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 Not just a book for atheism December 1, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I think it's not worth repeating how great this book is because of its contents about atheism and religion.
What I wanted to add to these reviews is that after reading this book you will surely view the world differently, and this book will have an impact not just on your view of the church and religion but also on your every day life.
And if you do like this book, watch The Zeitgeist documentaries, you will find them very interesting too (at least "Zeitgeist: The Movie" if you are only interested in faith, religion etc. and not in social manipulation in a broader sense). zeitgeistmovie.com is the url
 Satans Pawn November 30, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Doesn't matter if you believe in Satan's existence or not, D's methods are as old as sin - Discredit and displace God. D says as much on pg 12, he wants himself via his books to have the same power he claims religion had in past centuries - "transcendent wonder". Satan has always been after Gods glory.
I'm definitely not in `the choir" but I read the book. Not only did I read it, I think it's safe to say I read most of it twice with all the interruptions I had and the notes I took. Out of 374 pages in this book I took 236 notes (found a typo on p 264) on things I found fault with. Christians who don't know their stuff will read this book and believe its lies and deceit, there's much to choose from. It would do everyone well to read alot of the `other view'. Let's imagine that there is only one `other view' since D very obviously is only out to discredit Yahweh though he hides, not very well, behind the banner of all religions must go.
*D starts off with the victim's cry. His wife's story (and others) about how she was forced into her parents beliefs because she didn't know she could speak out against them. (he'll gather a following from the liberal left on this point alone)
*Later, D likens the atheists cause to the homosexuals and says that atheists need to follow suit (which they have been doing already in the powerful and well funded ACLU);
*He attempts to make a case of how politically powerful evangelicals are in the USA (yeah right, that's why Darwinism is still the only theory taught in public schools, abortion is flourishing, etc., etc.);
*He claims scientists, mostly atheist, are forced to keep it a secret or fake some sort of religious belief or lose funding, jobs, respect (see rae.org > interview with Dr. Larry Bergman who lists by name and location 3000 Ph.D. level scientists who are "Darwin doubters" and who says many more won't get put on his list for fear it could jeopardize their career)
*He misquotes certain Founding Fathers of the USA and claims it was not started as a Christian nation. ( D was so ignorant to even go there, see Original Intent by David Barton.)
*He says religion is not a proper field where one can claim expertise then totally mistranslates everything he says about the Bible and tries to make it sound official by throwing in things like `most theologians agree'...
Of course D goes into natural selection (ns) and is an obvious lover of Darwin but there are plenty of `other view' books already written counteracting that. I hope anyone reading D's book would read them, you know, just to raise consciousness. A good site is answersingenesis.com
In the God of the gaps section, he accuses the "fundies" of filling God in the gaps of everything they can't explain. (I found ns had similar tendencies, if certain things can't be explained then it's creative ns, stabilizing selection, resistance to extinction, mosaic evolution, invisible peripheral isolates, unconscious evolution, memetic natural selection of some kind, misfiring, Darwinian mistake or by-product, or fossils aren't needed anyway.)
Having said in another reply on this site something to the effect of "I don't need evidence anyway" I was thrilled to find out that D doesn't either, which means he and his followers can understand what faith is. NS is not true and evolution is not proven (even if it were I still wouldn't like D's style), no matter how many times certain reviewers say so and the only `evidence' D has regarding the origin of life is:
"stroke of luck" (p140);
"lucky chance" (p139);
And on p 137 + 144 +366 (I love this part) " The origin of life was the chemical event, or series of events...the major ingredient was heredity, either DNA or RNA. Once the vital ingredient - some kind of genetic molecule - is in place, true Darwinian ns can follow..." , "Why did it have to be the kind of universe which seems almost as if...it must have known we were coming." , "Think about it. On one planet, and possibly only one planet in the entire universe, molecules that would normally make nothing more complicated than a chunk of rock, gather themselves together into chunks of rock-sized matter of such staggering complexity that they are capable of running, jumping, swimming, flying, seeing, hearing, etc."
D had to put that in here for laughs, he couldn't possibly be so obviously deceitful as to think anyone would believe this leap of faith is any different than `if God says so then it is so'. God formed us, He breathed life into us, He prepared the earth for us, He has a plan for us. Call it God or call it ns, it's faith in luck or faith in God, but D definitely has faith.
As if that's not enough he says a personal God probably doesn't exist and couldn't possible hear all prayers, be involved in all lives, etc., yet D attributes abilities like these to ns. On p 163 " Darwin explained ns as daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest..."; p 221 "ns programmed into our brains altruistic urges, sexual urges..."; p 217 "ns...predisposes individuals...to give...to solicit...remember obligations, bear grudges."
I could go on and on, this book is full of opinions, stereotypes, deceit. Was it worth the time? I've wasted time in worse ways. If nothing else it's put me on even firmer ground. What appeared as an intellectual group to me has turned out to be a delusion.
Lower Sixth Form Arguments: a Concise Critique. November 20, 2008
3 out of 9 found this review helpful
Christianity (viz. the Vatican) is not against science, Gallileo's trial was political and not science based (heliocentricity theory being nothing new at the time) and Monsignor Georges Lemaitre, a Belgian RC priest, proposed the Big Bang theory.
 Just who is deluded? November 5, 2008
7 out of 22 found this review helpful
From the messianic promises of the opening pages to the utopian scientism of the closing pages, this is a fatuously pretentious and philosophically incoherent book which would never have been published if it had been written by anyone less eminent. Dawkins's treatment of morality is particularly amateurish, and sometimes downright laughable. He really should stick to science, since he clearly doesn't understand anything else, and stop bothering the world with his neurotically obsessive atheizing. Read this book, by all means, but read some of the responses too -- my own book would be a good place to start.
 Surprisingly interesting November 1, 2008
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
I bought this book a while back out of curiosity, but have put off reading it until due to fears of it being merely a rant against religion or just loads of use of Argument from Outrage. I am glad I have finally read it, however, as I found it to be surprisingly well-written, well-reasoned, informative and interesting.
I am an athiest and have been both a Christian and atheist at different periods in my life (obviosly not at the same time!). I would call myself a reluctant atheist, because I would love nothing more for there to be a God and Christianity to be true (or any religion really), but I just don't see enough evidence in favour of God's existence.
As for Dawkins's book, for me I found Chapters 4, 5 and 6 to be the most interesting, delving into evolution. Darwinism certainly explains a lot things, not just how an animal acts, but also why. I had studied human evolution in archaeology in my first year at university and so I enjoyed Dawkins's obvious expertise in evolutionary biology. When I was a Christian I saw no reason why evolution and religion should be considered incompatible. I still don't think the two are incompatible, unless you are a creationist or literalist.
Some bits of the book I didn't enjoy, hence only 4 stars. Chapter 7 is mainly merely Argument from Outrage, listing bits of scripture showing how horrible the Old Testament is. As for the section on Hitler, he certainly was not a Christian, of any denomination, although his belief in some sort of providence, I believe, does not make him an out-and-out atheist. Chapters 8 and 9 also use Argument from Outrage, which worked for me, as I found myself agreeing with a lot of what Dawkins said - fundamentalism and creationism should be opposed, and children protected from the dark side of religion - such as the threat of hell and visits to those ridiculous Hell Houses run by Pastor Keenan Roberts - truly awful and shocking. On page 300 I found myself disagreeing though. Dawkins writes, concerning a possible New Ten Commandments, that one should not "discriminate or oppress on the basis of sex, race or (as far as possible) species". To that I would add religion and creed as theists deserve as much respect, as fellow human beings, as anyone else.
On the whole though an enjoyable and recommended book.
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