calm declaration that the secular proposition that religion does more harm than good, to an individual or to society, `has hardly begun to be properly tested,' let alone conclusively proved."

When I read this passage I first believed Dennett was referring to whether or not religious belief was potentially dangerous. After looking up the quote myself it seems that the way Vox presents this partial quote is misleading. Dennett says,

"Even the secular and nonpartisan proposition that religion in general does more good than harm, either to the individual believer or to society as a whole, has hardly begun to be properly tested, as we saw in chapters 9 and 10."

I read both chapters nine and ten to see what Dennett was referring to and it wasn't religious violence or how dangerous religion is. In chapter nine Dennett talks about the studies that show religion seems to improve health and notes that it's not known for sure either way yet. In chapter ten Dennett discusses the subject of morality and religion and concludes that the "presumed relation between spirituality and moral goodness is an illusion."

Vox clearly took Dennett out of context because it wasn't the dangerous consequences of religion Dennett was referring to, but health and morality, which Dennett agrees with the New Atheists in that religion often causes people to act in violent ways.

In the chapter titled "The Red Hand of Atheism" Vox makes use of the old Communists-killed-a-bunch-more-people-so-atheism-is-worse-than-Christianity canard. Here, his entire premise is based upon the fallacy cum hoc ergo propter hoc. He fails to show how atheism was the cause of the Communist atrocities in any way and ignores the fact that it was the Communist ideology, not atheism, which is why I was shocked to find this statement in the chapter,

"The reason Communism has so habitually devolved into violence is because it is an impressively stupid vision that violates both basic human nature in the form of the individual's desire for material betterment as well as the economic law of supply and demand. Its early institution was such a disaster that Lenin was quickly forced to revise some of his more dysfunctional policies, but he was the first in a long, lethal line of Communist leaders who made a practice of always attempting to force their populations to fit the Communist mold instead of adjusting the utopian vision to fit humanity."

Exactly! And when people do not want their property seized the Communists take it by force and further oppression takes place. The answer is right under Vox's nose the entire time, but again, his goal is not historical truth but Christian propaganda.

One of the more surprising things I learned is how badly the chapter on Sam Harris was argued. Based upon the hype I'd read in reviews and Vox's bold and confidant (or perhaps more accurately overconfident) chapter title, "The End of Sam Harris," I was expecting some major butt-kicking. Unfortunately, this alleged butt-kicking never came. While I agree that Vox pointed out Harris' error with the Red/Blue State argument as I pointed out before, he also pointed out that, unlike as Harris seems to imply, most suicide bombers are not Muslim. He also points out the fact that, unlike what Harris argues, the wars of religion have not caused "millions of deaths in the last ten years." Vox gave a high estimate of around 750,000. While Harris was wrong about the total number dead Harris' point is still valid in that many needless deaths have occurred due to beliefs that are no more real than that of Santa Clause. Roughly half a million deaths have occurred due to religious wars in the ten years prior to the publication of The End of Faith.

Out of the fifteen arguments Vox presented against Harris in that chapter only three were valid. The other twelve were either Vox taking Harris out of context or he misread Harris.

The other chapters follow much the same pattern as the one about Harris, with strawmen, quotes taken out of context, and mostly what I call nitpicking; the focusing on statements and arguments that are minor and not central to a book's main premise. Take, for example, this enormous case of nitpicking by Vox in the chapter on Richard Dawkins. Vox writes,

"In Unweaving the Rainbow, Dawkins writes: 'By more general implication, science is poetry's killjoy, dry and cold, cheerless, overbearing and lacking in everything that a young Romantic might desire. To proclaim the opposite is one purpose of this book, and I shall here limit myself to the untestable speculation that Keats, like Yeats, might have been an even better poet if he had gone to science for some of his inspiration.'

Of course, this speculation is as improbable as it is untestable, given the centuries of evidence demonstrating that science is largely incapable of providing the inspiration for passable poetry, much less the sort of great art that religion has reliably inspired for millennia."

Vox spends several pages arguing against this unimportant opinion of Dawkins'! Who cares!? It was merely Dawkins' opinion and he even admitted as much!

I could go on and on with many more issues with Day's book but, ultimately, while he pointed out a handful of errors with the New Atheists' books, Vox mostly misses when he aims and doesn't pay enough attention to the main arguments of the New Atheists, choosing instead to nitpick their books to death, leaving most of their main arguments untouched.

Before I close out this review I'd like to make a plea to anyone who may read The Irrational Atheist and later decide to write a review for the book. Please, please, please check Vox's references for yourself! With so many reviewers singing praises for this book and going on about how well researched it was, check out Vox's so-called facts for yourself because more often than not he is wrong. Don't take Vox's word - or anyone's for that matter - and check the facts and the author's sources yourself.

I honestly cannot recommend this book since the arguments are more often than not poor and the personal attacks are uncalled for. I know the theists seem to believe that the New Atheists should be fair game after their ridicule of theists in their books but the difference is that the New Atheists only ridiculed religious beliefs and some Christians' lapses in reasoning. They did not get personal like Vox did and that really subtracts from the book I think.

307 of 453 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A users guide to logical fallacies., February 4, 2008

By 

Brian E (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Irrational Atheist: Dissecting the Unholy Trinity of Dawkins, Harris, And Hitchens (Hardcover)

I only managed to read the first 3 chapters of this book. Vox Day employs so many logical fallacies and so much dishonest rhetoric that it's a difficult read.

The author employs ad-hominems against all atheists (atheists are parasites), but reserves especial vitriol against Dawkins (an old grump with asperger's), Hitchens (a drunk), and Harris (an extasy-popper who hasn't finished his Ph.D). This is a good example of going the man, not the argument. By painting all atheists, wrongly, as bad, he hopes he doesn't have to present any argumentation against the atheist position (that there are no gods).

Day also misrepsents the positions the popular atheist authors. He creates straw-men arguments that he can knock down. According to Vox, Dawkins says Vox telling his children that God loves them is worse than child abuse. This a lie. Dawkins has said no such thing as a reading of the God delusion will attest. Vox pretends that Sam Harris would think it ethical to kill him. This is also a lie. That is not Harris' position either. Vox goes on in this vein for quite a while that it's obvious that his claims to truth and fact have been long abandoned.

He attacks science for the way people have used scientific discoveries and attacks scientists for having made these discoveries. This, of course, is the genetic fallacy. The fallacy here, that by attacking the origin of argument, he can avoid making a case to support his point of view.

Vox attacks the enlightenment and science as bringers of violence and intolerance. But he misrepresents both. The Enlightenment wasn't French peasants out to get revenge on the French aristocracy nor Nazis using ancient Christian bigotry to exterminate Jews and science doesn't lead to good or bad acts. It's a method that allows us to better understand the world. What people choose to do with the results of science is a political issue. One that is very pertinent to the case Dawkins, et al make against religious dogma and its influence on our societies.

He redefines science to suit his purposes. He presumes to know more than people who really do know what they're talking about. There are many more problems with only this small sample of the book that I would not recommend the reading any of it.

Perhaps the best that can be said for this book is that it may help students understand better abuses of truth, philosophy and argumentation.