Yet More on Dawkins

By Trent Dougherty on December 11, 2006 11:45 AM | 9 Comments

Thanks to Johnny-D for the heads-up.

Richard Kirk of The American Spectator has a scathing review of Richard Dawkins's latest book, The God Delusion.

9 Comments

David Slakter | December 11, 2006 2:39 PM

For the most part, it seems as though Kirk treats atheists the way that Dawkins treats the religious. This is a bit disconcerting, given how Kirk begins his review with such noble invocations of Whitehead's generosity.

There is much to be said for the political implications of Dawkins's views - much that can be said of anyone who wishes to see their (anti-)religious beliefs imposed by the state. Implying however that all atheists are like Dawkins, and relying on question-begging premises against atheists general in order to smugly portray them all as having beliefs which are prima facie absurd, Kirk does not come off much better.

Trent Dougherty | December 11, 2006 4:31 PM

Yeah, I'm not disagreeing with that, I think the source explains part of it.

I posted it mostly for the sake of completeness given our Dawkins coverage. :)

Also, there is a sense in which it's fair to give someone a dose of his own medicine.

David Slakter | December 11, 2006 6:39 PM

I think one can justify an awful lot of antipathy on the basis that one is simply giving to another "his own medicine." I'm sure Dawkins, given his persecution complex, would claim that he is doing the same.

Jeremy Pierce | December 12, 2006 10:18 AM

I've found two more: from Shannon Love and Andrew Wilson. Love is an atheist, and Wilson (as far as I can tell) is an evangelical Christian (but British, I think, which I count as a different species from American evangelicals). The nice thing about the Love review is that it focuses on some of the historical issues that most of the reviews I've seen don't spend as much time on. The Wilson one is extremely thorough, and while I disagree with several things pretty strongly (usually on the philosophical end) I think it's a great review. I haven't finished reading some of his more substantive criticism yet, but the initial step-by-step summary of each of the arguments of the book is very informative.

Ben Murphy | December 12, 2006 10:39 AM

I understand the point of the comparison with Whitehead, but by the end, I felt the article was just as much an advertisement for Whitehead as a review of Dawkins. Also 'less than 100' of 376 pages are devoted to the existence of God. That sounds as though about a quarter of the book is devoted to God's existence (I'm assuming 'less than 100' means about 80-90 pages). What's wrong with devoting a quarter of a book on religion to the issue of God's existence?

Jeremy Pierce | December 12, 2006 1:45 PM

Sorry, I meant the Love link to go directly to the review here. It instead goes to a post at my blog containing a selection of quotes. I'll leave that one up anyway, since it's got a collection of links to several reviews of Dawkins in case people want to follow those.

David Slakter | December 12, 2006 2:24 PM

The original Love article is no longer up, while the Wilson one is a boot of a doozy.

On the history bit, it was actually the Deists who took the reins of power after the French revolution. The atheistic faction never had control over the government. Just thought the Deists should get what-for sometime.

Jeremy Pierce | December 13, 2006 8:52 AM

Aargh! My cut-and-paste functions must not have been working, or it didn't save properly when I edited my comment. The link for the Love review above now goes to where I originally had intended it to go.