Customer Reviews

Life, Sex and Ideas: The Good Life without God

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is a collection of intellectually stimulating and thought-provoking essays from an erudite British journalist. The title is somewhat misleading. While Grayling explores religion, he looks at many other topics as well. Unlike so many contemporary American writers, Grayling does not rely on personal attacks, name-calling or scorched-earth tactics -- yet the reader always knows where he stands. I have only one complaint about this book: Grayling endorses mandatory voting in America. This indicates he's more than a little out of touch with American popular culture. Overall, however, the book is a gem. Read it when you yearn for something more than just another right-wing or left-wing screed.

This book of short essays on numerous subjects is so clear, rational, sane and well-written, I couldn't put it down in the bookstore. Then I looked it up on amazon.com and saw that it had a 2-1/2-star rating. I figured...aha! a Christian tirade must be afoot! I was correct. So I am giving it 5 stars and a standing ovation. It's a good book. Read it and weep! If only Americans would value a good classical education and the arts!

Grayling's book goes over many ideas and topics and as another reviewer suggested- it's a bit misleading. There is only one chapter on sex and other chapters are basically all controversial topics and some topics I didn't even know corresponded to religion.

Every chapter is short, straight to the point and full of interesting facts that are sometimes so bizarre I'm not sure if they are correct (so I go look them of course). The book is certainly interesting to read.

The only problem for me is the cover. It seems kind of... elitist, and while I want to read it at work, I have put a book cover on it, just because the title sounds too controversial and there's a nude woman on it as well. Completely unnecessary- and apparently fools religious people into thinking it's another snobby "God is stupid because he hates me" type of literature. And so for this problem I rate it down 1.

Highly recommended to those who want to think. Oh, that should be everybody.

Written in literary form, Life, Sex and Ideas is easily accessable for the lay reader in philosophy. If you are inclined towards adherence to an exoteric god's ethics, then this book is not for you. Says A. C. Grayling on page 228, if "there are no transcendent grounds for value [i.e., God], [then we must] therefore find them within ourselves...." This is first and foremost a humanist work. This particular Grayling work is not one of formal philosophy, as he was trained, but is aimed at reflection of life and the issues people face. He says children should be taught not by moralists advocating doctrine but should be exposed to the wonder of the self-examined life. If they are not provided with such an education, then they are being deprived of being human. Religious teaching, he says, is the equivalent to child abuse, for one has implanted the ideas of irrational and unempirical thought into the mind of an impressionable child. Conceptions of hell, damnation, and God's grace inhibit our ability to find value in ourselves and create barrier to universal morality, one beneficial to all, save for those who think this morality sinful. All of the 61 essays are attempts to find value in ourselves. He speaks out against the death penalty, against the naturalistic fallacy, for understanding one another, for valuing the emotional independence of those who commit suicide, against guns (made only as a tool of killing), for democracy, and for valuing reading. If ever there was a book detailing a crystal-clear moral outlook, this is the one. A book for reflection and not for exhaustion, Grayling will make you take stock of your life. In praising Michel De Montaigne for inventing the essay, and others for writing in the format, he engages in a bit of self-praise for his style of writing. I believe he deserves to do so. He is a master in the art. I would recommend this book to anyone who is ready to live the life of Socrates, a life of self-examination in which value is fished for. I was astounded when I saw the average rating for this book. After I thought of the masses of believers unwilling to engage in some self-criticism, however, I found the culprit. As an atheist, I criticise my way of life all the time, because I have no universal code to which I must adhere. Constantly I am questioning my actions. I wish only the same for the faithful, i.e., the stubborn. If you are ready to begin the journey, I would recommend this book without question.

Grayling's succinct philosophizing is always insightful, informed, and persuasive. It needs to be noted, however, that this title contains exactly the same text as Grayling's "The Reason of Things" (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2002; Orion Books/Phoenix, 2003).

Excellent book, as all of Graylings books are awesome. A clear discretion and analysis of a variety of subjects.
He is my favorite atheist !

Despite the title, this book is not an atheist manifesto, nor is it largely about sex. The author, a professor of philosophy at Oxford University, does devote a chapter to sex, and touches on religion throughout the book, but really, more than anything, it is a book about thinking and ideas. Grayling is a gifted essayist, and each chapter is actually an essay - most only two or three pages long - covering such topics as marriage, guns, utopia, suicide, nature, and dozens more. Although he makes clear to the reader where he stands, each chapter is a nugget of wisdom and delectable food for thought.

This is my first foray into philosophy and I loved it. Very stimulating and thought-provoking; I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in opening their mind, or those who value open-mindedness, insightfulness, and introspection.

I love this book. I love to read a chapter in the morning, just so I can ponder on what I have read throughout the day. Mr. Grayling is a brilliant writer.

"Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God" does do one thing exceptionally well; it's an excellent book for leaving all-too-near to the corner of your table at the coffee shop in the hopes that a gullible pseudointellectual of the opposite sex will see it while enjoying a tall double-whip no-foam latte in your cardigan sweater, ironic paisley undershirt, and dark-rimmed glasses. For pretty much everything else, though, it is striking only in its horribly overt (and undoubtedly successful) statement on the commodification of literature and the hollowness of the falsely enlightened citizenry. A.C. Grayling, an admittedly highly accomplished philosopher who has contributed to and edited several fine university textbooks, has managed to agglomerate several dozen essays that, if submitted under a different name, would likely earn a C+ from my Ebonics-spewing freshman English teacher from high school. Grayling typically begins an essay with a semi-obscure and usually irrelevant vignette, then calmly and meticulously outlines two highly polarized positions on an issue as if training a Special Olympics debating team, and finally usually finishing straddling the fence and making no points of any profundity. Most of what Grayling is trying to say can be summed up in the mere definition of "humanist", yet Grayling sallies forth undaunted. His essays are succinctly titled along the lines of "Power" (Machiavelli for trainables), "Slavery" (It's bad!), "Culture" (People in poorer countries still can have their own cultures!), "Credulity" (Tarot Cards are fake!), "Conflict" (Humans seem to do it an awful lot!), "War Crimes" (Somebody should do something about them!), etc. etc. I think somewhere in there is a chapter about sex, but I guess only the most credulous of readers would expect a salient point about sex to be contained within a book in which "SEX" is a significant part of the title.

In summary, if you like books with provocative cover photography that have "SEX" in the title to set upon your $700 coffee table, give this a try. If not, save your receipt. I'm glad I did, as not only did I get to return the book, the receipt made for much more intellectually stimulating reading.

Grayling's disdain for those who disagree with him is apparent in this book, and he is unlikely to win many opponents to his reasoning, not only because of his tone but also because his reasoning is so often lopsided or false. Grayling cites (page 50 in the essay "Sex") as an "inevitable" consequence of what he alleges is Platonic dualism in Christianity (he wrongly alleges that Christians repudiate the body as bad) the "extremes represented by Origen castrating himself to escape his sexual longings." Grayling's characterization of castration as an extreme is welcome because accurate and helpfully reproachful, but he fails to disclose why he thinks the act "inevitable." Has Grayling confused Christians with those Hale-Bopp comet following castrati suicides? And can Grayling name another Christian self-castrato? (Eusebius' description in "Ecclesiastical History," Book II, 6,8,1-3 of Origen's "rash act" is consistent with but not beyond doubt self-castration.) Origen, by the way, is not a canonical saint in any major (or perhaps any) Christian group despite his profound legacy to Christian thought, his sanctity and his drawing many into the faith. His "rash act" has been nothing but an impediment to whatever chance he might have of attaining such sainthood.

Given my druthers between the thinking of A.C. Grayling and P.J. O'Rourke, both atheists, regarding sex, I would choose O'Rourke. In his "Give War A Chance" (1992), he remarked "the sexual revolution is over and the microbes won." I don't quite agree, but he is not too far off. While the AIDs epidemic is monstrous, other sexually transmitted diseases rage, and the rates of adultery, sterility, out-of-wedlock conceptions and births, procured abortions and divorce are vastly higher than before the 1960s (and most would agree that these have more than a little to do with the sexual revolution), the sexual revolution is not over. Partly to fend off further accusations of a spirit-body dualism in Christianity, I prefer the following aphorism because it includes not only material consequences but also emotional and spiritual ones: "the sexual revolution has not merely been tried and found wanting; it has been tried and found tragic." But Grayling dwells in some la-la land. He writes of "the availability of safe scientific means of controlling fertility." He doesn't specify the means, but seems unaware that, even according to Planned Parenthood, which carries out more abortions than any other body, the majority of women procuring abortions were using a contraceptive drug or device when they conceived. He complains (page 45) of "anti-sex" moralists crusading to restrict sex to marriage, yet also seems unaware that, in the USA, for example, more than 80% - approximately 960,000 of 1,200,000 per year in recent years - of procured abortions are to end pregnancies resulting from nonmarital intercourse. These grim statistics should alarm those considering - or those such as Grayling advocating - nonmarital intercourse which for centuries in disparate locations and cultures was viewed quite frequently if not as unconventional then at least as regressive.