Customer Reviews

Can We Be Good Without God? A Conversation About Truth, Morality, Culture & a Few Other Things That Matter

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

 

 

Likes

The truth be told, I am conflicted over this book. On one hand I found the book to be worth reading. The clarity concerning the arguments was a great asset to the book. Perhaps the because of the genre of the book, its conversational nature, lent itself to an easier way of conveying the same argument over and over in different ways. Truly the clarity and repetition was a strong point of the book.

Also, the path on which the author followed the philosophical questions was well done. It is important to first clarify and explore presuppositions (i.e. subjective vs. objective morality). The progression through each argument was likewise well done. It was advantageous to begin with the simpler arguments that readily lent themselves to easily understanding the flow of thoughts before progressing onto more complex arguments.

The conversational, narrative format helped keep interest the book engaging. The use of breaks, particularly about the mystery host, helped grab curiosity. The narrative format also created the option to easily give a relevant word-picture that stimulated thought in the reader. That was a great move.

Dislikes

On the other hand, I found this book to be frustrating. Too often the arguments felt scripted and frequently drifted towards straw man arguments. The only reason that the arguments did not become torched, straw effigies is because the author kept some complexity, but still, all seemed overly simplistic. While the author did use a notes page that proved a level of research, I am not convinced that the people who hold to the opposing arguments would have felt themselves represented well.

As a side note, his frequent use of Hitler as an extreme, though it made the point by using an extreme, became at least monotonous, if not our right annoying.

Conclusion

Over all, the author wrote a book with some definite strengths (i.e. clarity), however, to be frank, the book failed. The book, instead of teaching me systems of belief, taught me "obvious" and simplistic inherent contradictions within philosophical systems. I do not feel that this book was worth reading outside of the chapters on Christian moral objectivity and, even then, the book would need another book to supplement at least the weaknesses of simplicity. I would have much rather had articles or essays (if the length is important) written by adherents to their own system, writing for their own system. Strong, original sources are a must and this book exemplifies why.

I'm surprised at some of the VERY negative reviews of this book. Some people have approached the book as though it presumed to be a textbook on ethics for graduate students on moral theory. It was clearly never intended as any such thing. It is written as a basic introduction to ethics/meta-ethics from a Christian point of view. It is for the layperson who will probably not graduate with a PhD, and given what it is *supposed* to do, it is neither naive nor shallow. It does the job that it was writen to do very well. It gives the Christian non-scholar a good overview of a variety of positions in ethical theory - necessarily simplified of course, and it reaches a Christian conclusion. I recommend the book to younger readers in ethics or to those who would like to have a handy introduction that simply explains a variety of competing ethical theories and explains what is unique and advantageous to a Christian view of the divine origin of moral truth.

Contrary to the previous reviewers remarks I found the text to be insightful and helped me to clarify many questions that I have had regarding morality. The author treats the opposing views fairly and raises serious questions regarding their validity.

the authors way of presenting competing ideologies in dialogue by embodying them in "real" people was cute for the first few pages, but then grew tired reeeallly quick. the characters became shallow and predictable, and little more than distractions from the ideologies they were supposed to be holding, and led away from what could have been more involved discussion of the ideas themselves, which were what the book was supposed to be about to begin with. Maybe if he'd dispensed with the whole plot idea, and used the characters as simple props, with no story lines or relationships, and just led you through the issues, I would have given it the 5 stars it deserves, but the manner in which it was written hampers its arguement.

I cant remember how i stumbled on to this book, but for whatever reason, it seemed interesting to me. I will agree with other reviewers that the conversational approach of the book was not fantastic, but to me, it made the discussion about morals, etc a bit realistic...This is how these conversations are more likely to go in "real life" anyway.
I didn't necessarily expect this thin book to answer all questions and finally put to bed the question of morals. It more than anything made me start thinking even more about the subject. I am a margin scribbler, and I wrote something on probably 30-40 % of the pages...whether it was pointing out obvious wrong conclusions or assumptions made or highlighting and writing "Wow...I never thought of it that way before."

I think this book asks more questions than it answers, and is much more a discussion about morality (and certainly nowhere near complete)than coming to any sort of consensus.

If these conversations/debates were actual, I dare say it would be a bit heavier. I would say this was more on a sophomore/junior high school level of discussion with many more complexities that could have been brought in. It could have, and I wished had, gotten a bit dirtier and mentally challenging/deep.

After reading it, I was interested in the author, Paul chamberlain. I was surprised that he is a professor of apologetics. Though the book didnt really give the non-theistic view the best representation, i dont recall it being too overly pro-yahweh.

I would reccomend.

I liked the dialogue idea...it made what I find to be an otherwise boring subject more interesting. I can't think of any other college textbook I have sat down and read straight through of my own free will lately. All in all, a good, solid introduction to the important questions and philosophies of life. If you want to go more in-depth, buy one of the many thick, squinty-small print tomes available on the subject.

This work is philosophically naive and a bit immature in presentation. It is presented in the attractive package of fiction, somewhat like a Platonic dialogue without the art or wit. As a resource, even the sources Chamberlain cites are not very thorough, and his choices of what to refer to seem odd and haphazard at times. A student who wants to understand the issues would do better to look elsewhere. Most problematic is the fact that Chamberlain has a shockingly shallow grasp of human character, and an even weaker understanding of the positions he aims to refute.

The main problem with the book is its naivety. An author should not use fiction as a device if he does not understand people or how to write them. The characters in Chamberlain's story are childish and naive and almost never talk or act like adults. His presentation of their viewpoints is also shallow and sometimes insulting. A "graduate student in philosophy" goes through the whole book as if she had never heard of any of the ethical theories or ideas being discussed, a rather absurd notion, and so far from reality that it fails to suspend disbelief. People storm out of the audience in the middle of a debate because they "can't handle it," something that never happens in real life and looks ridiculous in fiction. In essence, since Chamberlain is pitting his Christ-like figure against such ignorant children, he cannot fail to win. But not being a fair fight, the result is not useful to the reader, who would like to understand the other characters and their views better than Chamberlain allows.

Besides this, the two central philosophical flaws in the book are first, Chamberlain dismisses subjectivism far too readily (see p. 176--a responsible study of ethics requires a serious look at the full arguments on the subjectivist side, not just Chamberlain-style characatures), and second, he rests on an argument that was destroyed by the Euthyphro dilemma defined by Plato over 2300 years ago (see pp. 182-7): what is good is good because it is in God's nature--but why then is it to be called good? Because it is God's nature, or because we can see that God's nature conforms to an external concept of goodness? This tautology gets us nowhere. Chamberlain never explains why what is in any god's nature should be called "good." What if it were in God's nature to call for the summary murder of family members who become Hindus? (and he does, cf. Deuteronomy 13:9) Would that make it good? In other words, Chamberlain never answers the question that the book aims to answer, for he only addresses the divine-command aspect of the Euthyphro dilemma, totally failing to see that the same dilemma applies to divine-nature explanations.

This is an excellent little book addressing the justification for morality in a fictional dialogue. Several reviewers have taken it to task because of its lack of complexity and the fact that it doesn't answer every argument from the non-theistic side. Even though I don't believe these arguments fair any better under the spotlight,the main point is that the book was not intended to be an exhaustive tome on ethics. Criticizing the book for what it is not misses the mark. For people who have read or thought little on the basis for morality this is an excellent introduction to the theistic basis for moral objectivism and a solid critique of the basic arguments against it.

Chamberlain's book demonstrates the folly of trying to formulate an objective morality apart from an ultimate, absolute and personal standard. The book is entertaining in its Socratic dialogue format. The author gives a fair presentation of the non-theistic systems of ethics and carefully demonstrates why they cannot yield a true morality. Chamberlain doesn't deny that non-theists can be moral. He simply demonstrates why their morality has no rational basis.

If you're interested in Christian apologetics of this kind, you might read Peter Kreeft's (Catholic) books, Socrates Meets Jesus, The Unaborted Socrates, and Between Heaven and Hell. All are written in a similar, Socratic style, but Kreeft's are as funny as they are intellectually stimulating. Chamberlain's and Kreeft's books are a great addition to any library.

I have to agree 100% with the previous reviewer. I found this authors intent to be deceitful.. the weakest arguments from the opposing viewpoints are stated and then refuted. It is common sense that if you want your argument to be taken seriously you should always attack your opponents strongest points. On this the author fails. The author has also failed to show where objective morals come from?? Do we have an authenticated record in Gods own writing? Failing this, all documents are men's words, and men being fallible means there are no objective morals.