I read an interesting story today about a woman who says that reading atheist author Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion led her to becoming Catholic. I doubt that Dawkins would be very happy with that!
After she began reading the book, at the insistence of her daughter, she found that it contained "no cogent arguments" and afterward, read Pope benedict's book Jesus of Nazareth which led to her conversion.
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After she began reading the book, at the insistence of her daughter, she found that it contained "no cogent arguments" and afterward, read Pope benedict's book Jesus of Nazareth which led to her conversion.
Truthfully, I found the [The God Delusion] a waste of my time as it afforded me no cogent arguments concerning the existence or non-existence of God. In fact, not only was Dawkins disrespectful of opinions other than his own, I found his statements about Jesus to be so ill-informed (and, mind you, I was no fount of scholarly information myself) that I resolved to actually learn something about Jesus Christ.Nice to know that reading Dawkins can have a positive effect :)
Reading Dawkins challenged me to go beyond my comfort zone and honestly confront the issues holding me back from a full commitment to faith. My sense of The God Delusion is that it is written as a testimony to Dawkins’ belief system (which I call fundamentalist atheism) and that the author cherry picks convenient quotes to bolster his opinion that esteemed scientists (such as Einstein) couldn’t possibly be ignorant enough to actually believe in a supernatural God, no matter what they may have said to the contrary. In fact, anyone with any intelligence at all couldn’t possible believe in a supernatural God. Dawkins is preaching to his atheist choir and evidently they loved the book based on their many five-star recommendations of it.
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I choose to believe in a supernatural God and his son, the Word, Jesus. I believe in miracles. I believe that, while science has many valuable insights to offer us, it is not the final word. I believe that some things are beyond our understanding, certainly now, and perhaps forever. I believe that God is great and that man, created in His image and with free will, has made wonderful discoveries about the natural world that we inhabit. I choose to believe in God and that he is no delusion, nor am I delusional.
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Did you click through to see the comment of an Amazon review that someone else posted?
ReplyDeleteI started reading this thinking that I might read a logical, skeptical, nay scientific critique of religion. Instead, I found something right out of a Boston Globe editorial on a bad day: strings of pejorative adjectives pretending to be argument, bald assertion pretending to be evidence, an incredibly arrogant attitude, and a stance of moral equivalence incapable of distinguishing between the possible strengths and weaknesses of different religions, including the militant atheism Dawkins advocates. This is not academic analysis, it is bad journalism.
Did you click through to see the comment of an Amazon review that someone else posted? :)
ReplyDeleteI started reading this thinking that I might read a logical, skeptical, nay scientific critique of religion. Instead, I found something right out of a Boston Globe editorial on a bad day: strings of pejorative adjectives pretending to be argument, bald assertion pretending to be evidence, an incredibly arrogant attitude, and a stance of moral equivalence incapable of distinguishing between the possible strengths and weaknesses of different religions, including the militant atheism Dawkins advocates. This is not academic analysis, it is bad journalism.
She's hardy an imbecile. I quote from her bio,
ReplyDelete"About jbabarsky
Judith R. Babarsky, MS, MA, is a Licensed Professional Counselor engaged in private practice for the past 22 years. A graduate of Holy Apostles College and Seminary with a Bioethics concentration, she teaches the undergraduate Intro to Bioethics class and is also a Teaching Assistant for graduate level Dogmatic Theology classes. A convert to Catholicism, she has a strong commitment to bioethical and social justice issues."
Dawkins is extremely arrogant. His autobiography is sad and pompous . read it
ReplyDeleteThere isn't any flattering alternative. Whatever else you might say about "The God Delusion," it consists of clear, coherent and painstakingly-constructed arguments. I can picture religious people disputing those arguments or offering counter-arguments, but to claim the book offers no arguments is either idiocy or willful ignorance.
ReplyDeleteI have skimmed The God Delusion and I don't think it's arguments are "clear, coherent and painstakingly-constructed".
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that Dawkins is not a professor of theology, religious studies, or philosophy, so when he comes out with his "devastating" arguments against faith he isn't very convincing to people with any depth of understanding. I'm not saying that his critiques against religion don't have validity, because they do, but these are not critiques against faith, but against human evil.
Rather than place Dawkins against the straw-man of venal, self-serving, controlling religious, if you placed Dawkins against say Thomas Merton, St John of the Cross, or St. Hildegard of Bingen then he falls flat.
Instead Dawkins preaches to the converted, playing into their already present bigotry and misunderstanding of faith. The god that Dawkins does not believe it, well people with a deep faith do not believe in that god either.
I haven't read the book from cover to cover, so I can't say that the book offers _no_ arguments, but what I did skim through was very superficial and lacked a solid philosophical or theological dimension.
I think a better book in this vein is Lloyd Geering's latest "From the Big Bang to God". I don't agree with Geering's theology, but the man does know what he's talking about.
ReplyDeleteI think there's a cross-cultural miscommunication involved, in that for people like Dawkins (and me), faith is totally irrelevant to an assessment of rational arguments for and against the existence of God. That probably looks like willful ignorance and obnoxious arrogance to people with faith, but for us, in-depth knowledge of theology or any particular religion isn't necessary, because the principles of evidence for or against a claim are universal. I don't see any prospects for reconciliation anytime soon.
ReplyDeleteWoman reads book, fails to understand it. Movie at 7.
ReplyDeleteHundreds, thousands, nay, millions of people have read The Bible and as a direct result have become atheists.
I read the God Delusion, and many of his comments were obnoxious, condescending and irrelevant to any reasoned discussion he may have seemed to have mounted.
ReplyDeleteThe book took me by surprise - I expected way better. Any Christian reading it and expecting to see a showcase of the intellectual superiority of the new atheist, will simply find a man offering new prejudices.