Customer Reviews

The Truth Behind the New Atheism: Responding to the Emerging Challenges to God and Christianity

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

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.

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.

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!

Marshall purports to be writing a truthful book, but the real truth is that this book was either completely stupid or deliberately dishonest. Many of Marshall's alleged "quotes" and/or citations were either complete fabrications or highly misleading.

For example, on the issue of whether Christians rely on blind faith, Marshall claimed that well known skeptic Michael Shermer conceded that some of the most common justifications that Christians give for believing in God, such as the appearance of design in the universe and experience of God in everyday life, are "essentially rational." There are two major problems with Marshall's claim.

First, Marshall's argument is little more than "Shermer said it, I believe it, and that's that," which is an example of blind faith all by itself. Marshall's blind faith in Shermer, which was repeated over and over and over and over again with other sources, does serious damage to Marshall's argument about Christians not relying on blind faith!

The second problem is that Marshall's description of Shermer's position is flat out wrong. Shermer did NOT say that the alleged justifications were "essentially rational," rather he said, "... I believe that these results are evidence of an 'intellectual attribution bias,' in which people consider their own beliefs as being rationally motivated, whereas they see the beliefs of others as being emotionally driven." So the responses that Marshall desperately wanted Shermer to characterize as "rational" were actually characterized as "intellectually biased."

Even worse for poor Marshall, Shermer actually devoted the entire next section of his book to explaining why the allegedly "rational" justifications that Christians give are not only biased but fundamentally flawed. Of course, the gullible choir that Marshall is obviously preaching to will never find out about that particular section, because Marshall conveniently never mentioned it. In short, Marshall's faith in Shermer is laughable, not only because it is blind, but also because it is delusional. Marshall's portrayal of Shermer's view was so obviously false that it makes one wonder what else Marshall lied about.

Marshall's "blind faith" was a major problem throughout the book. For example, after first proclaiming his intention to treat his opponents with respect and civility, Marshall quickly got down to business and implied that anthropologist Margaret Mead was guilty of deliberate fraud. (Deliberate fraud! So much for respect and civility! LOL!) In any case, Mead's fundamental error was that she blindly accepted so many of her sources' statements as true. If Marshall thinks that blindly accepting sources' statements is tantamount to deliberate fraud, he's entitled to his opinion, however that does raise the question of why Marshall did exactly the same thing himself, blindly accepting his own sources' statements about their allegedly rational justifications for their religious beliefs. On the blind faith issue, a truly incredible number of Marshall's arguments, like his Shermer argument, were essentially nothing more than, "My source said it, I believe it, and that's that." So Marshall's own gullibility puts him on the same level as his own alleged fraudster, Mead, so I guess you can add brazen hypocrisy to the list of serious problems with Marshall's book.

Sloppy writing indicates sloppy thinking, and Marshall's writing was frequently so sloppy, even on major points, as to be virtually incomprehensible. Even Marshall's supporters have commented on it. Given Marshall's tortured logic on the blind faith issue, it's not surprising to find some sloppy writing and thinking there too.

Specifically, some of the statements that Marshall blindly accepted as true included responses to a survey that Marshall apparently wrote himself. Marshall claimed that his respondents chose justifications of faith that conflicted with Dawkins's views, but not only did Marshall not verify his respondents' truthfulness, the survey responses themselves were so poorly written that the responses that Marshall interpreted as being INCONSISTENT with Dawkins's views could just as easily have been interpreted as being CONSISTENT with them. Since Marshall's survey was so poorly written, its results are too ambiguous to interpret, and one of his main arguments simply collapses.

If you're looking for a good, strong, Christian response to the new atheism, you may want to look elsewhere. This book is stupid at best and much of it may be (and probably is) deliberately dishonest.

I've recently decided to reread the book and redo my entire review in an attempt to make my arguments more thorough and detailed. I've been doing much research lately into this whole theism - atheism struggle (I wouldn't really call this a "debate." No theist has been able to prove the supernatural, so until that is done most of their claims and arguments are not valid. They're unable to prove the thing on which their arguments rest in the first place.) and with my new perspective on the issues, as well as the knowledge I've gained I wanted to improve the review and make it the best I could.

My basic opinions of Marshall's book have not changed. I honestly don't like his writing style very much. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it seems like he writes too much in an attempt to make one point. Instead of just getting to the point he goes on with personal stories or off in a slightly different direction. Of course that could just be me. I am very direct and I like things short and sweet. But that unfortunately made the book a slightly difficult read for me.

Marshall attempts to make a variety of points. I will do my best to summarize them into a short list:

1. Richard Dawkins is incorrect about faith being "blind." Christians do use evidence for their beliefs and their faith.

2. Scientists disbelieve in god for what he calls "non logical" reasons, which are as follows:

a. Hostility to Religion
b. Self-imposed Limitations
c. Bias Against Miracles
d. Doubt Instead of Discernment
e. Faulty Information
f. Presumption
g. Ignorance

3. Marshall tells the readers what he thinks science has right regarding evolution.

4. Marshall attempts to highlight some problems of evolution and seems to admit that he would like to subscribe a god to fix these problems. Despite his saying that he isn't using a "god of the gaps" argument (on page 68) he says soon after that statement, "Gaps in the power of a hypothesis to explain facts need to be filled, and some wounds in the surface of nature may be too large for anything but god" (pages 68-69).

I think this kind of thinking is illogical because so many mysteries have been solved by science. Looking at the track record of science, while it's no guarantee of success, it certainly has a good chance since it's uncovered so much already.

5. He attempts to shoot down the hypothesis that religion was purely created by man.

6. He tries to regain christianity's dignity by reminding people how the bible has influenced the world for the better.

7. He tries to show why the "jesus myth" hypothesis is misguided.

8. Marshall writes of several instances where the christian religion has helped many people, built universities, etc.

9. He attempts to defend many of the accusations by the "new atheists" such as the claim that pope pius XII failed to help many Jews during the Holocaust, but Marshall claims that he saved as many as 700,000 to 860,000 from the Holocaust. Unfortunately, he provides nothing but hearsay in defending these claims. He states, "While documents have not been found, many church officials say he instructed them to aid jews to escape the Holocaust" (page 168).

10. He claims that the idea of the "american taliban" are nothing more than exaggerations by several authors and have no basis in reality. Of course, I prove him wrong on my review. Chapter ten is also where he makes many of the false claims (and pointless attacks) regarding Richard Dawkins. I expose these handily in my review as well.

11. He tries to show the dangers of unbelief and evolution by citing the communist regimes and nazi regimes.

I would consider each argument to be false or a case of christian apologetics where Marshall ignores most of the bad while concentrating on the good, though I cannot get into all that here (I've written a detailed rebuttal at my blog, roughly 85 pages in length) but regardless, I felt Marshall relied too heavily on arguments from authority. There is a point in which citing experts can be a good argument, but when that's all you do, and you don't site any actual evidence for a claim I think that's when people run into trouble and Marshall is guilty of this often in his book. This is especially true of his chapter attempting to rebut the idea of the "jesus myth." Despite all of the similarities of various figures to the jesus story (for example, Baal and Zarathustra [among others] are said to have been "sacrificed on the mount," ascended into heaven, and been resurrected, etc.) Marshall insists, "Many efforts have been invested in finding legends that look like jesus. The search has come up spectacularly empty. The failure of informed, intelligent scholars to find any parallel that is even remotely believable is really a success..." (page 123)

If this was the case why do the two mythical figures I just cited have these similar things attributed to them, and these individuals were believed in before jesus' time?

Despite whether or not the "jesus myth" is completely accurate there does seem to be many similarities between many gods and saviors throughout history. Personally I do not know if jesus was real or not. But I think these similarities are interesting and makes one wonder.

I felt that Marshall's citing the Richard Sternberg case was dishonest. Though, maybe he did not look deeply enough into the issue? Sternberg was not persecuted for heresy against 'evolutionary orthodoxy' as this story is clearly told on the excellent website Expelled Exposed. There seems to be many false claims circulating regarding that situation and Marshall seemed to have fallen for them all. This was one of his "non logical" reasons why scientists don't believe in god: Hostility to religion, and he cites this one case specifically for proof, but as I said, it seems that Marshall doesn't have his facts right.

Other than his continuous arguments by citing authorities I, for the most part, didn't think he made a very good case for the issues he was trying to make.

Near the end of the book he tries blaming communism on atheism, which is completely false. He tries blaming evolution and atheism on the Holocaust, but that's not true either.

I don't know what it is about so many apologists who like to trot out the 'Marx, Hitler, and Stalin were all atheists and therefore atheism can lead to bad stuff - even worse then religion!' argument when the historical record doesn't help them (not to mention their redefining of atheism to suit their purposes). They pick and choose what facts to bring up and ignore everything else. I guess they cannot effectively counter the laundry list of atrocities that their beliefs are responsible for, and feeling overwhelmed, counter with similar arguments, though it seems they're based on bad research.

As far as one of his arguments for the "riddles" of evolution is his quote on pages spanning 72-73 about not seeing evolutionary changes in the human being, even though evolution is said to be still happening.

"Evolution doesn't know its work is done. It doesn't know it shouldn't turn us into whales, teach us to eat grass like cows, or to glide like flying squirrels. For any direction evolution might take, given all it achieved when numbers were small, one might expect hundreds of useful mutations in every generation, fitting us for many new tasks.

Where are those mutations?"

Well, there is a very simple reason why Marshall has not seen any changes in the human population. The changes are too small.

About the statement about mutations, the reason you don't see drastic changes, the answer is simple. Life on this planet has been around for several million years. Just because us humans, with our short life spans, cannot actively see changes in form of different animals (including humans), doesn't mean it didn't happen. After all, we do have fossil evidence for the changes in the forms of various species. Why is it that the fossil Tiktaalik roseae is a fish which has almost identical bone structure as the modern human shoulder, forearm, and hand? This is a clear adaptation in form from fish to land dwelling animals.

Another fact that Marshall seems to be forgetting is the fact that natural selection doesn't have much to do anymore because of human technology. The medicine, the temperature controlled houses, etc., all allow humans to basically force their surroundings to adapt to them, and not the other way around. Even though large changes in humans have not been seen for several million years, doesn't mean there are no changes taking place. There is on a genetic level. For example, in the January, 2008 issue of Discover magazine there was an article titled "Human Genome Reveals Signs of Recent Evolution." A quote from the article is the following: "More then a hundred sites in the genome showed strong evidence of recent selection, including genes that affect muscle tissue, hair, hearing, immune-system function, skin pigmentation, sense of smell, and the body's response to heat stress."

I could go for quite some time with many other problems, but it ultimately boils down to an argument from authority with no evidence. He also distorts what Dawkins has to say on a few issues (I've been over this many times. I'm sure my posts about it can be found).

I guess that's it for my review. As I said before, my opinion, overall, did not change after rereading the book and I hope my review was informative and helpful.

For a much more thorough and detailed treatment of this book I'd recommend reading my refutation at my blog, Arizona Atheist.

Marshall takes on the so-called new atheists in this book, with particular scrutiny afforded to Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion." In fact, the book reads as a point by point rejoinder to Dawkins, though not chapter by chapter. Marshall is a good writer in command of the many relevant issues involved. Perhaps he is weakest when discussing evolutionary science, but he clearly is somewhat informed even here.

The book defends Christianity against the plethora of charges leveled at Christianity by Dawkins and others. In the first chapter, he defends the view that Christianity, although not science, is not therefore a wholly irrational world view. His defense on this point is a reasonable counter to the notion suggested by Dawkins that if an idea has no scientific support it directly defies reason.

Other charges that Marshall counters are the alleged immorality of the Bible, that historically and in the present religion is the basis of much if not most of the evil perpetrated on other human beings, that bringing up children in a religion is tantamount to brainwashing (this, certainly, was the weakest part of Dawkins' book), and others.

As an atheist I find, although of course there are many points on which I would disagree, Marshall's even handed discussion and avoidance of vituperatory rhetoric to be refreshing in a atheist/theist debate that so easily raises the hackles of disputants on both sides. My personal beliefs might be quite out of line with Marshall's, but he is one voice in the debate that is reasonable and approachable.

I've read many of the books being churned out by Christian apologists and they all seem to make the same arguments and the same mistakes. Many of the books I've read tackling the 'New Atheists' are guilty of misreading and misquoting the New Atheist authors. It's almost as if I'm reading the same books over and over. For those of you who have lived under a rock the last several years the New Atheists refer to Richard Dawkins, author of 'The God Delusion'; Sam Harris, author of 'The End of Faith' and 'A Letter to a Christian Nation'; Christopher Hitchens, author of 'god is not Great'; and Dan Dennett, author of 'Breaking the Spell.'

Having previously read several other apologetic works I was browsing books and I came across this Christian apologist named David Marshall, author of 'The Truth Behind the New Atheism.' After reading many glowing reviews even by atheists I thought this might be a good book but I was largely disappointed but the book was funny at times and David Marshall has much skill as a writer.

The book was very well written and made some good points, especially about Richard Dawkins who can sometimes come off as fundamentalist as the Christians he rebukes. Even though there are some things Richard Dawkins can be criticized for I have to wonder what's in the water that these apologists are drinking because they don't understand many of the arguments R. Dawkins makes. Dawkins's chapter on Child Abuse is one of his most controversial parts of his book 'The God Delusion' but these apologists misquote and misconstrue R. Dawkins's views and D. Marshall is no exception. He actually says of R. Dawkins that he thinks children should be "indoctrinated into thinking" religions are "all evil, no matter what their parents say." Say what!?! Where did Richard Dawkins say such a thing in 'The God Delusion'? This must be a figment of D. Marshall's imagination because if you actually read 'The God Delusion' this is easily seen to be untruthful.

Similar blatant errors can also be found throughout the book. D. Marshall takes a quote of Sam Harris's out of context when he says how he wishes people dead simply over what they believe.

Other glaring problems can also be found. D. Marshall leaves out many facts that would harm his case about the historicity of the gospels. He says how people could easily remember events that took place decades later and because of this we can surmise that the biblical authors wrote a truthful account of what they remembered. This argument has a tremendous hole because it's well known that myths and fanciful stories can become fully developed within a very short period of time. David Marshall does virtually nothing to counter this very relevant fact. Regarding science, D. Marshall seems equally ignorant. This is especially true with evolutionary science that he discusses in Chapter Four of this book. That chapter is filled to the brim with Creationist arguments that have been refuted on the web at the TalkOrigins archive, the Secular Web, et cetera, so I'll refrain from going into detail about those problems here. Some of his errors have been exposed for years. He obviously suffers from an acute lack of knowledge about the science of evolution.

This also highlights another problem with the book. Shoddy research. D. Marshall has many problems with the historical facts he cites. In his telling of the Totalitarian regimes of the 20th Century he blames it on a lack of religious morality, when that's such a grotesque distortion of the known facts that I'm stunned someone who's trained as a historian would say such things. The same goes for his claim that the Bible ended slavery and that Christians were responsible for modern science.

I am equally stunned about David Marshall's seemingly dismissive attitude about the popularly named "American Taliban" and the threat of many Fundamentalist/Evangelical Christians who have been trying for years to tear down the Separation of Church and State and force their religious beliefs on others in schools, and have also attempted to gain the highest authority in government: the Presidency. Several Christians have campaigned for the job and like recent candidate Mike Huckabee they have made it clear what their goals are

"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do, to amend the Constitution so it's in God standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family."

Mike Huckabee, during a 2008 speech during his bid for candidacy

It's true that this is a minority but the Nazis were also a minority, so I don't think mere numbers would affect their ability to gain large amounts of influence. In many ways they already do have much influence, so for D. Marshall to just dismiss this threat based upon a very limited poll he took during his travels I don't think he's being very objective.

There are problems spanning the entire book and it would take another book in itself to go into detail
all of the stupendous errors that are made by David Marshall but the above examples should suffice.

Because of the shoddy research, and the leaving out of facts that would better help his readers discover the truth about these subjects I think it's best to give this book a one-star rating. If D. Marshall would have tried to truthfully present all the facts then with the skilled writing I'd probably give it three stars, but D. Marshall didn't write that kind of book. He wrote one seeking to tell the truth about the New Atheist movement unfortunately he largely failed to succeed in doing so. Instead of the truth his readers get made up quotes, misquotes, long discredited Creationist arguments, illogical Christian apologetics, and one-sided historical facts. On top of that D. Marshall seemed clueless to many of the arguments he sought to argue against. This also makes me wonder what water even the atheists were drinking when they wrote those positive reviews.

On reading David Marshall's *The Truth Behind the New Atheism* (2007), my main thought was, with friends like that, God and Jesus scarcely need enemies. This is a recurrent problem with other apologists as well, so Marshall is in numerous (but not good) company. My exasperation is not only toward him.

Careless writing: There is lack of care about spelling, for instance. The proper possessives for Richard Dawkins are *Dawkins'* or *Dawkins's* (better), not *Dawkin's* (pp.11,24). That's admittedly trivial, but misspelling *Stephen J. Gould* as *Steven* (pp.9,87) does him no honor, especially when using him for a lesser-quality incomplete-context quotation to support a weak position. The South American tribe is Yanomamo, not *Yamonamo.* (p.98) The singular of *phenomena* is *phenomenon.* Lots of people don't know that, but if one mentions Daniel Dennett's *Breaking the Spell: Religion As a Natural Phenonenon,* one doesn't need to know the spelling. Just copy it correctly, but Marshall and his editors, if any, didn't even manage that. It is Michael Faraday, not *Farraday.* And who is *Mohatmas* Gandhi? (His name was Mohandas; Mahatma is a title; so this is a twofer misspelling.) There are many more examples, but these will do for now.

Careless fact: Here is Marshall's account of a TV exchange among Richard Swinburne, Richard Dawkins, and Peter Atkins (pp.19,20).

*In fact, Dawkins is brutal. When both men appeared on a TV show, Swinburne attempted, Dawkins says, to *justify the Holocaust.* This is an ambivalent phrase. It could mean showing why Hitler was right to kill Jews. It could also mean, (as Swinburne meant), the far different and difficult task of asking why God may have allowed the Holocaust. Dawkins leaves the two potential meanings tangled, then ends with the borrowed quip, *May you rot in hell.**

Dawkins did nothing of the kind. From *The God Delusion,* p. 64:

*This grotesque piece of reasoning, so damningly typical of the theological mind, reminds me of an occasion when I was on a television panel with Swinburne, and also with our Oxford colleague Professor Peter Atkins. Swinburne at one point attempted to justify the Holocaust on the grounds that it gave the Jews a wonderful opportunity to be courageous and noble. Peter Atkins splendidly growled, *May you rot in hell.**

Far from dangling an ambiguity, Dawkins immediately, in the same sentence no less, gave Swinburne's justification. Nor did Dawkins either borrow or deliver that perfect rebuke.

I invite the reviewers that gave multi-starred praise to this "great writer" to revisit Amazon and withdraw their gullible reviews.

It is sad to see how angry the participants are in these religious wars, hurling insults instead of dealing with substantive issues. Marshall's book, while not the worst of the lot in that regard, is far from the best. His mocking tone was unwarranted and detracted from the few good points that he made.

Another problem is that while Marshall provided references for numerous, trivial claims, he frequently failed to provide references for far more important, controversial claims. That raises serious concerns about the accuracy of those unsupported claims, especially since many of Marshall's arguments about history, science, and evolution appeared to be highly biased or even completely false.

Michael Ruse said that Dawkins made him embarassed to be an atheist. One should never be embarassed to be a Christian, but we can be embarassed about books like this. For a less biased, more informed response to Dawkins and his ilk, I would recommend "The Dawkins Delusion" instead, by noted scholar Alister McGrath and his wife.

Richard Dawkins, perhaps the world's most famous atheist, is certainly worth rebutting. But many of the rebuttals offered by evangelical apologists are so weak and/or vitriolic that they make Dawkins' arguments look positively brilliant by comparison. "Dawkins is a racist," the Christians screech, or "Dawkins is an anti-Semitic Nazi-lover," or "Dawkins supports killing babies," or similar nonsense. Such arguments are obviously silly and make the theists proposing them look silly as well. Marshall's book is at about that level.

Marshall's thinking is frequently so warped that it's hard to determine exactly what his argument is, or if he even has an argument. For instance, sometimes Marshall seems to be making much the same point as Dawkins, only using different words, and then Marshall concludes by implying that Dawkins is wrong. That's obviously bizarre. Using different words to express the same concept does not rebut the concept.

Many of Marshall's other arguments are in the "Dawkins is a Nazi" category, some are obviously illogical, some are supported by absolutely no credible evidence, and some are nothing but straw man arguments. There are so many misrepresentations in the book, it's not surprising that some reviewers accuse Marshall of deliberate dishonesty.

Marshall repeatedly argues that Christian faith is rationally based on credible evidence, and he cites prominent Christians making the same claim, but Marshall never specifically describes any of the actual evidence itself. Marshall must think that merely claiming to have evidence is the same thing as actually having evidence, which is obviously silly. If a prosecutor told a jury, "There's lots of evidence against the defendant, but I'm not going to tell you what it is," that prosecutor would be laughed out of court. Marshall's arguments are similarly laughable.

Marshall's book is also highly biased. For example, his parade of quotes from prominent Christians asserting the rationality of Christian faith somehow manages to omit the prominent Christians who made statements indicating the exact opposite. Augustine and Aquinas are two of the most prominent Christian thinkers in history. It's strange, to say the least, that Marshall fails to acknowledge their arguments implying the futility of mere humans trying to comprehend God.

Marshall also cites famous Christians who contributed to science, in what appears to be an attempt to argue that if their science was rational then their religion was necessarily rational as well. That's obviously silly too, a bizarre sort of "rationality by association" argument.

On virtually every issue, Marshall's arguments are pathetically shallow, with little or no attempt to address significant conflicting evidence. For instance, regarding blind faith, Marshall conveniently fails to address the obvious problem of Christians with obviously blind faith in such things as flat-Earthism, geocentrism, papal infallibility, etc., etc., etc. And in his glib argument about the rationality of Christian scientists, Marshall conveniently fails to acknowledge the numerous attempts by prominent Christians to sabotage science education, especially in the United States. It's like Marshall's never even heard of the Scopes trial or the Kitzmiller trial. Those episodes are huge elephants in the living room. Why does Marshall not deal with those issues openly and honestly?

In similar fashion, Marshall spends a lot of time talking about social ills like eugenics, racial discrimination, gender discrimination, etc., but seldom deals with the embarrassing fact that Christianity frequently plays and historically played a major role in causing those exact same social ills. Why does Marshall not deal with those facts openly and honestly?

Regarding the disintegration of modern families and criminality, some surveys indicate that evangelical Christians fare poorly in comparison to atheists. Why does Marshall not deal with those embarrassing findings?

Recent research also indicates that in experimental tests of basic ethical behavior and beliefs, atheists not only respond similarly to theists, but even give the same justifications for their responses that theists give. If Marshall believes there are important differences in behavior between atheists and Christians, why doesn't he address that obviously relevant research?

Marshall apparently thinks Freud, Skinner, Rand, Mead, and others were frauds. Unfortunately Marshall provides little or no credible evidence to support his accusations. If Skinner was as big a fraud as Marshall claims, then why are Skinner's behavioristic techniques still widely used in psych labs to this very day? If Freud was as big a fraud as Marshall claims, then why is it that behavioral economics, which incorporates fundamental Freudian insights, is one of the most dynamic fields of economic research today, and that work largely done by two psychologists trained in Freudian psychology earned a Nobel Prize in economics earlier in the century? And who the heck is Rand anyway? Marshall says Rand was a fraud, but never tells us who or what Rand is or what fraud he/she/it committed. Such sloppiness is simply incredible.

The superficiality of Marshall's arguments is further illustrated by the argument where he reports overhearing a late night lovers' quarrel and then draws a conclusion, based on that single incident, about the entire continent of Europe. Such inanity is simply breathtaking. Drawing a continent-wide conclusion from a single incident like that is obviously ridiculous all by itself, but the inanity of Marshall's continent-wide generalization is magnified a thousand-fold by the fact that Marshall reports no credible evidence whatsoever to establish even the minimal premise that the quarrelling lovers were even atheists in the first place. From what Marshall reports, the quarrelling lovers could easily have been theists. They could even have been Christians! Marshall's entire argument is nothing but an inanity built on a fantasy!

Dawkins no doubt should be responded to, but glib, superficial, inane, illogical, ignorant, ad hominem responses like Marshall's, far from demonstrating the rationality of Christian faith, could actually be used as evidence that Christianity is irrational.