Book Review: The Devil's Delusion: Atheism And Its Scientific Pretensions

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Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:30:56 +0100

"all of the brilliant ideas found in The Devil's Delusion" It would seem that you are not kidding. But setting up "strawmen" and then knocking them down should not be considered "brilliant ideas". - onein6billion

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Sun, 10 Aug 2008 08:27:09 +0100

I would be interested to know Dr Berlinski's feelings about the fate of the Deutscher Freidenker-Verband under the Nazis. - yakaru

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Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:31:35 +0100

yes i agree we could go back to voltaire and montaigne and a host of others who predate the secular humanists in some sense comte found himself in a cultural milieux which was already rich in atheistic thinking i visited a few years ago the old abbey of Cluny where the monks had been expelled around 1750 and the church used as a stable for horses with the rise in greater insight and ability in the sciences came a resentment a curious phenomenon thank god for men like elie wiesel and david berlinski and women too edith stein and simone weil who courageously challenge the all too attractive tendency to relativise faith j - j hanson

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Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:20:55 +0100

J Hanson makes a significant point that we often overlook. Because the events of the Holocaust are relatively recent, we tend to focus on Hitler's Nazi Germany in the discussion of the ill-effects of atheism. But as J Hanson says, "the humanist movement which began in France in the 1800's is the real social milieux for atheistic thinking..." I would point out that the movement in France actually pre-dates the 1793 revolution, but other than a question of dates, I agree totally with J Hanson. The atheism of France somehow gets a free pass in the discussion of the ills of atheism, possibly because it precedes Darwinian evolution, but the atrocities of the regime of Napoleon certainly provide a demonstration of the evils of which men are capable when they forget that "God is watching." - Cisco

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Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:27:06 +0100

i will look into this book but i will contend here that militant islam is a relatively recent phenomenon perhaps something that has been percolating since the expulsions of muslims from europe in the 15th century (along with jews...in spain at least) but only really manifesting itself in the late 20th century the contemporary advocates of political atheism are the direct descendants of the enlightmentment thinking that feels free to question everything in the jewish world it was know as "HaSkala" that tendency among jewish intellectuals to veer away from traditional teaching and look into some of the pop-intellectualism of the day so dawkins harris hitchens and others are echoing the voices of nietzsche feuerbach hobbes and the 20th century existentialist thinkers and they are reacting against the "non-intellectual" forms of christianity the rather closeminded evanglical fundamentalist reform movements the humanist movement which began in france in the 1800's is the real social milieux for atheistic thinking "man is sufficient unto himself" auguste comte' and his descendants are the architects of socially sponsored atheism if those guys dawkins etc. would read the intellectual tradition of roman catholicism they might be in over their atheist heads i would suggest beginning with henri de lubac paul bermans' book TERROR and Liberalism has helped me see the issues in a clearer way thanks for all this j - j hanson

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Mon, 28 Jul 2008 02:42:27 +0100

In response to truepeers, Your comments actually anticipate a discussion found in "The Devil's Delusion." Berlinski writes a great deal about a Muslim philosopher, Al Ghazali. You should read the book, if only for that discussion. Cisco - cisco@jaajoe.com

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Sun, 27 Jul 2008 06:18:06 +0100

A comment on Cisco's review of my book. The dedication was copied from the German original, which contained incorrectly spelled words and a grammatical mistake. The book in question was a description of the fate of Leipzig's Jews, my grandfather included. If anyone is interested, I can provide references to the original text, which is not widely available, but confirmation of the details was provided my mother more than fifty years ago by the Red Cross. - David Berlinski

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Sat, 26 Jul 2008 17:25:52 +0100

My German Jewish grandparents made love in German. While I speak no German because of the Holocaust, I have known many of the older generation and I don't think of them without humour and love. German is one of the great Jewish languages, if we consider that one of the important chapters in Judaism is the story of the secular Jews who emerged in Western Europe from the 18th-20th centuries; and that is in large part a German story, epitomized perhaps by the Jewish Viennese intellectuals and artists. I associate that story of secularization with a love for the sacred. In other words, I see the secular as just another form of the sacred, and this form is not prima facie a rebuttal of the belief in God, whatever some people profess. We have a concept of God, whatever our belief, because that comes inevitably with the experience of being a human using language, whatever language. We can't avoid it because a concept of God, whether he exists or not, is original to the use of human language. The atheist has to actively deny his belief in "god"; he can't ever just forget the concept even if one day we're all atheists (won't happen). And I suppose that is what Goldfein knew. Dawkins may be very intelligent, in some areas, but he is a fool when it comes to understanding human beings. Not to sense on some level that human language and religion must have emerged together - in the same event, an event that cannot be explained by reduction to evolutionary theory - is the road to making a lot of mistakes about human beings. A man who doesn't recognize that religion (a remembering of our origins), in one form or another, is essential to man, and thus something to be studied seriously, just doesn't get it. As I say, the secular is just another form of the sacred, so why are humans so dependent on the sacred? And how could it ever not be thus, even in the Satanic world of the Nazis? It's a disturbing scene, but here are some "loving" Nazis for you, showing some idea of what they held sacred. I don't think these pictures refute your argument about belief in God, but it requires us to distinguish between love for/fear of something sacred and fear of/love for God. - truepeers

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Sat, 26 Jul 2008 05:40:01 +0100

Thanks for the review. I don't know that I'll pursue the book itself, it being far from my areas of interest, but I do hope, based on your review, that the work reaches a wide audience. Many of us, not completely in agreement over issues regarding Islam and what I refer to as "Left dhimmi fascism," have more than enough in common to work along side each other in the pursuit of greater Human freedom for the benefit of all, and to work where and how we can against such creatures as Dawkins, et al. is to do the work of the Just, if I may be so bold. Your review is linked at our blog, Covenant Zone, via a commentator, and I hope to make some comment in response there. Good luck to you in this effort. - Dag