reading recommendations for this atheist?

[pirateninja]

I wonder if this question might be better posed in the apologetics forum, but I see that is for Christians only

I am an atheist looking for some reading recommendations. I like being intellectually challenged, and I’ve been reading various books and sources that are cited as antidotes to the ‘new atheism’. I believe that it is important to have one’s views tested from time to time, and I don’t want to slip into a lazy intellectual comfortability. Nothing I have read so far, however, actually addresses atheist arguments and puts forward a counter view. The responses I have come across so far all either make ad-hominem attacks against atheist writers, complain that atheists are being beastly, dismiss atheists as not being up with theology, or simply restate old arguments. None of this actually constitutes any sort of response to current atheist writing.

Can anyone point me at any resources (preferably books – I’m an old guy, I like to read, not listen to mp3s) that actually address current atheist writing? For example (I’ll refer to Dawkins in particular as he is the bete noir of contemporary counter-atheism writers, it seems)

• instead of saying that Dawkins is not qualified in theology, actually explain some of the theological arguments and why Dawkins is wrong.
• instead of just restating the ideas that complex organisms cannot come to be by chance, there are no intermediate stages to eyes, etc etc, actually unpack Dawkin’s arguments and show why he is wrong in his criticism of these arguments.

I’ll be even pickier: what I’m really interested in are responses to the scientific and metaphysical questions of the existence of god or gods. While Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, etc, comment on the evils committed by religion which provokes in turn comments about the good done by religion, social utility is no argument for or against the existence of god or gods (whether god or gods are good is another matter but that is, well, another matter).

 

[kidsagainstkows]

well as an atheist i cant really many good apologetic but i can say that my favorite ones are Josh Mcdowel, Lee Strobel, and Ray Comfort.

for reading about the bible i recommend you read Bart Erhman (hes agnostic). i had the opportunity to hear him speak and read a textbook by him (i have since read 'Jesus Interrupted' as well and its very good).

i also recommend the profMTH account on youtube for other things reguarding religion. he is also an atheist but he doesnt mock like Dawkins, Hitchens, or to a lesser degree Harris.

 

[ebia]

I wonder if this question might be better posed in the apologetics forum, but I see that is for Christians only

I am an atheist looking for some reading recommendations. I like being intellectually challenged, and I’ve been reading various books and sources that are cited as antidotes to the ‘new atheism’. I believe that it is important to have one’s views tested from time to time, and I don’t want to slip into a lazy intellectual comfortability. Nothing I have read so far, however, actually addresses atheist arguments and puts forward a counter view. The responses I have come across so far all either make ad-hominem attacks against atheist writers, complain that atheists are being beastly, dismiss atheists as not being up with theology, or simply restate old arguments. None of this actually constitutes any sort of response to current atheist writing.

Can anyone point me at any resources (preferably books – I’m an old guy, I like to read, not listen to mp3s) that actually address current atheist writing? For example (I’ll refer to Dawkins in particular as he is the bete noir of contemporary counter-atheism writers, it seems)

• instead of saying that Dawkins is not qualified in theology, actually explain some of the theological arguments and why Dawkins is wrong.
• instead of just restating the ideas that complex organisms cannot come to be by chance, there are no intermediate stages to eyes, etc etc, actually unpack Dawkin’s arguments and show why he is wrong in his criticism of these arguments.

I’ll be even pickier: what I’m really interested in are responses to the scientific and metaphysical questions of the existence of god or gods. While Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, etc, comment on the evils committed by religion which provokes in turn comments about the good done by religion, social utility is no argument for or against the existence of god or gods (whether god or gods are good is another matter but that is, well, another matter).

On the whole, good theologians don't write books of apologetics, and where there are exceptions they aren't usually engaging in debate with a particular militant atheist.

You would do better to read some good theology and then make up your own mind about whether that's the kind of theology being addressed by Dawkins et al. Something by John Polkinhorne (himself a physicist turned theologian) or N.T. Wright might suit.

Most of the popular apologetics is, IMO, utter drivel - John Dickson is a notable Australian exception.

 

[Bible2]

reading recommendations for this atheist?

There is only one book that will convince atheists of the truth of Christianity, and that is God's own book the Holy Bible: "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17). "And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus" (2 Timothy 3:15).

 

[Supreme]

Th God Delusion's actually funny, if you know who Dawkins is. It's comedic value is mostly derived from the desperation of the author to convince himself, sorry, the reader at the impossibility of God. Does anyone remember when Dawkins used to keep to the subject he's good at, namely evolutionary biology? Because for someone studying bioplogy such as myself, those books are far more useful than the bunch of quickly thought out, centuries old arguments regarding things Dawkins doesn't understand quickly compiled in a book.

PS- I like the Dawkins Delusion, that pretty much destroys every argument Dawkins tries to make. Oh, and it's written by a respectable scientist, Alistair McGrath, who, on the complete contrary to Dawkins, started out an atheist, studied science and became a Christian.

 

[heymikey80]

From a philosophical point of view?

Spinoza, "Ethics".
Yancey, "Rumors of Another World".
MacIntyre, "After Virtue". Though I'm not impressed with his solution, he lays out the problem very, very well.
Ecclesiastes.

Dawkins is attacking by rhetoric. That's why his position is so problematic, and why the response to him is uniformly exposing his rhetoric. Were he to explain the reasoned problem of the concept of God, then we'd have something to talk about. But anyone can trash anything (Derrida). Heck, people have trashed water.

 

[pirateninja]

On the whole, good theologians don't write books of apologetics, and where there are exceptions they aren't usually engaging in debate with a particular militant atheist.

I had kinda suspected that. I hadn't actually expected to be reading theology. My point was this. Athiests who discuss the evidence for and against god from a scientific perspective usually explain why they think the evidence leads to the views they hold. These explanations may or may not be correct. I happen to think they are. Religious writers in response generally say "oh X doesn't know his theology" or "well, X is only a biologist and isn't really qualified to talk about science". Which are statements which one hopes have some possible basis in argument. But the argument's not there, just the assertion. I was hoping that someone might have picked up the argument in their responses. But anyway ...

You would do better to read some good theology and then make up your own mind about whether that's the kind of theology being addressed by Dawkins et al. Something by John Polkinhorne (himself a physicist turned theologian) or N.T. Wright might suit.

Most of the popular apologetics is, IMO, utter drivel - John Dickson is a notable Australian exception.

Polkinhorne. Wright. Dickson. Thanks. I'll be back.

 

[ebia]

I had kinda suspected that. I hadn't actually expected to be reading theology. My point was this. Athiests who discuss the evidence for and against god from a scientific perspective usually explain why they think the evidence leads to the views they hold. These explanations may or may not be correct. I happen to think they are. Religious writers in response generally say "oh X doesn't know his theology" or "well, X is only a biologist and isn't really qualified to talk about science". Which are statements which one hopes have some possible basis in argument. But the argument's not there, just the assertion. I was hoping that someone might have picked up the argument in their responses.

So you're looking for an explaination of why Dawkin's (say) theology is wrong?

 

[pirateninja]

From a philosophical point of view?

Spinoza, "Ethics".
Yancey, "Rumors of Another World".
MacIntyre, "After Virtue". Though I'm not impressed with his solution, he lays out the problem very, very well.
Ecclesiastes.

OK, will have a go (I managed to avoid spinoza when I went to philosophy school a couple of decades ago; he may have caught up to me).

Dawkins is attacking by rhetoric. That's why his position is so problematic, and why the response to him is uniformly exposing his rhetoric. Were he to explain the reasoned problem of the concept of God, then we'd have something to talk about. But anyone can trash anything (Derrida). Heck, people have trashed water.

I didn't come here to debate - I think that would be discourteous to the forum. But I can't let this go.

Yes he is somewhat exercised about religion. Yes one can point to many good things that religion does in the world. But to claim that Dawkins has no basis to be exercised is to show a profound lack of self-awareness on the part of religion as an institution.

More to the point, though, Dawkin's core arguments are about science. He is eminently qualified to talk on this point. He (and others) convince me. I am also, by the way, quite qualified to talk about the issue and know whereof I speak. Dawkin's arguments on this score are not rhetoric. Here are some arguments that are rhetoric:

"Dawkins doesn't know any theology"
"Dawkins is only a biologist"
"Dawkins isn't a real professor"

They are rhetorical because they rely on ad-hominem dismissals of Dawkins without any attempt whatsoever actually to respond to his arguments. Which is what I am looking for. Christians (N.B. I am deliberately switching from "religious" to "Christians" at this point based on my reading so far) keep telling me that Dawkins et al have it wrong in the detail; as someone who thinks that honest reason is important, want to know why; but no one will tell me!

 

[pirateninja]

So you're looking for an explaination of why Dawkin's (say) theology is wrong?

Well, not just Dawkins ... but pretty much.

See my response to heymikey80 which more or less sets out my issues.

The Dawkins Delusion, for example, is an excellent example of the sort of thing I am talking about - I'm not sure McGrath has actually read Dawkins. He may have felt the weight of the book and skipped across a few choice paras that upset him, but he didn't actually seem to read it. All the more disappointing given that on his credentials McGrath ought be able to directly attack Dawkins on the science. Flew: well, Flew gets pointed at a lot, but, leaving aside that he isn't particularly responding to the New Atheism, all he does is restate in an unsophisticated fashion the argument for incredulity.

Given you are also in Oz, I'll also mention Tom Frame's Losing my religion. The first part, which is a commentary on disinterest in religion in Australia, is actually a good and interesting read. But then ... for example he seeks to refute the New Atheists, especially Dawkins, basically by quoting a string of talking heads who say, in various ways, that Dawkins has no theology. And he (Frame) refers to the new Atheists as "smug". Irony?

P.S. @ Supreme: sorry, being new here, I'm not familiar with the norms and memes. Was that a troll?

P.P.S. @ Bible2: actually I'm an ex-believer and know the bible pretty well. Sorry to disappoint.

 

[CaDan]

Karen Armstrong's The Case for God.

 

[heymikey80]

Yes he is somewhat exercised about religion. Yes one can point to many good things that religion does in the world. But to claim that Dawkins has no basis to be exercised is to show a profound lack of self-awareness on the part of religion as an institution.

The problem isn't whether Dawkins ultimately, forensically has some reason under the hood. The problem is that what Dawkins proffers is not that reasoning.

He is blatantly confrontational and ad-hominem attacking in his terminology.

Hm, good, given your background, have you read in some form some linguist who can lead you to extract denotation from connotation? If you have, I'd like to get to the denotative heart of Dawkins' assertions. You can send me some of them privately if you like, or you can cite and then translate them. They're too horrifically entwined in bigoted attacks for me to extract them. I've failed every time I've tried to approach it. It seems to come down to some bigoted attack on people he perceives as bigoted. Which has been circular every time I've read it.

More to the point, though, Dawkin's core arguments are about science. He is eminently qualified to talk on this point. He (and others) convince me. I am also, by the way, quite qualified to talk about the issue and know whereof I speak.

Well, good. A citation of some of those core arguments, without the apoplexy, would be interesting. So far I've yet to encounter even one article of Dawkins' that hasn't been covered in vitriol.

I'm fairly well-versed in cosmology, more disparaging of biology and psychology. So I'd be interested. I don't know how much the rules can tolerate, though a citation of someone else's work, removed from its emotive and intensional attacks, I could probably help you sustain it as worth posting.

 

[pirateninja]

Karen Armstrong's The Case for God.

Ta. Duly ordered from the library.

I also have Keith Ward's God, Faith and the New Millenium on the way - it has had some good wraps.

 

[Bible2]

I'm an ex-believer and know the bible pretty well.

What part of the Bible do you feel has been proven wrong?

If you no longer believe God's own Word the Bible, why do you think that you will ever believe some mere human's arguments for God?

"If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead" (Luke 16:31).

"My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God" (1 Corinthians 2:4-5).

"From a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables" (2 Timothy 3:15-4:4).

"The Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils" (1 Timothy 4:1).

 

[ebia]

Okay, since I've never actually got around to reading any Dawkins I thought maybe its about time I did and so I've downloaded The God Delusion and started reading it. And I'm beginning to see why there aren't many books directly addressing the argument. It is nausiatingly frustrating to read. 26 pages so far with hardly any rational argument, just random riduculing attacks on various people, and giving an awful lot of space to showing that certain people were not Christians. The only argument so far seems to be:

"religion causes harm", where he assumes that religion is the cause rather than the means (the real cause is usually power or wealth). He goes so far as to critisize people for saying "loyalist vs nationalist" instead of "Catholic vs Protestant" when the former is actually closer to the root issue.

religion has a priviledged position when it comes to certain rights. To some extent he is correct, it does, but what he offers (in so far as he offers anything) is not a solution, but the priviledging of his worldview over all others. He is right to raise the question of "what happens when belief systems conflict?", but fails to acknowledge that there is no neutral ground for resolving that - his supposed rationalism is not neutral ground but one worldview among many.

When he has a go at the historical conflict between arianism and orthodox Christianity he completly misses the point - Christology is not irrelevant hairsplitting but effects the whole way the rest of theology is seen in Christianity: if Jesus is YHWH incarnate then it is in Jesus that we best understand God and we rewrite all our theology based on him. If Jesus is not then we don't do that and we get our picture of God from elsewhere. That he ridicules the language in which the controversy was waged and thinks he has dealt with what it is about points either to very poor theological understanding or deliberate twisting.

Hmm, next bit:
"The simple definition of the God Hypothesis with which I began has to be substantially fleshed out if it is to accommodate the Abrahamic God. He not only created the universe; he is a personal God dwelling within it, or perhaps outside it (whatever that might mean), possessing the unpleasantly human qualities to which I have alluded."
so he's interpreted the OT the way he wants to produce a definition of God that is curriously unlike the picture of God held by most thinking Christians, Jews and Muslims, and will attack that? Sounds suspiciously like the retort he tried to fend of on the previous page "'The God that Dawkins doesn't believe in is a God that I don't believe in either." is actually going to be spot on the money. The Christian vision of God is not "that which I see in the OT when I read it in the worst possible light" but "that which I see when I look at and study Jesus of Nazareth as the climax of the story begun in the OT and continued in us"

I mean, come on, this is not scholarly argument, this is (very much like some of the particularly trite Christian 'apologetics') actually entertainment for "people who already agree with me". With more side-tracks than the Sodor Railway.

 

[ebia]

50 pages in before we get anything resembling an argument! One based on contraversial probability arguments. Any good mathematicians in the room? My probability was too statistics based to pick this apart, but I'm always very suspicious about arguments from probability - they are way to easy to manipulate. I'm also suspecting the whole thread is going to be irrelevant but it's hard to tell because the book seems to lurch from one thing to another without much apparent structure so far.

 

[Lukaris]

There are good articles on science and Christianity on the website of evengelical minister Ravi Zacharias Christian Apologetics | Ravi Zacharias International Ministries For ex., go into the USA, Canada etc. sections search engines and type "Christianity science" or "Christianity physics" etc. Ravi Zacharias is acquainted with priest/physicist John Polkinghorne (who another poster mentioned also).

 

[Jazmyn]

How about:

New Evidence That Demands A Verdict by Josh McDowell

The Dawkins Letters by David Robertson

 

[ebia]

This is probably more on topic that my previousl ramblings as an example of him missing an important theological point:

Under Intelligent Design he says :"Thanks to Darwin, it is no longer true to say that nothing that we know looks designed unless it is designed. Evolution by natural selection produces an excellent simulacrum of design,..."

He misses that point that in Christian theology evolution and design by God are not an either or. To over simplify, if Christianity is true everything is designed and we actually have nothing undesigned to use as a control comparision. That also raises problems ID, but the point for the moment is that Dawkins is wrong about where the problem is because he sees evolution and design as an either/or and good Judeo/Christian theology sees them as a both/and.

 

[pirateninja]

@ Ebia and heymikey90

I'll happily concede your frustrations with Dawkins from your perspective, though I will (perhaps slightly mischieviously) note that if you were frustrated at it taking 50 pages for Dawkins to get to an argument, then how do you think I felt getting to the index pages of an anti-Dawkins book and still finding no argument

I picked on Dawkins because he is the one who gets picked on by the anti-atheist writers. There are a few points to note, though. I think Dawkins is an excellent writer, and generally spot on about a lot of things, BUT:

1. The God Delusion is not a holy text. Discarding it makes no difference to atheism.

2. Dawkins also makes very few novel arguments and so if the God delusion were to vanish it would, again, make no difference. He just makes the arguments in (I think) a clear way and in one place. Someone who is inclined to be infuriated by the context in which he puts the arguments is not going to see the arguments. This is, I think, the problem with those who oppose Dawkins; they get so mad they fail to read it.

2.a. Recall that I read Dawkins coming from a committed Christian background, I know my Bible and some theology. I recall thinking there are one or two straw men in there, but on the whole I didn't think he had things obviously wrong.
​

3. Lots of atheists ignore Dawkins or also find him difficult to read. I even know of atheists who refuse to read him precisely so when someone accuses them of just parroting Dawkins they can say "um, no". Which is not a position I hold to; but there you are.

4. One of the best critiques of Dawkins, which matches yours I think, comes from the non-theist perspective of Dorothy Rowe in What should I believe: why the nature of our beliefs about the nature of death and purpose of life dominate our lives. Rowe is, by the way, a therapist specialising in depression and the book is about the harm done by religion. Her criticism of Dawkins (and Hitchens) is that he (they) takes a purely rational perspective and expect people to have discarded their religion by the last page; but this is an unreasonable expectation. I agree, on Dawkins at least. When I read the God delusion, I was at a point where I was nodding at (what I'm calling) his contextual comments on religion.

So having climbed up Dawkins, we can kick him away. Now, there was point, here, what was it? Oh yes, here it is. I'd rather not debate point by point (unless you really want me to, in which case I will, though I'd rather think of it as a 'chat', and if a Mod points out the rules for this particular forum and I'll point at you and say "they made me!" I'd also need to refresh myself on the God delusion).

The main point I'd make is to ask you to use your imagination and see it from a non-theist side. Not trying to convince you, just asking you to see things from a different perspective. Don't forget, by the way, that atheists are atheists about all religions, not just Christianity. Again, I won't go into detail unless asked, but from an atheist perspective we live in a world where people with religion are bent on violence, oppression of women, forcing schools to teach pseudoscience, enforcing on the community norms of dress, diet, entertainment and sex: all based not on any form of reason, but entirely on faith - in other words, fundamental attacks on the freedoms of the secular state (*) on the word of an invisible figure who ordered his people to practice genocide at one time. "Vitriol"? If you can manage to see it from our perspective, I think you would agree that Dawkins et al are being mild.

I'm sure that is probably hard for you to read. But from a non-faith based perspective, that's how it looks from the outside. And that is why the 'context', as I call it, is so important. The question of whether or not god exists is not just a matter of idle speculation or something of no interest to those outside religion.

(*) by the way, it is popular at the moment for religious leaders and spokespersons to complain that Australia is a secular state and that they are being silenced - eg Danny Nalliah, Tom Frame, Waleed Aly, and I think Pell as well. They are confusing secularism with pluralism. If Australia were a fully secular state, for example, we wouldn't continue to have discrimination against same-sex couples who want to be married.