Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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43 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining, interesting and slightly bizarre, May 1, 2008
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.
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78 of 108 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Confident Irrationality, January 16, 2009
I was given this book by an acquaintance who thought I just had to read it, but before I started, I looked it up on Amazon to get an idea of what to expect, and was surprised to see so many reviews saying things like "irrefutable", "incredibly well argued", "logical" etc. I was surprised because I have been an Atheist for a very long time, and have heard most everything one could throw at me, so I was intrigued. What arguments for the existence of God, and for religion could cause one to say something as uncompromising as "irrefutable".
Well lets just say the intrigue didn't last long. First I read that there will be no argument to support the existence of God at all, and I thought well then what's the point? The only thing left is to argue fantasy is good for humanity, and so we should all pick something and then fight hard to fool ourselves into believing it's true and this will somehow make us happier, and this is basically what the rest of the book proves to be about, but of course, Christianity is always the preferred something to believe in.
It is argued with confidence, and it takes a tact from Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris by insulting them and Atheism quite frequently. The difference is however, that in the first case the insults are incidental to the material. I mean It's pretty hard to tell someone their beliefs are silly without insulting them, but in the case of this book the insults are often personal and gratuitous in nature, such as calling Hitchens a drunk, and also completely mis-representative of reality such as calling calling New Atheism "militantly fundamentalist" and a "godless jihad". Wow.
I understand that many Christians who might have read any of the current popular Atheist books, might feel a bit of frustration at being openly attacked for the first time in many years, and having absolutely nothing of substance to say in return, and that is what this book feels like. An angry rant, demeaning and insulting those who it claims are doing this same thing to religion, but unfortunately there is nothing behind the anger in this case.
The book is filled wall to wall with flimsy argument, but presented in a confident and antagonistic manner, and I suppose this is enough for many to think a valid logical point has been made. As I got further into the book though, it really became clear why the high ratings. I could begin to feel the frustration of those religious people who perhaps have read or heard of one of the more popular Atheism books available now, and desperately want something on their side with the same confidence and condemnation in these books, but against Atheism instead of for it. They got the confidence and condemnation, but without any of the substance of the Atheist books.
Just a couple of easily found examples from the book.
"..nearly all of the great religious scientists were not merely religious, but Christians, and that there were far fewer scientists than there are today.
The frst fact is significant because it indicates that there is likely a
difference between the Christian worldview that supported a search
for scientifc truth and the various non-Christian worldviews that
did not. The second fact is even more interesting, as it suggests that
the non-Christian worldview of today's science may in fact be hin-
dering the pace of scientifc development rather than helping it"
I mean Wow! A little history would have done wonders for this book. Most of these early scientists lived during the renaissance, a time when most everyone in Europe was still a Christian under punishment of imprisonment or death. Also during this time writings from Ancient Greece and Rome were being reread and Europeans began to understand that the old great civilizations had relied mostly on reason to guide them in the world rather than a Christian God, and it made them think that perhaps they were spending a bit too much time debating scripture, and not enough time using their reason. The a magical thing happened. European civilization started to move forward and true science was soon born. So how could one say with a straight face, that the early science was due to Christianity when it had done nothing to improve the condition of mankind for the 1000 years of it's dominance. And if this were not bad enough, he then suggests that current scientific research is slowing down because there are not enough Christian scientists. He says this at a time when science is starting it's vertical ascent on an exponential curve, and when over 93% of the all top tier scientists are atheists. It's not only blatantly false, but I think deliberately so, and filled with desperation, as is this entire book.
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26 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
The Childish Theist, January 8, 2009
I found a lot of positive reviews of this book on the net so I wondered how well it tackles the 'new atheist' preachings. Needless to say, I was disappointed and didn't even finish reading it (yeah, you can smash me for it in the comments). If this is the best refutation to Dawkins/Hutchins/etc a theist can offer, then they've won. The first chapter (and a half of all next chapters) is one big ad hominem. At one point Day pictures the atheist as 'having receding hair lines, bad breath and fading jeans'. Yes, Dawkins resorts to ad hominems as well, but at least they are funny and don't go beyond a couple of paragraphs. Day just seems to want to show us just how childish he can become.
When finally throws in some arguments in between all the name calling I can only wonder why the reviewers fail to see the evident fallacies in them. Let me just show you two examples of two Day's attempts on logic:
In the first chapter he wonders about the appearent discrepancy between number of people identifying themselves as 'atheist' in the polls and a larger number of people labeling themselves as 'no religion'. Day proceeds to name three explanations for this phenomenon:
(1) there is a substantive difference between being an atheist and not being religious, (2) many people without religion still cling to a belief in God, or (3) there are a large number of individualswho simply dont know what to call themselves
There's a number of things wrong with these explanations. For one, there is in fact a substantive difference between not being religious and being atheist. While all atheist are non-religious, not all non-religious people are atheist - those are the group of people identified in the second explanation - those who believe in some kind of god but are not part of any existing religion (this would include Albert Einstein and Thomas Jefferson for instance). Moreso, Day forgets to include other options like people not believing in any god being afraid to identify themselves as atheist because this term is used in a derogatory manner in their society (and in books like Day's). As much as this set of explanation is flawed (first two explanations being the same) what follows - Day's way of choosing which one of them is the correct one - is outright ridiculous:
"Given the large number of American voters, 26 percent in the 2004
election,8 who cannot figure out if they are Democrats or Republicans
even after making a selection between the two parties, Occams
Razor suggests that the third explanation is the one most likely to be
correct."
It left me breathless. While he fails to see that all of the explanations can be correct (with different people falling into different cathegories) he chooses Occam's Razor (supported by a non-sequitur) as his decision tool? Wow, I guess he would choose Newton's theory of gravity over Einstein's gravitation theory just because it's more simple - good thinking, Mr Day, don't overexert your brains.
The second example of author's anti-logical thinking is even more evident. In the second chapter he tries to work out a crippled version of Popper's definition of science (overlooking a lot of other Popper's criteria along the way):
"Poppers primary criterion for distinguishing between science and not-science is the concept of falsifiability. For a hypothesis to be falsifiable, it must be theoretically possible to make an observation that would disprove the subject."
Then he proceeds to propose a science of 'god linguistics':
"I base this premise on the classic example of a falsifiable proposition, the statement that all swans are white. The fact that one could prove this proposition to be wrong by observing a black swan makes it falsifiable and therefore a proper scientific matter. ... the proposition all gods speak Aramaic is equally falsifiable, given that the theoretical observation of a monolingual Greek-speaking god would suffice to falsify the proposition."
So what's wrong with that argument? Well, Mr. Day, how do you propose we observe gods speak? Even theoretically. No answer? Well, then your "god linguistics" is not a scientific theory while the swans theory is, because there is a way to observe them. There are in fact many theories produced by the scientific society that are not, in popper's sense, scientific, because they cannot be proven/disproven. These include the Many Worlds Interpretation and the String Theory.
The rest of the book does not get any better. The problem with The Irrational Atheist is that the author does not understand science, does not understand atheism and does not understand logic either. All we are left with are childish ad hominems praised by the religious community. Makes me wonder...
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