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84 of 113 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not scholarly, not responsible, hard to see how this book is Christian, February 24, 2009
This review is from: The Truth Behind the New Atheism: Responding to the Emerging Challenges to God and Christianity (Paperback)
I'm only a user reviewer but I do want to share some impressions of this book that distress me. I see no reason that any religious scholar, including conservative Christian scholars, should not be able to write an effective and ethical response to the works of the New Atheists. I'm not even sure it would be necessarily to be a scholar. After all, none of the New Atheists that David Marshall addresses in this book were scholars in the area of religion - and Hitchens and Harris were not scholars at all. An effective and ethical response by a religious liberal scholar to "The God Delusion" appeared in the Winter 2008 issue of the online Journal of Liberal Religion: "Richard Dawkins: Vox Populi" Jason Giannetti. Although not a popular piece, I didn't find it hard to follow and Giannetti seems to have pointed out convincingly ways in which Dawkins was quite weak on the issues of God, truth and morality. He did this while holding to a high moral upper ground.
Having read an excerpt of David Marshall's book as well as an article he wrote about a 2007 trip to China, which contained respectful passages about Buddhism, I expected that Marshall, who claimed to be a "world religions scholar" in the Amazon Product Description of his book on the "Lost Gospels, would be easily able to counter the New Atheists in a manner one might expect from a scholar and Christian. It's not as if the New Atheists don't provide many such opportunities: I myself only gave 2 stars to Hitchens' "god is not great" (in retrospective I wonder why I even gave it 2) and 1 star to Harris' "The End of Faith". Although I appreciated for what they were trying to do both "The God Delusion" and Harris' much more (it seems to me) respectful "Letter to a Christian Nation", I was not surprised that Giannetti, for example, as a religious scholar, was able to effectively criticize Dawkins. I expected David Marshall would also be able to do so, even allowing that this book seems to be written for a popular audience and perhaps one largely conservative orthodox Christian.
As to what kind of conservative orthodox Christianity David Marshall represents, I was in for a surprise because he does not seem to speak in significant measure for the conservative orthodox Christians I know. He certainly doesn't seem to speak for the liberal Christians I know, some of who, although they also have concerns about the New Atheists, for example due to at the very least inflammatory language employed, do seem to recognize, as I do, some value in the criticisms of religion made by the New Atheists.
Although my own position has shifted since the time I first read "The God Delusion', due to my membership in May of 2008 in Unitarian Universalism, a religion which strongly encourages recognition of the value of free religious search, and is consistent with my own feelings about that which is sacred, I continue to find that the New Atheist criticisms of the theisms helpful. After reading this book by David Marshall and in preparation for this review, I re-read "The God Delusion" and "Letter to A Christian Nation" and posted my thoughts about those in an Amazon discussion thread in the "The God Delusion Forum" entitled: "The God Delusion" and "Letter to a Christian Nation" Revisited. Although Dawkins' resorts to some language that may seem inflammatory, as when sharing his impression of the way some of the Old Testament descriptions of God seem to him, he seems to raise many good questions, even if in an amateurish way. And Harris in "Letter to A Christian Nation" seemed, as I thought on my first reading, have matured considerably. I noticed only a few remarks that seemed inflammatory (as I commented in my re-visitation discussion thread). So if these two works are "attacks" on Christianity, they seemed largely free of meanness but instead focused on the author's real criticism of the various Christianities, especially some conservative orthodox Christianities.
So I wasn't prepared for the apparent meannesses of David Marshall's response in this book which seems to have lost all the moral high ground I would have thought the response of any theist could take. I was misled by the Introduction in which he wrote that he wanted to find a middle ground so as not to feed an "Us vs Them mimesis" and was quite unprepared for some of what followed. Let me share some of that.
Let me note that even in the Introduction there's a misrepresentation and in the characterization of one of the seven arguments David Marshall says that the New Atheists advance, when he refers to "Christians in the United States (`the American Taliban', as Dawkins calls them)". But Dawkins does not call all U.S. Christians that. When he described googling for the phrase "American Taliban" he mentions finding a dozen websites that already use the term that include those from some American religious leaders and politicians that "chillingly recall the narrow bigotry, heartless cruelty and sheer nastiness of the Afghan Taliban [...]" (page 288 of a hardcover edition of "The God Delusion"). Immediately afterward he mentions a Web page called "The American Taliban" which I googled for and found. You may be able to google and find that Web page to understand why what is there would be a concern to Dawkins or can at least confirm in "The God Delusion" that he is not talking about U.S. Christianity in general - even if he shares a concern that what seemed in the past extremist in U.S. Christianity seems to have central. At any rate, David Marshall is wrong in his unqualified reference to U.S. Christians. So he misrepresents 1 of 7 of what he calls the seven arguments the New Atheists advance - in a way that might unfairly lead to the very "Us vs Them" issue he says he wants to avoid and lead many Christians to believe Dawkins is criticizing them as "the American Taliban" which, for good reason, they know they are not. So I don't think my conservative Christian relatives, friends and neighbors would feel David Marshall is representing them well here already in the Introduction. Not "Us vs Them"? Or a polemic being set up?
Here are some issues I have with the main body of this book:
1) Misleading claims about the theory of evolution in reference to Nazism and the Holocaust. David Marshall writes in the section "Darwin to Hitler?" (chapter 11, page 194): "What caused the Holocaust? Simple. Having rejected Christian morality, some of Darwin's followers derived their ethics from evolution [...]"
The Anti-Defamation League issued a statement about the movie "Expelled" that included: "The film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed misappropriates the Holocaust and its imagery as part of a its political effort to discredit the scientific community which rejects so-called intelligent design theory. Hitler did not need Darwin to devise his heinous plan to exterminate the Jewish people and Darwin and evolutionary theory cannot explain Hitler's genocidal madness."
2) Whitewashing of the role of Christians in antisemitism.
3) Minimization of whether any Christians want theocracy.
4) Misrepresentation of an incident Dawkins reports about a TV show in which he and Swinburne appeared.
5) A general use of the term "Christianity" which he doesn't define and which would not apply to all Christians, exacerbating the "Us vs Them' nature of the book.
6) Use of informal, very small surveys on a "trust me" basis.
7) Sweeping statements about "atheists" and "brights".
8) Positive references direct or to books by from a number of people associated with the Discovery Institute including Michael Behe, Richard Weikart and William Dembski. The Discovery Institute authored a manifesto on the "Wedge Strategy"and its Center for Science and Culture has been widely criticized for intellectual dishonesty.
Rather than clutter this main review with further explanation about these concerns, I've done that in the first comment I've added to this review. My immediate concern is that this book is not, even from conservative Christians point of view, one that I would recommend: it seems extremist and to have an unconstructive agenda. I'm sure conservative Christians can (and maybe have) responded more effectively to the New Atheists, much as Giannetti did as a religious liberal. I don't see any reason why a popularly oriented response can't reflect scholarship and Christian values much more than this book does.
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16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
I would have expected maybe a little better argument, July 31, 2010
This review is from: The Truth Behind the New Atheism: Responding to the Emerging Challenges to God and Christianity (Paperback)
I will not go into too much details over what I thought of this book, but it definitely did not meet my expectations. While the reason for purchasing this book was to maybe get a different perspective and argument versus the well thought out and written arguments by new atheist writers such as Dawkins, Hitchens, and Dennett (sp?), I failed to even get that from this short book which is very difficult to read, and even more difficult to understand. Not only did Marshall fail to provide any legitimate arguments vs. New Atheism, he also fails to provide any trustworthy sources in this book, and often quotes and cites information from the bible and other illegitimate sources that provide no factual evidence or scientific argument against New Atheism. The book was written in a manner where the thought patterns were very difficult to follow, often written in what appears to be a deliberately ambiguous manner, much as a televangelist would present obscure facts to his viewers in order to attempt to draw in funding for his continued presence. While the book attempts to present facts contrary to what Richard Dawkins presents in his books on New Atheism, thereby convincing the reader that Dawkins works are fictional and untrustworthy, all it really does is make me want to put down this book and read further about what Dawkins and others like him believe. This truly is a bad book, not only from a scholarly angle, but also from a literary, and any other angle you could possibly think of. Do not waste your time in purchasing this, as it will only confuse you and is not worth the time. This book is only for true believers that are already convinced of "god"'s existence, and not for anyone who desires to question their religous upbringing. If you must read it, find it at a library or on a discount shelf at the bookstore, just don't pay more than a couple of dollars.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Marshall's "Truth" Is Extremely Dishonest, October 9, 2007
This review is from: The Truth Behind the New Atheism: Responding to the Emerging Challenges to God and Christianity (Paperback)
When an author writes a book about the truth, it would be nice for the author to actually be truthful. Unfortunately, despite the wonderfully Orwellian title, the real truth about Marshall's "Truth" is that Marshall himself has been caught in numerous, obvious falsehoods and other dishonesty, including apparent plagiarism.
For example, in his book:
1. Marshall uses a partial quote from Darwin in which the partial quote seems to imply that Darwin thought evolution faced virtually insurmountable objections (62), but Darwin's full statement actually says the exact opposite of what Marshall's partial quote implies. Marshall's editing looks like a deliberate attempt to deceive.
2. Marshall quotes Dawkins' allegedly nonsensical definition of faith, "believing what you know isn't true" (24); but not only does Marshall not provide a reference for that alleged quote in his book, he angrily refused to provide one when challenged later. That indicates deliberate dishonesty.
3. Ditto when Marshall indicates that new atheists accuse Christians of believing it a "virtue not to understand" (37).
4. Ditto when Marshall indicates that Marx advocated doing away with money (55).
5. Ditto when Marshall implies that cashless Communist societies are violent (55).
Marshall's repeated refusals to provide references even for key points in his book are especially suspicious given Marshall's boasting about the quality of his references!
6. Marshall says, "... Dawkins says that being brought up Catholic is 'undoubtedly' worse than child abuse!" (185) That's a grotesque distortion of what Dawkins actually said.
7. Marshall claims, "Harris blames America's high rates of abortion, teen pregnancy, and sexually transmitted disease on Christianity" (204). In reality, Harris explicitly -- repeat, explicitly! -- disavows the causal link that Marshall attributes to him. Marshall's statement is a brazen falsehood.
8. Marshall indicates that the Bible was written in the Stone Age. (114) The Stone Age! Unbelievable!
9. Marshall complained that Dawkins doesn't cite any actual Christians (16), but Dawkins' book is full -- repeat, full! -- of citations to very prominent Christians.
10. Marshall apparently thinks that science confirms the order of the appearance of life reported in Genesis (61). Really? Genesis, Ch. 2, indicates that humans were the first animal life form on Earth. No way science confirms that!
11. Discussing Dawkins' "Romeo and Juliet" example of the brain "misfiring," Marshall badly distorts Dawkins' actual position (27).
12. Marshall takes Harris' statement about killing people for their beliefs completely out of context. (42) In context, Harris' statement would undoubtedly be quite acceptable to many Christians. Is that why Marshall misrepresented it?
Marshall even seemed to resort to plagiarism on at least two occasions.
13. First, a key part of Marshall's discussion of the evolution of the eye (74) appeared to be lifted directly from Phillip Johnson's "Darwin on Trial," p. 34. Marshall must have known about Johnson's argument, so his failure to provide any attribution at all to Johnson looks like pretty blatant plagiarism.
14. The second case of apparent plagiarism is Marshall's mocking of philosopher Daniel Dennett, who "climbs the highest peak of social science and victoriously raises the Darwinian flag, trying valiantly to ignore a herd of theologians sipping lattes in glacial caves on the summit." Marshall apparently got that from physicist Robert Jastrow, who wrote something very similar in 1992. ("God and the Astronomer," pp. 106-7) Marshall's failure to credit Jastrow looks like further plagiarism.
The above misrepresentations, dishonesty, etc., are all from Marshall's book, but Marshall has been caught in numerous falsehoods and other dishonesty in other forums too.
15. Several months ago Marshall said it seemed to him that one of Behe's most important points in "Edge of Evolution" was seldom challenged, but in reality Behe's views on that point were frequently and vigorously challenged. In fact, at the very time that Marshall made his ridiculous complaint, he was actively engaged in a discussion with someone who was challenging Behe's views on the very point that Marshall said was seldom challenged! Marshall's brazenness is simply breathtaking!
16. And Marshall later commented on yet another specific challenge to Behe's views on that point. (It's remarkable how frequently Marshall responded to "rare" challenges!) This particular challenge came from Abbie Smith, and it was so noteworthy that Behe himself responded. According to Marshall, Behe defended himself by pointing out that Smith's challenge didn't relate to the proper time frame. That's another blatant falsehood. Behe never said any such thing. And when challenged to provide a supporting reference, Marshall, as usual, refused, which indicates deliberate dishonesty.
17. Marshall falsely accused Sean Carroll of presenting a description of the Huxley-Wilberforce debate as "historical fact." In reality, Carroll did no such thing. Furthermore, when that fact was pointed out to Marshall, he not only refused to acknowledge his original mistake, he actually repeated the same falsehood in a second comment! That indicates deliberate dishonesty.
18. Marshall further misrepresented Sean Carroll's position by falsely implying that a key argument about multiple mutations referred to simultaneous mutations instead.
19. Marshall was upset about the alleged -- emphasis on "alleged" -- retaliation against evolution-critic Richard Sternberg, but Marshall himself regularly retaliated against his critics by trying to get Amazon to censor unfavorable reviews and other comments, including my own review. Such hypocrisy is another form of dishonesty.
In short, Marshall's dishonesty is both frequent and obvious. His book is a complete joke, riddled with literally hundreds of ridiculous errors, and that's the real truth!
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