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Review Summary: full of worthless and rude, arrogant arguments against Dawkins, even against his wife |
Date: 2008-10-09 |
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Details: Both Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker use their own brand of "reason" based on faith thinking they have soundly dismantled Dawkins' arguments. Who is delusional here? One hundred and fifty-two pages and they fail to demonstrate how atheism is a faith. What they offer is only rhetoric. What their argument in the end boils down to is based on faith and "evidence" from an invisible world. How convenient. These low caliber shake-down artists enforce the truth of the fundamentals of evolutionary science and the points Dawkins makes in The God Delusion. I only gave it one star because I had to. |
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Review Summary: Short but shining |
Date: 2008-10-06 |
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Details: As a Jew, one thing in this book that makes me uneasy is its intimation that Christianity is the sole theistic answer to atheism. The authors can't of course rationally substantiate this view, as may be seen when considering their rather mystical excursion (pp.66-7) into Christian doctrine. They make, however, an excellent effort to rationally counter the "new atheism".
They make one of the best arguments I have seen regarding the statistically enormous improbability (by them "impossibility") of chance for the multitude of organic components assembling as they do (ca.pp.27-31).
They also offer a good argument (ca.pp.62-3) against "one of Dawkins' favorite 'proofs' for the non-existence of God". He claims: "Any Designer capable of constructing the dazzling array of living things would have to be intelligent and complicated beyond all imagining", and that, the authors observe, "things that are complex enough to be intelligent, must themselves be the products of evolution". Dawkins proceeds that the reasoning requires yet a more complex intelligence as cause and so on ad infinitum, making the existence of God "very very improbable indeed".
The authors justifiably argue that Dawkins wrongly thinks that, like himself, "all possible intelligent beings, including God, must be the result of material evolutionary processes". They mix in the idea of God as "a purely spiritual, omniscient Being", but this isn't necessary. Without their characterizing the nature of a Creator, the Dawkins assumption that "evolution [really the structure of organisms]...is always a matter of chance material mutation" is itself question begging. It needn't be assumed that a Creator, or for that matter organisms, result from "blind" natural processes. In fact, be the existence of God settled or not, the cause if any needn't also be settled.
The authors further, as noted elsewhere in these reviews, make a good case against the moral claims of Darwinian atheists. Since Darwinism is amoral, bestowing moral advantages only for survival of groups but not for inter-rivalry among them, its defenders are unjustified in injecting universal morality, precluded by Darwinism.
Also essayed by the authors is a proof of God's existence, saying boldly "Yes, there is a proof" (p.75), though offering quite a strained one that "depends on a significant amount of evidence from the latest findings in nearly all the sciences" etc., and is named "argument from intelligibility" (p.84). The argument contains odd statements like "mathematical intelligibility is written into nature itself, and we abstract the 'laws' from nature" (p.89), although it is long understood that deductive truths, as in mathematics, hold "in all possible worlds", i.e. are valid conceptually. And as proof of God they say (p.88) "Here is the inference: in our experience, deep, multi-layered, and integrated intelligibility is always the result of a requisite intelligence" (?), and then "The existence of science would seem [hesitation] to demonstrate the existence of an Intelligent Creator".
This appears unlikely to convince someone as proof. A logical proof must clearly enunciate acceptable premises, and by valid rules deduce the conclusion. One can also question whether God if possessing a proof would wait for the many sciences, some perhaps dubious, to reveal it, instead of having a simpler one, accessible to humanity at large.
At the cost of sounding equally bold, I offer a discussion of the same in my On Proof for Existence of God, and Other Reflective Inquiries. The above probabilities highlighted by the reviewed authors, as well as the complexities spoken of in the intelligent design movement, are plausible factors supporting the existence of a supreme being. But there are common factors overlooked, that when seen in their appropriate relationship lead to the insights desired.
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Review Summary: I pity Dawkins |
Date: 2008-09-19 |
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Details: Hahn and Wiker expose the irrational and poor logic of Dawkins, even providing several quotes by prominent atheists to demonstrate that Dawkins is philosophically uneducated and that his book is not taken seriously by anyone who knows anything about the debate. Of course, the average American does not fall into that category and has been duped into thinking the New Atheism has something intelligent to say. Hahn shows Dawkins blind faith in the god chance, and the absurd lengths Dawkins will go to avoid admitting God's existence. People treat Dawkins like some sort of god of atheism and the man REALLY doesn't know what he is talking about. David Ramsey Steele and John Loftus have MUCH better books on atheism with actual arguments using sound philosophy (though still flawed). Hahn shows how Dawkins believes in an evolutionary understanding of morals, yet is himself a moral absolutist. One can not have it both ways. It's unfortunate that many of us have put our faith in the arguments of a biologist. |
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Review Summary: Don't waste your money |
Date: 2008-09-19 |
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Details: A wise man once said, Say in five words what most men say in many. After reading the first chapter, I threw the book away. |
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Review Summary: They leave amateour dummy naked ... :D |
Date: 2008-09-10 |
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Details: This is a very solid reply to amateur philosopher - Dawkins. I have to admit this is a quite thin, but very substantive book. Of three replies to Dawkins, I think this is the best so far. If you are to buy one book as a reply to "God Delusion" - buy this one. It strips Dawkins of all amateurish 'arguments' he helplessly throws in. Dick left to be naked and angry... :)
I have to say - there is a good thing about Dawkins writing his "God Delusion". Because of his amateurish arguments, many good thinkers came into light with great publications. This book is no exception. You see, if not Dick, this great book would not be published. Due to Dawkins I came to know about John Lennox, Alister McGrath, and authors of this book. You see, out of dummies, some good things may actually happen. :D
Anyways, this book is written interestingly and divided in logical sections. It shows Dawkins complete ignorance when it comes to various aspects of science, and philosophy especially. For example, anthropic principle is completely misunderstood by Dick. :D His faith in chance is awe aspiring. What's more ironic, is Dawkins' failure to understand the difference between something being 'impossible' and 'improbable'. ...
All the way reading this nice book I was impressed that someone actually noticed what I noticed about Dawkins arguments, it was like continuing 'deja vu'. Again and again I was impressed that someone finally pointed out for the dummy Dawkins why his philosophy is amateurish. I have read Berlinski's "Devil Delusion", and McGrath's "Dawkins' Delusion", but they did not took approach authors of this book took. This book is more oriented on details. For instance, on p. 40 it states: "There is a second reason why the chance rise of life is impossible and not merely extremely improbable. If the parts must come before the whole, why would the parts be there at all? Chance doesn't plan anything, but the parts of cell, as the parts of a car, are themselves complex entities built up of smaller, well-calibrated parts."
Another good quote comes from p. 57, as a reply to Dawkins' 'examining the effectiveness of prayer': "The error if the double-blinded prayer experiment is that it treats God like some kind of natural cause, rather than a personal, rational Being. In doing so, God is being unjustly subjected to a humiliating attempt to manipulate Him by an experiment. In short, the experiment is an insult, and any rational being, superhuman or not, would treat it as such. That does not, of course, mean that praying for healing itself is an insult; we are speaking only of framing such prayer in the context of a manipulative experiment."
One suggestion for the authors I would give is concerning the content of page 73. They say: "We agree that a religious person's personal account of some mystical experience is not an argument for the existance of God."
I think, however, that the argument from religious experience is somewhat interesting. I would recommend reading Norman Geisler about it. I like his account of religious experience, and possibility to transcend inward, outward, upward, downward, forward, backward, etc. According to Geisler even atheists like Nietzsche have religious experience by transcending themselves one way or the other, without realizing it. I found this idea to be interesting and worth introducing into dialogue.
If you want to read as many replies to Dawkins as possible, you'll find this book to be worth checking out, and adding to your collection. If you only want to buy one book to balance "God Delusion", and thinking which one to buy, - buy this one. |
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out of 19 Reviews
