All too human..., 18 Nov 2008
I make one simple point: does religion per se create evil,
or does humanity create evil in its name? The point has been
made over and over again that any great system of thought
creates zealots who are prepared to kill in its name. Humans
like and crave for certainty, and they cannot tolerate having
their certainty challenged. It is simply a non sequitur for
authors like Hitchens constantly to bang on about the evil done
in religions' names. When will people stop peddling this tired
old fallacy? It does not address the substance of the argument.
Does the atom bomb invalidate nuclear physics? Of course not. Let's
hear the *arguments* for the non-existence of God, not the
emotive (alas too tragic) nonsense that really amounts only to
a lamentation of humanity's disastrous history.

God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens , 04 Nov 2008
Perhaps a danger with these 'Down with God' books is in assuming that God and Religion are related. It is possible to have a bad experience of religion, which is a man made thing. But if a person denies the very existence of God in the first place. How can a person who denies the existence of something write about something that they consider does not exist? Mmmm

In doing this are they not then giving body to something that they previously considered didn't exist - so that they are now writing about an entity that does exist?

It can only truly be presented that 'God is not Great' from personal experience, not from carrying out an academic study on whether another person considered whether 'God was not Great'. It is then necessary for the writer to relate from personal experience why they consider 'God is not Great'.

Thinking book, 04 Oct 2008
This book does make you think in two sense of that phrase: it makes you consider the big questions in life and it also makes you concnetrate hard to understand it in places.

I liked the book when considering it in the round. It think that Hitchens is clearly a very clever individual, well-read and who has considered his subject-matter in some detail and is very familiar with it. But this is part of the downside to the book in that, for someone like me, who is not a philosopher and who does not have a good grounding in the subject matter, it is difficult to follow in places (quite a few places).

I have also read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins recently and on balance I prefer Dawkins book. That said, the two books are written in different styles (Dawkins adopting more of a step by step guide, whereas Hitchens' approach is more conversational).

These books are very different to the books I would usually read and I think I have benefitted greatly from reading them, but to others who have not read them I would say that you need to be sitting quietly and without distraction to get the most out of the book!

God is not........., 23 Sep 2008
Great book. Unfortunately, I suspect the only people who will read it already know that God isn't!

Welcome to celestial North Korea, 22 Sep 2008
Dawkins has God on the floor and the Hitch has jumped into the ring and got a sneaky boot in. Booo, hiss! This book starts from where Dawkins left off i.e. there is no good reason for belief in anything with no evidence (e.g. the tooth fairy, flying spaghetti monster God etc). All these things might exist but it seems unlikely. Hitchens goes a step further and tries to show that not only does God probably not exist but it would be bad if he did. He describes Heaven as a celestial North Korea.

It seems a strong case but is based entirely around the portrayal of God in the world's religions. It seems possible to me that God does exist but religions are man made and have got God all wrong. Personally I'm not sure whether it matters whether God exists. I like to hope that we do not cease to exist when we die and I certainly hope we are more than our bodies. But I recognise that this is probably wishful thinking and I am not sure where a God or God's fit into all this.

This is a good read for making you think about such questions. And as always Hitchens writes wonderfully.

All too human..., 18 Nov 2008
I make one simple point: does religion per se create evil,
or does humanity create evil in its name? The point has been
made over and over again that any great system of thought
creates zealots who are prepared to kill in its name. Humans
like and crave for certainty, and they cannot tolerate having
their certainty challenged. It is simply a non sequitur for
authors like Hitchens constantly to bang on about the evil done
in religions' names. When will people stop peddling this tired
old fallacy? It does not address the substance of the argument.
Does the atom bomb invalidate nuclear physics? Of course not. Let's
hear the *arguments* for the non-existence of God, not the
emotive (alas too tragic) nonsense that really amounts only to
a lamentation of humanity's disastrous history.

God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens , 04 Nov 2008
Perhaps a danger with these 'Down with God' books is in assuming that God and Religion are related. It is possible to have a bad experience of religion, which is a man made thing. But if a person denies the very existence of God in the first place. How can a person who denies the existence of something write about something that they consider does not exist? Mmmm

In doing this are they not then giving body to something that they previously considered didn't exist - so that they are now writing about an entity that does exist?

It can only truly be presented that 'God is not Great' from personal experience, not from carrying out an academic study on whether another person considered whether 'God was not Great'. It is then necessary for the writer to relate from personal experience why they consider 'God is not Great'.

Thinking book, 04 Oct 2008
This book does make you think in two sense of that phrase: it makes you consider the big questions in life and it also makes you concnetrate hard to understand it in places.

I liked the book when considering it in the round. It think that Hitchens is clearly a very clever individual, well-read and who has considered his subject-matter in some detail and is very familiar with it. But this is part of the downside to the book in that, for someone like me, who is not a philosopher and who does not have a good grounding in the subject matter, it is difficult to follow in places (quite a few places).

I have also read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins recently and on balance I prefer Dawkins book. That said, the two books are written in different styles (Dawkins adopting more of a step by step guide, whereas Hitchens' approach is more conversational).

These books are very different to the books I would usually read and I think I have benefitted greatly from reading them, but to others who have not read them I would say that you need to be sitting quietly and without distraction to get the most out of the book!

God is not........., 23 Sep 2008
Great book. Unfortunately, I suspect the only people who will read it already know that God isn't!

Welcome to celestial North Korea, 22 Sep 2008
Dawkins has God on the floor and the Hitch has jumped into the ring and got a sneaky boot in. Booo, hiss! This book starts from where Dawkins left off i.e. there is no good reason for belief in anything with no evidence (e.g. the tooth fairy, flying spaghetti monster God etc). All these things might exist but it seems unlikely. Hitchens goes a step further and tries to show that not only does God probably not exist but it would be bad if he did. He describes Heaven as a celestial North Korea.

It seems a strong case but is based entirely around the portrayal of God in the world's religions. It seems possible to me that God does exist but religions are man made and have got God all wrong. Personally I'm not sure whether it matters whether God exists. I like to hope that we do not cease to exist when we die and I certainly hope we are more than our bodies. But I recognise that this is probably wishful thinking and I am not sure where a God or God's fit into all this.

This is a good read for making you think about such questions. And as always Hitchens writes wonderfully.

Important ideas, clearly expressed, forcefully argued, 30 Aug 2008
In many ways this book acts as a popular level summary of Wright's recent thinking, and that is both its strength and ultimately also its weakness. The book's big idea is that Jesus' bodily resurrection is not a one off event but rather the forerunner of the general resurrection, and that this is the key which makes sense of a great deal of new testament thinking, in the gospels and the letters and in Revelation. He contends that the loss of belief in the bodily resurrection being replaced by an idea of a non-corporeal heaven has resulted not only in a loss of appropriate hope for christians but also has wider consequences for theology and for how christians live their lives. These are important ideas, clearly expressed and forcefully argued. The book's weaknesses stem from Wright's rather dismissive tone for anyone who does not agree, from their origin as lectures rather than being written as a book and from the constant refrain 'this is a topic that there is not space to explore here'. At 300 pages this is not a short book, but rather perhaps one that attempts to cover too much ground in the space available.

awesome book, 09 Aug 2008
this is an awesome book which really makes you think. The main revelation for me in that we won't go up to heaven, but Jesus will come down to us...and we are currently living in the new world promised (through the resurrection of Jesus) and every bit of good we do with be enhanced and amplified by God and included in the new creation, new christians are new "bits" of creation and we have to work together to bring the new creation properly into focus - which, in God's timing, will brought about..obv the world now is still full of sadness and evil but this will be eliminated and the good left behind..Tom Wright tells it sooooo much better than me, so if my jumbled description which i'm still trying to get my head around has interested you at all, buy it. It's awesome.

Recovering a deeper understanding of the Christian hope, 03 May 2008
What are we waiting for? And what are we going to do about it in the meantime? These are the big questions Tom Wright asks right at the start of this wide-ranging examination of the classic Christian concept of hope. Characteristically thorough, but nevertheless crystal-clear throughout, Wright's book takes a critical look at an idea that, for Christians as much as for anyone else, has become rather `fuzzy'.

But if you thought Christian hope was simply a matter of clocking into heaven when you die (perhaps after a period of dutiful post-death `journeying' - the idea of purgatory being very much in vogue, it seems), Wright may make you think again. Master of the pithy phrase, he draws the reader's attention to "life after `life after death` " - for the ultimate reality is a new heaven and a new earth. And that has massive implications for our lives now: it means we are not `restoring a great painting that's shortly going to be thrown on the fire', or planting roses in a garden about to be bulldozed: what we do now matters for all time and eternity. So we need to take this earth - its beauties, our bodies, justice, God's rule - with the utmost seriousness. And celebrate the person and the event that give it all value and undergird its hope - Jesus and his resurrection. In one of my favourite passages, Wright urges us to celebrate Easter right through to ascension, using the time to take up something new that might help us `wake up in a whole new way' - give us `a sniff of new possibilities, new hopes, new ventures' - and in doing so bring something of the real meaning of Easter.

The author's exploration of our future hope is carefully grounded in an analysis of what the resurrection meant for early Christians, and how they understood the future of hope - so much more than `heaven when you die'. All this, and a quick tour of (a Wright understanding of) heaven, hell, purgatory and the real meaning of the `rapture'.

`Surprised by hope' is a richly rewarding read - though not without its faults. Wright has much to say about the importance of the created order being redeemed and renewed, but he doesn't give many clear pointers as to what that might mean for us now, or refer us to the growing theological literature that does so. And though his stated aim is to set out some practical ways hope can come alive for individuals or communities that lack it, he concentrates less on the practicalities than on digging some really solid foundations from which they can rise. But these are minor blemishes. What endures from the book? A clear call to build for the kingdom - a job of work that draws on a hope for the present and the future, grounded in a past event of eternal importance. Time to stretch that canvas on a new frame, and bed those roses in...


Fantastic: thought provoking, challenging etc etc, 25 Apr 2008
I haven't quite finished reading it yet, but I have been challenged and stretched in my thinking by every page so far!
I realise that lots that I believe isn't based on a decision which linked my knowledge of scripture or other facts. So much of what I believe to be true is based on the country, time and church I grew up in.
Wright has simply expanded my knowledge. Sometimes causing me to alter my 'beliefs', but more often than not giving me the reasons for my beliefs.
e.g.
why was purgatory introduced as a belief (I didn't agree with purgatory, but hadn't considered why I disagreed with it)
Christianity is about giving my life to (having faith in) Jesus, now I will get into heaven and avoid hell.
Heaven is not on earth and will be a spiritual experience.

Sorry if this review has been less than clear. I would highly recommend this book. It's a cracker!!

All too human..., 18 Nov 2008
I make one simple point: does religion per se create evil,
or does humanity create evil in its name? The point has been
made over and over again that any great system of thought
creates zealots who are prepared to kill in its name. Humans
like and crave for certainty, and they cannot tolerate having
their certainty challenged. It is simply a non sequitur for
authors like Hitchens constantly to bang on about the evil done
in religions' names. When will people stop peddling this tired
old fallacy? It does not address the substance of the argument.
Does the atom bomb invalidate nuclear physics? Of course not. Let's
hear the *arguments* for the non-existence of God, not the
emotive (alas too tragic) nonsense that really amounts only to
a lamentation of humanity's disastrous history.

God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens , 04 Nov 2008
Perhaps a danger with these 'Down with God' books is in assuming that God and Religion are related. It is possible to have a bad experience of religion, which is a man made thing. But if a person denies the very existence of God in the first place. How can a person who denies the existence of something write about something that they consider does not exist? Mmmm

In doing this are they not then giving body to something that they previously considered didn't exist - so that they are now writing about an entity that does exist?

It can only truly be presented that 'God is not Great' from personal experience, not from carrying out an academic study on whether another person considered whether 'God was not Great'. It is then necessary for the writer to relate from personal experience why they consider 'God is not Great'.

Thinking book, 04 Oct 2008
This book does make you think in two sense of that phrase: it makes you consider the big questions in life and it also makes you concnetrate hard to understand it in places.

I liked the book when considering it in the round. It think that Hitchens is clearly a very clever individual, well-read and who has considered his subject-matter in some detail and is very familiar with it. But this is part of the downside to the book in that, for someone like me, who is not a philosopher and who does not have a good grounding in the subject matter, it is difficult to follow in places (quite a few places).

I have also read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins recently and on balance I prefer Dawkins book. That said, the two books are written in different styles (Dawkins adopting more of a step by step guide, whereas Hitchens' approach is more conversational).

These books are very different to the books I would usually read and I think I have benefitted greatly from reading them, but to others who have not read them I would say that you need to be sitting quietly and without distraction to get the most out of the book!

God is not........., 23 Sep 2008
Great book. Unfortunately, I suspect the only people who will read it already know that God isn't!

Welcome to celestial North Korea, 22 Sep 2008
Dawkins has God on the floor and the Hitch has jumped into the ring and got a sneaky boot in. Booo, hiss! This book starts from where Dawkins left off i.e. there is no good reason for belief in anything with no evidence (e.g. the tooth fairy, flying spaghetti monster God etc). All these things might exist but it seems unlikely. Hitchens goes a step further and tries to show that not only does God probably not exist but it would be bad if he did. He describes Heaven as a celestial North Korea.

It seems a strong case but is based entirely around the portrayal of God in the world's religions. It seems possible to me that God does exist but religions are man made and have got God all wrong. Personally I'm not sure whether it matters whether God exists. I like to hope that we do not cease to exist when we die and I certainly hope we are more than our bodies. But I recognise that this is probably wishful thinking and I am not sure where a God or God's fit into all this.

This is a good read for making you think about such questions. And as always Hitchens writes wonderfully.

Important ideas, clearly expressed, forcefully argued, 30 Aug 2008
In many ways this book acts as a popular level summary of Wright's recent thinking, and that is both its strength and ultimately also its weakness. The book's big idea is that Jesus' bodily resurrection is not a one off event but rather the forerunner of the general resurrection, and that this is the key which makes sense of a great deal of new testament thinking, in the gospels and the letters and in Revelation. He contends that the loss of belief in the bodily resurrection being replaced by an idea of a non-corporeal heaven has resulted not only in a loss of appropriate hope for christians but also has wider consequences for theology and for how christians live their lives. These are important ideas, clearly expressed and forcefully argued. The book's weaknesses stem from Wright's rather dismissive tone for anyone who does not agree, from their origin as lectures rather than being written as a book and from the constant refrain 'this is a topic that there is not space to explore here'. At 300 pages this is not a short book, but rather perhaps one that attempts to cover too much ground in the space available.

awesome book, 09 Aug 2008
this is an awesome book which really makes you think. The main revelation for me in that we won't go up to heaven, but Jesus will come down to us...and we are currently living in the new world promised (through the resurrection of Jesus) and every bit of good we do with be enhanced and amplified by God and included in the new creation, new christians are new "bits" of creation and we have to work together to bring the new creation properly into focus - which, in God's timing, will brought about..obv the world now is still full of sadness and evil but this will be eliminated and the good left behind..Tom Wright tells it sooooo much better than me, so if my jumbled description which i'm still trying to get my head around has interested you at all, buy it. It's awesome.

Recovering a deeper understanding of the Christian hope, 03 May 2008
What are we waiting for? And what are we going to do about it in the meantime? These are the big questions Tom Wright asks right at the start of this wide-ranging examination of the classic Christian concept of hope. Characteristically thorough, but nevertheless crystal-clear throughout, Wright's book takes a critical look at an idea that, for Christians as much as for anyone else, has become rather `fuzzy'.

But if you thought Christian hope was simply a matter of clocking into heaven when you die (perhaps after a period of dutiful post-death `journeying' - the idea of purgatory being very much in vogue, it seems), Wright may make you think again. Master of the pithy phrase, he draws the reader's attention to "life after `life after death` " - for the ultimate reality is a new heaven and a new earth. And that has massive implications for our lives now: it means we are not `restoring a great painting that's shortly going to be thrown on the fire', or planting roses in a garden about to be bulldozed: what we do now matters for all time and eternity. So we need to take this earth - its beauties, our bodies, justice, God's rule - with the utmost seriousness. And celebrate the person and the event that give it all value and undergird its hope - Jesus and his resurrection. In one of my favourite passages, Wright urges us to celebrate Easter right through to ascension, using the time to take up something new that might help us `wake up in a whole new way' - give us `a sniff of new possibilities, new hopes, new ventures' - and in doing so bring something of the real meaning of Easter.

The author's exploration of our future hope is carefully grounded in an analysis of what the resurrection meant for early Christians, and how they understood the future of hope - so much more than `heaven when you die'. All this, and a quick tour of (a Wright understanding of) heaven, hell, purgatory and the real meaning of the `rapture'.

`Surprised by hope' is a richly rewarding read - though not without its faults. Wright has much to say about the importance of the created order being redeemed and renewed, but he doesn't give many clear pointers as to what that might mean for us now, or refer us to the growing theological literature that does so. And though his stated aim is to set out some practical ways hope can come alive for individuals or communities that lack it, he concentrates less on the practicalities than on digging some really solid foundations from which they can rise. But these are minor blemishes. What endures from the book? A clear call to build for the kingdom - a job of work that draws on a hope for the present and the future, grounded in a past event of eternal importance. Time to stretch that canvas on a new frame, and bed those roses in...


Fantastic: thought provoking, challenging etc etc, 25 Apr 2008
I haven't quite finished reading it yet, but I have been challenged and stretched in my thinking by every page so far!
I realise that lots that I believe isn't based on a decision which linked my knowledge of scripture or other facts. So much of what I believe to be true is based on the country, time and church I grew up in.
Wright has simply expanded my knowledge. Sometimes causing me to alter my 'beliefs', but more often than not giving me the reasons for my beliefs.
e.g.
why was purgatory introduced as a belief (I didn't agree with purgatory, but hadn't considered why I disagreed with it)
Christianity is about giving my life to (having faith in) Jesus, now I will get into heaven and avoid hell.
Heaven is not on earth and will be a spiritual experience.

Sorry if this review has been less than clear. I would highly recommend this book. It's a cracker!!

Neo-conservative apology, 25 Aug 2008
As an atheist, I was drawn to this book through the endorsement of Richard Dawkins - an endorsement I find baffling. As a number of reviewers have noted this book does not remotely deserve to be bracketed with The God Delusion and other sober critiques of religious faith.

The biggest clues to Harris' agenda are revealed by the 'authorities' he invokes to buttress his opinions: the discredited pro-Israeli 'scholar' Daniel Goldhagen; the tub-thumping neo-conservative Thomas Friedman; the Zionist Alan Dershovitz (a man demonstrably shown to have manipulated historical sources in constructing a fervent defence of Israel), and Samauel Huttington.

It is not suprising given these bed-fellows that Harris allows himself to entertain the most bellicose, 'intolerant', indeed genocidal excursions in order to deal with the 'menance' of Islam. This includes - I kid you not - a pre-emptive nuclear strike against an un-named Islamic country with designs on the bomb. (Iran, presumably).
Neither is it surprising that Harris rejects outright ANY attempt to explain the rise of political Islam by reference to political factors - such as Western imperialism, the illegal war on Iraq and the West's uncritical support for Israel. (At the same time Israel is commended for its uniquely high moral standards and remarkable restraint. Harris also brushes over Bush and Blair's disastrous attempt to re-make the Middle East by casually noting "our (sic) adventures in Iraq".)

Leaving his ideological agenda aside the work is just plain badly written. It is FULL of non-sequiturs. One notable one is his insistence that we should understand Islam through scripture alone as this unambigiuously reveals its pernicious nature. This is quickly followed by a dismissal of more benign and contradictory passages in the Koran as they offer no guide to the actual practice of Islam by Muslim governments. An under-graduate essay would be rightly pulled up for this fundamental lack of internal consistency - and disingenuity.

There ARE legitimate questions to be raised about the compatability of Islam with liberal-democratic values. Given the all-encompassing nature of Islam as a mode of living, and its prescriptive character with respect to matters such as jurisprudence, it is evidently right to ask questions of liberals who would rather avoid thorny debates in the name of 'tolerance'. However, this is not a book which attempts to address such questions with any sophistication. Instead, we are offered a polemic which completely fails to engage with the complexities of the modern world and the inter-play of religious ideology and politics.



The End of Faith is Nothing But a Mirage, 25 Jul 2008
To no one's surprise, Mr. Harris trashes religion and faith as effortlessly and effectively as a tornado renders a cow weightless. "The End of Faith", however, comes across more as a divisive and apocalyptic rhetoric than anything else.

Mr. Harris implicates religious dogma for most of the death and destruction that has gripped this world in the past and the present, when in fact, 500 ng/dl or more of the hormone testosterone is probably responsible for most of the ill effects in almost all societies, past and present. As long as there is a propensity to compare p*nis size, and there are excesses to be had, there will be blood. Granted, religion probably provides an extra kick to compel a nutjob to walk into a crowd and blow himself up. But even if all religions of the world were to be eradicated, there are a plethora of other excuses to wreak hovac, e.g. tribalism, nationalism.

For there to be world peace, Islam must undergo a radical transformation, asserts Mr. Harris. Yet, he almost completely ignores the West's meddling in the internal affairs of many Middle Eastern countries to suit their selfish needs.

We've come a long way since the barbaric eras in our collective histories, and we still have a ways to go before civility is pervasive. Islam and WMD will not spell the end of the world. The end of faith is as illusive an idea as the paperless office. Faith will persevere, life will go on, and Mr. Harris will greatly benefit from a chill pill.

Brilliant but Dangerous, 05 Jul 2008
The thesis of Sam Harris's book is that, once any group of people believe that they have a monopoly on moral truth, they are capable of perpetrating the most enormous crimes against humanity in the firm conviction that they have a duty to stamp out evil (Satan) in the name of good (God). His book illustrates this with numerous examples of the intolerance of Judaism, Christianity and Islam not only towards each other but towards heretics and unbelievers - those who do not cloak their ideas of good and evil in the guise of supernatural personae.

Unfortunately, Sam Harris falls into two traps. First, he fails to see the huge irony of his own moral position - he castigates mediaeval Christians for torturing and extorting confessions from heretics and witches, who were seen as agents of Satan, yet creates his own Satan in the form of `terrorists' who apparently, for no reason other than their blind obedience to Islamic teaching, would choose to die just for the sake of killing people who do not share their world-view (pages 28-29). He thus argues (page 199): "Given what many of us believe about the exigencies of our war on terrorism, the practice of torture, in certain circumstances, would seem to be not only permissible but necessary". Substitute the word `Satan' for `terrorism' and Sam Harris is in the same moral position as the Pope who sanctioned the Holy Inquisition.

Second, like many atheist writers, Harris fails to understand that people do not necessarily come to believe in a particular brand of moral teaching merely because they are told it is the word of some supernatural entity. They do so because the messages of these great religions chime with something within their humanity that addresses their deeply-held sense of injustice and suffering. Such messages provide hope. Secular political and moral philosophies can be attractive for just the same reasons, albeit that they are more firmly rooted in achieving change in this world rather than the next. Politics has therefore frequently hijacked religion, and vice-versa, to serve a common purpose: that of helping people to fight oppression, and to counter threats they perceive to their morally superior (as they see it) way of life.

By failing to understand this, Harris significantly underplays the extent to which the perceived intolerance of one moral framework for another is rooted in, and can be fomented by appeal to, political grievances (page 109). Unless these are tackled, the threat of Islam to Western secular moral values (which is his main concern) would not disappear even if every Moslem gave up their belief in Allah and the Prophet tomorrow. His attack on religious faith and belief is therefore misguided. Furthermore, his Crusade of intolerance against infidels who do not share his particular moral stance knows no bounds in the evils it might unleash against humanity. On pages 52-53 he argues: "Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them... This is what the United States attempted in Afghanistan and is what we and other Western powers are bound to attempt, at an even greater cost to ourselves and innocents abroad, elsewhere in the Muslim world. We will continue to spill blood in what is, at bottom, a war of ideas".

In my view, the answer to the problems Harris identifies is not to demonise all believers, but to recognise and support all those people of all professed faiths (and none) who already subscribe to moderate beliefs and who already understand the dangers of accepting ancient teachings as ossified absolutist moral frameworks. The enemy is not faith per se, but a heady mixture of fundamentalist beliefs that are impervious to reason with a wide sense of global social injustice which oppressed peoples are now learning to address through suicide bombings or the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction. To win this war, we need to tackle social injustice and to reach out to others in a way which shows that we occupy a moral position that is truly worthy of universal respect. It is by no means apparent that we occupy such a position nor yet fully understand what it might look like, but it first requires us to understand how others perceive us. Sadly, Harris seems to lack this insight.

We also need to do more to educate people and promote a greater understanding of what people believe and why, including the atheist standpoint. We should teach young people more about the role of religion in history. Although we should not declare war on faith, it seems to me not unreasonable to insist that children are not indoctrinated into any particular religion, any more than that they should be indoctrinated into any particular political philosophy. Moral teaching should be based on principles of mutual respect - the rules of behaviour that are expected if society is to operate fairly and efficiently in the interests of all its members.

Yet there remains a moral dilemma here that Harris is right to flag up (page 129): "what will we do if an Islamist regime... ever acquires long-range nuclear weaponry?" His answer is again revealing: "...the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first-strike of our own... it would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single day but it may be the only course of action open to us, given what Islamists believe". To be fair, Harris struggles with the morality of such an action, but the fact that he can entertain such ideas at all undermines much of his argument against the world-view of his perceived enemies. A better answer might be that if we ever find we need to use violent means to prevent an even worse evil, let us be first cast-iron in our certainty that the evil we fear is a real one and not a symptom of our paranoia, that all other methods have been tried and failed, and that our actions are targeted only at the perpetrators of the evil, and not at the innocent. And let us not kid ourselves that, if we ever commit violence that does not meet these standards, yet believe we were justified, we may be acting the way our ancestors did in the name of their God. It may be hypocritical to blame them.

All this said, Harris does a masterful job of rallying the arguments and pointing up the dangers that the West now faces from one ingredient in the potentially explosive mixture mentioned above. His diagnosis is incomplete and his prescription may be flawed, but his book provides ample food for thought. I would recommend it.


Disappointing - an undergraduate thesis, 22 Jun 2008
Apart from Chapters 3, 4 and 5, this book reads like an undergraduate thesis. It is overlong, confusing (seemingly for the sake of it) and a poor companion to Dawkins' The God Delusion, Hitchens' God Is Not Great and Harris' own Letters to A Christian Nation.

Chapters 3, 4 and 5 actually deal with the relevant subjects - and are excellent, compulsive reading. The rest is, frankly, dross with little meaning or clarity. For example, Dawkins writes very lucidly about very difficult and complex subjects, making them accessible. In this book, Harris mostly confuses and writes with a staggering lack of clarity.

I wholeheartedly recommend the three other books mentioned above. This one, you can take it or leave it.

Hard hitting religious polemic, 02 May 2008
Incredibly 120 Million Americans (who claim to be Biblical literalists) believe creation was 2,500 years after the Babylonians and Sumerians learned to brew beer. In this book, Harris argues daftness has a dark side; unquestioned religious faith causes some major problems.

A quick glance of the globe and one can easily correlate two competiting religions co-located and needless bloodshed:
Palestine: Jews v. Muslims
Balkans: Orthodox v. Catholics v. Muslims
Northern Ireland: Protestant v. Catholic
Kashmir: Muslims v. Hindus
Sudan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Muslims v. Christians

Harris also points out that religious faith, by taking dogmatic and unquestionable moral positions can block Scientific progress. For example, stem cell research - the candle of hope for those afflicted with insufferable conditions. It really isn't fair that someone can spend their life in a wheelchair or suffer Alzheimer's when a breakthrough in stem cell research could change their life.

However, some of his analysis is a bit one-eyed. For example in his analysis of Islam, he produces a range of statistics and surveys of Islamic countries which show them following a common thread of inhumane values. The problem is that he leaves out some of the more liberal Islamic countries, such as the U.A.E. and Malaysia. That said most of his points are well made, for example the insularity of the Arabic world is evident by the very low number of books translated into Arabic. In 2002 Spain was translating about the same number of books into Spanish in a single year as the entire Arabic world had translated into Arabic since the 9th century!

His writing style is methodical, surgical and logical. He coats that with the occasional dabble of dry, sardonic humour. For example, if the Bible is the word of God, how come Shakespear's writing is of a higher literacy standard? Or why did God creates 250,000 species of bettles?

It's a good book, but the hard line atheist angle won't win over most theists. There is the odd compliment to Religion. He does point out that the Muslim conquest of Spain meant that classical Greek texts were translated into Latin which eventually helped them find their way into the Renaissance. But overall, the standard theist will just feel they are being misrepresented and misunderstood. It's a hard hitting religious polemic, but it will more than likely just be read by those who already have a religious aversion.

All too human..., 18 Nov 2008
I make one simple point: does religion per se create evil,
or does humanity create evil in its name? The point has been
made over and over again that any great system of thought
creates zealots who are prepared to kill in its name. Humans
like and crave for certainty, and they cannot tolerate having
their certainty challenged. It is simply a non sequitur for
authors like Hitchens constantly to bang on about the evil done
in religions' names. When will people stop peddling this tired
old fallacy? It does not address the substance of the argument.
Does the atom bomb invalidate nuclear physics? Of course not. Let's
hear the *arguments* for the non-existence of God, not the
emotive (alas too tragic) nonsense that really amounts only to
a lamentation of humanity's disastrous history.

God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens , 04 Nov 2008
Perhaps a danger with these 'Down with God' books is in assuming that God and Religion are related. It is possible to have a bad experience of religion, which is a man made thing. But if a person denies the very existence of God in the first place. How can a person who denies the existence of something write about something that they consider does not exist? Mmmm

In doing this are they not then giving body to something that they previously considered didn't exist - so that they are now writing about an entity that does exist?

It can only truly be presented that 'God is not Great' from personal experience, not from carrying out an academic study on whether another person considered whether 'God was not Great'. It is then necessary for the writer to relate from personal experience why they consider 'God is not Great'.

Thinking book, 04 Oct 2008
This book does make you think in two sense of that phrase: it makes you consider the big questions in life and it also makes you concnetrate hard to understand it in places.

I liked the book when considering it in the round. It think that Hitchens is clearly a very clever individual, well-read and who has considered his subject-matter in some detail and is very familiar with it. But this is part of the downside to the book in that, for someone like me, who is not a philosopher and who does not have a good grounding in the subject matter, it is difficult to follow in places (quite a few places).

I have also read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins recently and on balance I prefer Dawkins book. That said, the two books are written in different styles (Dawkins adopting more of a step by step guide, whereas Hitchens' approach is more conversational).

These books are very different to the books I would usually read and I think I have benefitted greatly from reading them, but to others who have not read them I would say that you need to be sitting quietly and without distraction to get the most out of the book!

God is not........., 23 Sep 2008
Great book. Unfortunately, I suspect the only people who will read it already know that God isn't!

Welcome to celestial North Korea, 22 Sep 2008
Dawkins has God on the floor and the Hitch has jumped into the ring and got a sneaky boot in. Booo, hiss! This book starts from where Dawkins left off i.e. there is no good reason for belief in anything with no evidence (e.g. the tooth fairy, flying spaghetti monster God etc). All these things might exist but it seems unlikely. Hitchens goes a step further and tries to show that not only does God probably not exist but it would be bad if he did. He describes Heaven as a celestial North Korea.

It seems a strong case but is based entirely around the portrayal of God in the world's religions. It seems possible to me that God does exist but religions are man made and have got God all wrong. Personally I'm not sure whether it matters whether God exists. I like to hope that we do not cease to exist when we die and I certainly hope we are more than our bodies. But I recognise that this is probably wishful thinking and I am not sure where a God or God's fit into all this.

This is a good read for making you think about such questions. And as always Hitchens writes wonderfully.

Important ideas, clearly expressed, forcefully argued, 30 Aug 2008
In many ways this book acts as a popular level summary of Wright's recent thinking, and that is both its strength and ultimately also its weakness. The book's big idea is that Jesus' bodily resurrection is not a one off event but rather the forerunner of the general resurrection, and that this is the key which makes sense of a great deal of new testament thinking, in the gospels and the letters and in Revelation. He contends that the loss of belief in the bodily resurrection being replaced by an idea of a non-corporeal heaven has resulted not only in a loss of appropriate hope for christians but also has wider consequences for theology and for how christians live their lives. These are important ideas, clearly expressed and forcefully argued. The book's weaknesses stem from Wright's rather dismissive tone for anyone who does not agree, from their origin as lectures rather than being written as a book and from the constant refrain 'this is a topic that there is not space to explore here'. At 300 pages this is not a short book, but rather perhaps one that attempts to cover too much ground in the space available.

awesome book, 09 Aug 2008
this is an awesome book which really makes you think. The main revelation for me in that we won't go up to heaven, but Jesus will come down to us...and we are currently living in the new world promised (through the resurrection of Jesus) and every bit of good we do with be enhanced and amplified by God and included in the new creation, new christians are new "bits" of creation and we have to work together to bring the new creation properly into focus - which, in God's timing, will brought about..obv the world now is still full of sadness and evil but this will be eliminated and the good left behind..Tom Wright tells it sooooo much better than me, so if my jumbled description which i'm still trying to get my head around has interested you at all, buy it. It's awesome.

Recovering a deeper understanding of the Christian hope, 03 May 2008
What are we waiting for? And what are we going to do about it in the meantime? These are the big questions Tom Wright asks right at the start of this wide-ranging examination of the classic Christian concept of hope. Characteristically thorough, but nevertheless crystal-clear throughout, Wright's book takes a critical look at an idea that, for Christians as much as for anyone else, has become rather `fuzzy'.

But if you thought Christian hope was simply a matter of clocking into heaven when you die (perhaps after a period of dutiful post-death `journeying' - the idea of purgatory being very much in vogue, it seems), Wright may make you think again. Master of the pithy phrase, he draws the reader's attention to "life after `life after death` " - for the ultimate reality is a new heaven and a new earth. And that has massive implications for our lives now: it means we are not `restoring a great painting that's shortly going to be thrown on the fire', or planting roses in a garden about to be bulldozed: what we do now matters for all time and eternity. So we need to take this earth - its beauties, our bodies, justice, God's rule - with the utmost seriousness. And celebrate the person and the event that give it all value and undergird its hope - Jesus and his resurrection. In one of my favourite passages, Wright urges us to celebrate Easter right through to ascension, using the time to take up something new that might help us `wake up in a whole new way' - give us `a sniff of new possibilities, new hopes, new ventures' - and in doing so bring something of the real meaning of Easter.

The author's exploration of our future hope is carefully grounded in an analysis of what the resurrection meant for early Christians, and how they understood the future of hope - so much more than `heaven when you die'. All this, and a quick tour of (a Wright understanding of) heaven, hell, purgatory and the real meaning of the `rapture'.

`Surprised by hope' is a richly rewarding read - though not without its faults. Wright has much to say about the importance of the created order being redeemed and renewed, but he doesn't give many clear pointers as to what that might mean for us now, or refer us to the growing theological literature that does so. And though his stated aim is to set out some practical ways hope can come alive for individuals or communities that lack it, he concentrates less on the practicalities than on digging some really solid foundations from which they can rise. But these are minor blemishes. What endures from the book? A clear call to build for the kingdom - a job of work that draws on a hope for the present and the future, grounded in a past event of eternal importance. Time to stretch that canvas on a new frame, and bed those roses in...


Fantastic: thought provoking, challenging etc etc, 25 Apr 2008
I haven't quite finished reading it yet, but I have been challenged and stretched in my thinking by every page so far!
I realise that lots that I believe isn't based on a decision which linked my knowledge of scripture or other facts. So much of what I believe to be true is based on the country, time and church I grew up in.
Wright has simply expanded my knowledge. Sometimes causing me to alter my 'beliefs', but more often than not giving me the reasons for my beliefs.
e.g.
why was purgatory introduced as a belief (I didn't agree with purgatory, but hadn't considered why I disagreed with it)
Christianity is about giving my life to (having faith in) Jesus, now I will get into heaven and avoid hell.
Heaven is not on earth and will be a spiritual experience.

Sorry if this review has been less than clear. I would highly recommend this book. It's a cracker!!

Neo-conservative apology, 25 Aug 2008
As an atheist, I was drawn to this book through the endorsement of Richard Dawkins - an endorsement I find baffling. As a number of reviewers have noted this book does not remotely deserve to be bracketed with The God Delusion and other sober critiques of religious faith.

The biggest clues to Harris' agenda are revealed by the 'authorities' he invokes to buttress his opinions: the discredited pro-Israeli 'scholar' Daniel Goldhagen; the tub-thumping neo-conservative Thomas Friedman; the Zionist Alan Dershovitz (a man demonstrably shown to have manipulated historical sources in constructing a fervent defence of Israel), and Samauel Huttington.

It is not suprising given these bed-fellows that Harris allows himself to entertain the most bellicose, 'intolerant', indeed genocidal excursions in order to deal with the 'menance' of Islam. This includes - I kid you not - a pre-emptive nuclear strike against an un-named Islamic country with designs on the bomb. (Iran, presumably).
Neither is it surprising that Harris rejects outright ANY attempt to explain the rise of political Islam by reference to political factors - such as Western imperialism, the illegal war on Iraq and the West's uncritical support for Israel. (At the same time Israel is commended for its uniquely high moral standards and remarkable restraint. Harris also brushes over Bush and Blair's disastrous attempt to re-make the Middle East by casually noting "our (sic) adventures in Iraq".)

Leaving his ideological agenda aside the work is just plain badly written. It is FULL of non-sequiturs. One notable one is his insistence that we should understand Islam through scripture alone as this unambigiuously reveals its pernicious nature. This is quickly followed by a dismissal of more benign and contradictory passages in the Koran as they offer no guide to the actual practice of Islam by Muslim governments. An under-graduate essay would be rightly pulled up for this fundamental lack of internal consistency - and disingenuity.

There ARE legitimate questions to be raised about the compatability of Islam with liberal-democratic values. Given the all-encompassing nature of Islam as a mode of living, and its prescriptive character with respect to matters such as jurisprudence, it is evidently right to ask questions of liberals who would rather avoid thorny debates in the name of 'tolerance'. However, this is not a book which attempts to address such questions with any sophistication. Instead, we are offered a polemic which completely fails to engage with the complexities of the modern world and the inter-play of religious ideology and politics.



The End of Faith is Nothing But a Mirage, 25 Jul 2008
To no one's surprise, Mr. Harris trashes religion and faith as effortlessly and effectively as a tornado renders a cow weightless. "The End of Faith", however, comes across more as a divisive and apocalyptic rhetoric than anything else.

Mr. Harris implicates religious dogma for most of the death and destruction that has gripped this world in the past and the present, when in fact, 500 ng/dl or more of the hormone testosterone is probably responsible for most of the ill effects in almost all societies, past and present. As long as there is a propensity to compare p*nis size, and there are excesses to be had, there will be blood. Granted, religion probably provides an extra kick to compel a nutjob to walk into a crowd and blow himself up. But even if all religions of the world were to be eradicated, there are a plethora of other excuses to wreak hovac, e.g. tribalism, nationalism.

For there to be world peace, Islam must undergo a radical transformation, asserts Mr. Harris. Yet, he almost completely ignores the West's meddling in the internal affairs of many Middle Eastern countries to suit their selfish needs.

We've come a long way since the barbaric eras in our collective histories, and we still have a ways to go before civility is pervasive. Islam and WMD will not spell the end of the world. The end of faith is as illusive an idea as the paperless office. Faith will persevere, life will go on, and Mr. Harris will greatly benefit from a chill pill.

Brilliant but Dangerous, 05 Jul 2008
The thesis of Sam Harris's book is that, once any group of people believe that they have a monopoly on moral truth, they are capable of perpetrating the most enormous crimes against humanity in the firm conviction that they have a duty to stamp out evil (Satan) in the name of good (God). His book illustrates this with numerous examples of the intolerance of Judaism, Christianity and Islam not only towards each other but towards heretics and unbelievers - those who do not cloak their ideas of good and evil in the guise of supernatural personae.

Unfortunately, Sam Harris falls into two traps. First, he fails to see the huge irony of his own moral position - he castigates mediaeval Christians for torturing and extorting confessions from heretics and witches, who were seen as agents of Satan, yet creates his own Satan in the form of `terrorists' who apparently, for no reason other than their blind obedience to Islamic teaching, would choose to die just for the sake of killing people who do not share their world-view (pages 28-29). He thus argues (page 199): "Given what many of us believe about the exigencies of our war on terrorism, the practice of torture, in certain circumstances, would seem to be not only permissible but necessary". Substitute the word `Satan' for `terrorism' and Sam Harris is in the same moral position as the Pope who sanctioned the Holy Inquisition.

Second, like many atheist writers, Harris fails to understand that people do not necessarily come to believe in a particular brand of moral teaching merely because they are told it is the word of some supernatural entity. They do so because the messages of these great religions chime with something within their humanity that addresses their deeply-held sense of injustice and suffering. Such messages provide hope. Secular political and moral philosophies can be attractive for just the same reasons, albeit that they are more firmly rooted in achieving change in this world rather than the next. Politics has therefore frequently hijacked religion, and vice-versa, to serve a common purpose: that of helping people to fight oppression, and to counter threats they perceive to their morally superior (as they see it) way of life.

By failing to understand this, Harris significantly underplays the extent to which the perceived intolerance of one moral framework for another is rooted in, and can be fomented by appeal to, political grievances (page 109). Unless these are tackled, the threat of Islam to Western secular moral values (which is his main concern) would not disappear even if every Moslem gave up their belief in Allah and the Prophet tomorrow. His attack on religious faith and belief is therefore misguided. Furthermore, his Crusade of intolerance against infidels who do not share his particular moral stance knows no bounds in the evils it might unleash against humanity. On pages 52-53 he argues: "Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them... This is what the United States attempted in Afghanistan and is what we and other Western powers are bound to attempt, at an even greater cost to ourselves and innocents abroad, elsewhere in the Muslim world. We will continue to spill blood in what is, at bottom, a war of ideas".

In my view, the answer to the problems Harris identifies is not to demonise all believers, but to recognise and support all those people of all professed faiths (and none) who already subscribe to moderate beliefs and who already understand the dangers of accepting ancient teachings as ossified absolutist moral frameworks. The enemy is not faith per se, but a heady mixture of fundamentalist beliefs that are impervious to reason with a wide sense of global social injustice which oppressed peoples are now learning to address through suicide bombings or the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction. To win this war, we need to tackle social injustice and to reach out to others in a way which shows that we occupy a moral position that is truly worthy of universal respect. It is by no means apparent that we occupy such a position nor yet fully understand what it might look like, but it first requires us to understand how others perceive us. Sadly, Harris seems to lack this insight.

We also need to do more to educate people and promote a greater understanding of what people believe and why, including the atheist standpoint. We should teach young people more about the role of religion in history. Although we should not declare war on faith, it seems to me not unreasonable to insist that children are not indoctrinated into any particular religion, any more than that they should be indoctrinated into any particular political philosophy. Moral teaching should be based on principles of mutual respect - the rules of behaviour that are expected if society is to operate fairly and efficiently in the interests of all its members.

Yet there remains a moral dilemma here that Harris is right to flag up (page 129): "what will we do if an Islamist regime... ever acquires long-range nuclear weaponry?" His answer is again revealing: "...the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first-strike of our own... it would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single day but it may be the only course of action open to us, given what Islamists believe". To be fair, Harris struggles with the morality of such an action, but the fact that he can entertain such ideas at all undermines much of his argument against the world-view of his perceived enemies. A better answer might be that if we ever find we need to use violent means to prevent an even worse evil, let us be first cast-iron in our certainty that the evil we fear is a real one and not a symptom of our paranoia, that all other methods have been tried and failed, and that our actions are targeted only at the perpetrators of the evil, and not at the innocent. And let us not kid ourselves that, if we ever commit violence that does not meet these standards, yet believe we were justified, we may be acting the way our ancestors did in the name of their God. It may be hypocritical to blame them.

All this said, Harris does a masterful job of rallying the arguments and pointing up the dangers that the West now faces from one ingredient in the potentially explosive mixture mentioned above. His diagnosis is incomplete and his prescription may be flawed, but his book provides ample food for thought. I would recommend it.


Disappointing - an undergraduate thesis, 22 Jun 2008
Apart from Chapters 3, 4 and 5, this book reads like an undergraduate thesis. It is overlong, confusing (seemingly for the sake of it) and a poor companion to Dawkins' The God Delusion, Hitchens' God Is Not Great and Harris' own Letters to A Christian Nation.

Chapters 3, 4 and 5 actually deal with the relevant subjects - and are excellent, compulsive reading. The rest is, frankly, dross with little meaning or clarity. For example, Dawkins writes very lucidly about very difficult and complex subjects, making them accessible. In this book, Harris mostly confuses and writes with a staggering lack of clarity.

I wholeheartedly recommend the three other books mentioned above. This one, you can take it or leave it.

Hard hitting religious polemic, 02 May 2008
Incredibly 120 Million Americans (who claim to be Biblical literalists) believe creation was 2,500 years after the Babylonians and Sumerians learned to brew beer. In this book, Harris argues daftness has a dark side; unquestioned religious faith causes some major problems.

A quick glance of the globe and one can easily correlate two competiting religions co-located and needless bloodshed:
Palestine: Jews v. Muslims
Balkans: Orthodox v. Catholics v. Muslims
Northern Ireland: Protestant v. Catholic
Kashmir: Muslims v. Hindus
Sudan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Muslims v. Christians

Harris also points out that religious faith, by taking dogmatic and unquestionable moral positions can block Scientific progress. For example, stem cell research - the candle of hope for those afflicted with insufferable conditions. It really isn't fair that someone can spend their life in a wheelchair or suffer Alzheimer's when a breakthrough in stem cell research could change their life.

However, some of his analysis is a bit one-eyed. For example in his analysis of Islam, he produces a range of statistics and surveys of Islamic countries which show them following a common thread of inhumane values. The problem is that he leaves out some of the more liberal Islamic countries, such as the U.A.E. and Malaysia. That said most of his points are well made, for example the insularity of the Arabic world is evident by the very low number of books translated into Arabic. In 2002 Spain was translating about the same number of books into Spanish in a single year as the entire Arabic world had translated into Arabic since the 9th century!

His writing style is methodical, surgical and logical. He coats that with the occasional dabble of dry, sardonic humour. For example, if the Bible is the word of God, how come Shakespear's writing is of a higher literacy standard? Or why did God creates 250,000 species of bettles?

It's a good book, but the hard line atheist angle won't win over most theists. There is the odd compliment to Religion. He does point out that the Muslim conquest of Spain meant that classical Greek texts were translated into Latin which eventually helped them find their way into the Renaissance. But overall, the standard theist will just feel they are being misrepresented and misunderstood. It's a hard hitting religious polemic, but it will more than likely just be read by those who already have a religious aversion.


Another Christian apologist apropos Dawkins, 10 Nov 2008
In this post-Dawkian world of militant, bulldog Atheism, we've seen a whole host of Christian apologists spring up with varying degrees of success, trying to claw back some of the authoratitive ground they once so fondly held. Ward's book attempts to find answer to just the philosophical arguments contained within THE GOD DELUSION (chapters 2 - 4) and therein lays both its strength and weakness.

WHY THERE ALMOST CERTAINLY IS A GOD shows less of the certainty of faith, at least in its title, than was possible before the arrival of the intellectually pugnacious Dawkins - although by the end, Ward, who remembered initially "how important it is to be critical of all our beliefs" has the graciousness to admit that, finally, what he's just toured the patient reader through "must seem like a wish-fulfilling fantasy ... (which is) not just a question of evidence ... (but of) basic forms of perception and action". The trouble is, for this reader at least, is that a good deal of Ward's "perception", being necessarily of the philosophical variety, comes across unduly complex and wishy-washy at the same time. It consists neither of Dawkins' wide appeal for the common reader, gained through a wide marshalling of arguments which give the impression of overwhelming probability in his favour, nor the arch atheist's clear and hard-hitting prose style. For Dawkins, evolution provides an excellent escalator of natural events which necessarily precludes the 'sky hook' offered by one's Invisible Magic Friend. It's an independent process which leads to increasing complexity. Whether or not he accepts the imperatives of evolutionary biology, Ward falls into the believer's habit of offering up that old stand by, faith, by way of alternative, suggesting that because something can't be proved not to be, so it really *has* to be, as he thinks so. The result is a lot of wishful thinking, typical of believers dressed up in verbiage.

For instance his insistance that mind can exist entirely outside of mechanical process: "This may seem rather odd, but it seems to be a possibility. There could be minds without matter.." so consciousness *might* be achieved by, er, well nothing tangible really... If I am simplfying Ward, then that's because stripped down to essentials it's the same old special pleading for something which, ultimately, IS just because it ("almost certainly") IS, see? And of course he is a professional philosopher, so he must know what he is talking about.

Incidentally Ward does not discuss just how pure mind can create matter from nothing - indeed the exact connection between the two is one of his book's more fuzzy moments. Just because we have thought and feelings, it seems, this is an argument for God who can also exist 'separately' from physicality - a dubious idea, given the necessarily mechanistic origin of those thoughts and feelings in the first place. But anything else, it seems, is consciousness "explained away".

In short, this fairly short book is full of academic special pleading. The denseness of argument here certainly proves that a. Dawkins is no professional philosopher in TGD ... but also shows b. that that wide-ranging book, though not without faults, has enough impact to remain impressive. Dawkin's broad assault on belief, built on the foundation strictures of evolutionary biology, creates an overwhelming sense of probability of world reality, one which makes Ward's necessarily narrow attack seem little more than more wishful thinking from an academic, and with none of the same impact.


Elegantly dismantles Dawkins, 31 Oct 2008
Ward does a good job picking apart Dawkins's attempts at philosophy. This is neither surprising nor particularly impressive considering Dawkins's book on God is a bit of jumble and should really be called 'Meditations on theology, history, American society and Constitutional Law, the Gnostic Gospels, and the thought processes of Pat Robertson by an OXFORD UNIVERSITY expert in the behavior of chicks at feeding time'. Even the ardent evolutionist Michael Ruse said it made him embarrassed to be an atheist. What's really good about Ward's book - and the reason I've given it 4 stars - is that it is a lucid, concise and penetrating introduction to theistic argument. I've withheld the fifth star because the passages on evolutionary biology could have been fuller. For a fuller critique of scientism in general with particular focus given to Dawkins, consult Peter S Williams's book 'I Wish I Could Believe In Meaning'.

Doubting Ward, 18 Oct 2008
With such a preponderance of books attacking Dawkins tending to uncritically recommend each other, it is hard to choose which makes the best case for theism to read as a foil to Dawkins. While the evangelism of John Lennox (or even the heartfelt sermonizing of David Robertson) might appeal more to committed Christians (and atheists playing "spot the special pleading"), this book comes closer to addressing Dawkins directly. More challenging than McGrath's rushed polemic, Ward describes his underlying position with clarity.

Having written books attacking fundamentalism, Ward shows himself a more reasonable apologist than most with statements such as "The judgment as to whether or not the resurrection happened as recorded in the Bible is likely to depend on whether or not you already believe in God." Unfortunately the same is likely true for the claims of this book. Key claims such as the fundamental validity of personal explanation are justified briefly by (tenuous) analogy, a "most philosophers agree that..." assertion, and the implicit "trust me, I'm a much nicer guy than Dawkins". More space is devoted to Ward's musings on consciousness and quantum mechanics.

The book starts inevitably with praise for Dawkins' previous works followed by castigation of his temerity to comment on faith and a list of historical theist philosophers, with more barbed insults popping up throughout. For a book directly addressing Dawkins, Ward needs understand what he criticizes more carefully. For example he seeks to characterize "the ultimate nature of reality", and assumes Dawkins is attempting to do the same. Ward is brave to tackle Dawkins on evolution, and does make some interesting points on probability and complexity which challenge rather than undermine Dawkins' more accessible writing.

Ultimately, Ward's view of God will be too abstract for many: "Could there be an unembodied mind, a pure Spirit, that has knowledge and awareness? I can see no reason why not." So where's the evidence? Ward has an answer: "So it seems that God does make a difference, but it is not a neutrally testable difference that could be settled by experiment." More work is needed to show that he is describing something more substantial than metaphor - if indeed he is.


A Ward to the wise!, 17 Sep 2008
This deceptively slim volume of 159 pages is a book of three parts and eight chapters. It has been primarily written as a refutation of the arguments to be found in chapters 2 and 4 of Richard Dawkins 'The God Delusion'(chapter 4 from which the book takes its slightly ammended title), as Ward explains (p10):"...because those are the chapters in which he enters into the territory of philosophy, of arguments about God and the ultimate nature of reality. That is my territory...". The book however goes well beyond the bounds of its remit and quickly builds into a comprehensive, sophisticated and nuanced defence of theism as a rational worldview whilst simultaineously critiqueing and exposing the philosophical weakness and naivity of the reductionist materialist position of the Neo-athiests. This is not a defence of christian doctrine or beliefs (we are not in C.S.Lewis territory here!) but of the rationality and cogency of theism, as Ward states(P137): "In this book I am not discussing the topic of revealed religion or defending the Christian faith specifically.I am concerned with general reasons for believing in God, or for accepting the God hypothesis. Those reasons hold good for any theist, Jewish, Christian ,Muslim, Hindu or Sikh...".
Keith Wards arguments do not lend themselves to simple synopsis but they cover areas such as: the New Design Argument, Causality, Certainty(practical and theoretical), Chance(two meanings of), Common Sense, Complexity and the improbability of God, Conciousness, The Cosmological argument, Eternal things and causality, Eternity of God, Evidence for God, Faith, Final explaination, First cause argument, Five Ways of demonstrating God, the God hypothesis, Goods(objective and intrinsic), Idealists and idealism, Immortality, Intelligence, Materialism, Matter, The difference between the scientific and metaphisical hypothesis, Mind, Morality and reigion, the Multiverse, Necessity and contingency, Occams razor, the alleged paradox of Omniscience and Omnipotence, Ontological argument, Personal explanation, Probability, Proofs of God, Purpose in the Universe, Reductionism in science, Relationship as an intrinsic good or perfection, Revelation, Self-transcendance, Simplicity of the laws of nature, Simplicity (three senses of), Simplicity,complexity and probability, "Skyhookery", Theory of everything, Timelessness of God and Transcendance.
Philosophers and scientists engaged with include: Anselm, Aquinas, Aristotle, Peter Atkins, A.J.Ayer, Martin Buber, Paul Davis, Daniel Dennet, Descartes, Einstein, Bernard d'Espagnate, Hugh Everett, Stephen j.Gould, John Gribbin, Steven Hawking, Hegel, Fred Hoyle, David Hume, Kant, Gottfried Liebniz, Lock, Simon Conway Morris, Isaac Newton, Rudolf Otto, Roger Penrose, Alvin Plantinga, Martin Rees, Thomas Reid, Matt Ridley, Jean Paul Satre, Spinoza, Swinburne, Richard Taylor, Max Tegmark, Steven Weinberg and E.O.Wilson.
As I said, a deceptively thin volume! But one which covers an immense area of philosophical and scientific ground. And although a refutation of the arguments of a notoriously splenetic and ill mannered adversary 'Why there almost certainly is a God' is a measured, dispassionate and gracefully written riposte (-and then some!). Recommended to the more philosophically inclined Christian reader.

Possible further reading:
Gods Undertaker by John Lennox.
Dawkins God by Alister McGrath.
Creation and the world of science by Arthur Peacock.
Science and Creation by John Polkinghorne.
Reason and Reality By John Polkinghorne.
The Existence of God by Richard Swinburne.
The Coherence of Theism. ""
The Existence of God. ""
God, Freedom and evil by Alvin Plantinga.
God, Chance and Neccesity By Keith Ward.
The Big Questions in science and Religion By Keith Ward.

Very closely and convincingly argued, 19 Aug 2008
In this book Keith Ward takes each of Richard Dawkins' points in turn, and, for me at least, convincingly refutes them. A very closely argued, highly respectful and erudite work.

All too human..., 18 Nov 2008
I make one simple point: does religion per se create evil,
or does humanity create evil in its name? The point has been
made over and over again that any great system of thought
creates zealots who are prepared to kill in its name. Humans
like and crave for certainty, and they cannot tolerate having
their certainty challenged. It is simply a non sequitur for
authors like Hitchens constantly to bang on about the evil done
in religions' names. When will people stop peddling this tired
old fallacy? It does not address the substance of the argument.
Does the atom bomb invalidate nuclear physics? Of course not. Let's
hear the *arguments* for the non-existence of God, not the
emotive (alas too tragic) nonsense that really amounts only to
a lamentation of humanity's disastrous history.

God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens , 04 Nov 2008
Perhaps a danger with these 'Down with God' books is in assuming that God and Religion are related. It is possible to have a bad experience of religion, which is a man made thing. But if a person denies the very existence of God in the first place. How can a person who denies the existence of something write about something that they consider does not exist? Mmmm

In doing this are they not then giving body to something that they previously considered didn't exist - so that they are now writing about an entity that does exist?

It can only truly be presented that 'God is not Great' from personal experience, not from carrying out an academic study on whether another person considered whether 'God was not Great'. It is then necessary for the writer to relate from personal experience why they consider 'God is not Great'.

Thinking book, 04 Oct 2008
This book does make you think in two sense of that phrase: it makes you consider the big questions in life and it also makes you concnetrate hard to understand it in places.

I liked the book when considering it in the round. It think that Hitchens is clearly a very clever individual, well-read and who has considered his subject-matter in some detail and is very familiar with it. But this is part of the downside to the book in that, for someone like me, who is not a philosopher and who does not have a good grounding in the subject matter, it is difficult to follow in places (quite a few places).

I have also read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins recently and on balance I prefer Dawkins book. That said, the two books are written in different styles (Dawkins adopting more of a step by step guide, whereas Hitchens' approach is more conversational).

These books are very different to the books I would usually read and I think I have benefitted greatly from reading them, but to others who have not read them I would say that you need to be sitting quietly and without distraction to get the most out of the book!

God is not........., 23 Sep 2008
Great book. Unfortunately, I suspect the only people who will read it already know that God isn't!

Welcome to celestial North Korea, 22 Sep 2008
Dawkins has God on the floor and the Hitch has jumped into the ring and got a sneaky boot in. Booo, hiss! This book starts from where Dawkins left off i.e. there is no good reason for belief in anything with no evidence (e.g. the tooth fairy, flying spaghetti monster God etc). All these things might exist but it seems unlikely. Hitchens goes a step further and tries to show that not only does God probably not exist but it would be bad if he did. He describes Heaven as a celestial North Korea.

It seems a strong case but is based entirely around the portrayal of God in the world's religions. It seems possible to me that God does exist but religions are man made and have got God all wrong. Personally I'm not sure whether it matters whether God exists. I like to hope that we do not cease to exist when we die and I certainly hope we are more than our bodies. But I recognise that this is probably wishful thinking and I am not sure where a God or God's fit into all this.

This is a good read for making you think about such questions. And as always Hitchens writes wonderfully.

Important ideas, clearly expressed, forcefully argued, 30 Aug 2008
In many ways this book acts as a popular level summary of Wright's recent thinking, and that is both its strength and ultimately also its weakness. The book's big idea is that Jesus' bodily resurrection is not a one off event but rather the forerunner of the general resurrection, and that this is the key which makes sense of a great deal of new testament thinking, in the gospels and the letters and in Revelation. He contends that the loss of belief in the bodily resurrection being replaced by an idea of a non-corporeal heaven has resulted not only in a loss of appropriate hope for christians but also has wider consequences for theology and for how christians live their lives. These are important ideas, clearly expressed and forcefully argued. The book's weaknesses stem from Wright's rather dismissive tone for anyone who does not agree, from their origin as lectures rather than being written as a book and from the constant refrain 'this is a topic that there is not space to explore here'. At 300 pages this is not a short book, but rather perhaps one that attempts to cover too much ground in the space available.

awesome book, 09 Aug 2008
this is an awesome book which really makes you think. The main revelation for me in that we won't go up to heaven, but Jesus will come down to us...and we are currently living in the new world promised (through the resurrection of Jesus) and every bit of good we do with be enhanced and amplified by God and included in the new creation, new christians are new "bits" of creation and we have to work together to bring the new creation properly into focus - which, in God's timing, will brought about..obv the world now is still full of sadness and evil but this will be eliminated and the good left behind..Tom Wright tells it sooooo much better than me, so if my jumbled description which i'm still trying to get my head around has interested you at all, buy it. It's awesome.

Recovering a deeper understanding of the Christian hope, 03 May 2008
What are we waiting for? And what are we going to do about it in the meantime? These are the big questions Tom Wright asks right at the start of this wide-ranging examination of the classic Christian concept of hope. Characteristically thorough, but nevertheless crystal-clear throughout, Wright's book takes a critical look at an idea that, for Christians as much as for anyone else, has become rather `fuzzy'.

But if you thought Christian hope was simply a matter of clocking into heaven when you die (perhaps after a period of dutiful post-death `journeying' - the idea of purgatory being very much in vogue, it seems), Wright may make you think again. Master of the pithy phrase, he draws the reader's attention to "life after `life after death` " - for the ultimate reality is a new heaven and a new earth. And that has massive implications for our lives now: it means we are not `restoring a great painting that's shortly going to be thrown on the fire', or planting roses in a garden about to be bulldozed: what we do now matters for all time and eternity. So we need to take this earth - its beauties, our bodies, justice, God's rule - with the utmost seriousness. And celebrate the person and the event that give it all value and undergird its hope - Jesus and his resurrection. In one of my favourite passages, Wright urges us to celebrate Easter right through to ascension, using the time to take up something new that might help us `wake up in a whole new way' - give us `a sniff of new possibilities, new hopes, new ventures' - and in doing so bring something of the real meaning of Easter.

The author's exploration of our future hope is carefully grounded in an analysis of what the resurrection meant for early Christians, and how they understood the future of hope - so much more than `heaven when you die'. All this, and a quick tour of (a Wright understanding of) heaven, hell, purgatory and the real meaning of the `rapture'.

`Surprised by hope' is a richly rewarding read - though not without its faults. Wright has much to say about the importance of the created order being redeemed and renewed, but he doesn't give many clear pointers as to what that might mean for us now, or refer us to the growing theological literature that does so. And though his stated aim is to set out some practical ways hope can come alive for individuals or communities that lack it, he concentrates less on the practicalities than on digging some really solid foundations from which they can rise. But these are minor blemishes. What endures from the book? A clear call to build for the kingdom - a job of work that draws on a hope for the present and the future, grounded in a past event of eternal importance. Time to stretch that canvas on a new frame, and bed those roses in...


Fantastic: thought provoking, challenging etc etc, 25 Apr 2008
I haven't quite finished reading it yet, but I have been challenged and stretched in my thinking by every page so far!
I realise that lots that I believe isn't based on a decision which linked my knowledge of scripture or other facts. So much of what I believe to be true is based on the country, time and church I grew up in.
Wright has simply expanded my knowledge. Sometimes causing me to alter my 'beliefs', but more often than not giving me the reasons for my beliefs.
e.g.
why was purgatory introduced as a belief (I didn't agree with purgatory, but hadn't considered why I disagreed with it)
Christianity is about giving my life to (having faith in) Jesus, now I will get into heaven and avoid hell.
Heaven is not on earth and will be a spiritual experience.

Sorry if this review has been less than clear. I would highly recommend this book. It's a cracker!!

Neo-conservative apology, 25 Aug 2008
As an atheist, I was drawn to this book through the endorsement of Richard Dawkins - an endorsement I find baffling. As a number of reviewers have noted this book does not remotely deserve to be bracketed with The God Delusion and other sober critiques of religious faith.

The biggest clues to Harris' agenda are revealed by the 'authorities' he invokes to buttress his opinions: the discredited pro-Israeli 'scholar' Daniel Goldhagen; the tub-thumping neo-conservative Thomas Friedman; the Zionist Alan Dershovitz (a man demonstrably shown to have manipulated historical sources in constructing a fervent defence of Israel), and Samauel Huttington.

It is not suprising given these bed-fellows that Harris allows himself to entertain the most bellicose, 'intolerant', indeed genocidal excursions in order to deal with the 'menance' of Islam. This includes - I kid you not - a pre-emptive nuclear strike against an un-named Islamic country with designs on the bomb. (Iran, presumably).
Neither is it surprising that Harris rejects outright ANY attempt to explain the rise of political Islam by reference to political factors - such as Western imperialism, the illegal war on Iraq and the West's uncritical support for Israel. (At the same time Israel is commended for its uniquely high moral standards and remarkable restraint. Harris also brushes over Bush and Blair's disastrous attempt to re-make the Middle East by casually noting "our (sic) adventures in Iraq".)

Leaving his ideological agenda aside the work is just plain badly written. It is FULL of non-sequiturs. One notable one is his insistence that we should understand Islam through scripture alone as this unambigiuously reveals its pernicious nature. This is quickly followed by a dismissal of more benign and contradictory passages in the Koran as they offer no guide to the actual practice of Islam by Muslim governments. An under-graduate essay would be rightly pulled up for this fundamental lack of internal consistency - and disingenuity.

There ARE legitimate questions to be raised about the compatability of Islam with liberal-democratic values. Given the all-encompassing nature of Islam as a mode of living, and its prescriptive character with respect to matters such as jurisprudence, it is evidently right to ask questions of liberals who would rather avoid thorny debates in the name of 'tolerance'. However, this is not a book which attempts to address such questions with any sophistication. Instead, we are offered a polemic which completely fails to engage with the complexities of the modern world and the inter-play of religious ideology and politics.



The End of Faith is Nothing But a Mirage, 25 Jul 2008
To no one's surprise, Mr. Harris trashes religion and faith as effortlessly and effectively as a tornado renders a cow weightless. "The End of Faith", however, comes across more as a divisive and apocalyptic rhetoric than anything else.

Mr. Harris implicates religious dogma for most of the death and destruction that has gripped this world in the past and the present, when in fact, 500 ng/dl or more of the hormone testosterone is probably responsible for most of the ill effects in almost all societies, past and present. As long as there is a propensity to compare p*nis size, and there are excesses to be had, there will be blood. Granted, religion probably provides an extra kick to compel a nutjob to walk into a crowd and blow himself up. But even if all religions of the world were to be eradicated, there are a plethora of other excuses to wreak hovac, e.g. tribalism, nationalism.

For there to be world peace, Islam must undergo a radical transformation, asserts Mr. Harris. Yet, he almost completely ignores the West's meddling in the internal affairs of many Middle Eastern countries to suit their selfish needs.

We've come a long way since the barbaric eras in our collective histories, and we still have a ways to go before civility is pervasive. Islam and WMD will not spell the end of the world. The end of faith is as illusive an idea as the paperless office. Faith will persevere, life will go on, and Mr. Harris will greatly benefit from a chill pill.

Brilliant but Dangerous, 05 Jul 2008
The thesis of Sam Harris's book is that, once any group of people believe that they have a monopoly on moral truth, they are capable of perpetrating the most enormous crimes against humanity in the firm conviction that they have a duty to stamp out evil (Satan) in the name of good (God). His book illustrates this with numerous examples of the intolerance of Judaism, Christianity and Islam not only towards each other but towards heretics and unbelievers - those who do not cloak their ideas of good and evil in the guise of supernatural personae.

Unfortunately, Sam Harris falls into two traps. First, he fails to see the huge irony of his own moral position - he castigates mediaeval Christians for torturing and extorting confessions from heretics and witches, who were seen as agents of Satan, yet creates his own Satan in the form of `terrorists' who apparently, for no reason other than their blind obedience to Islamic teaching, would choose to die just for the sake of killing people who do not share their world-view (pages 28-29). He thus argues (page 199): "Given what many of us believe about the exigencies of our war on terrorism, the practice of torture, in certain circumstances, would seem to be not only permissible but necessary". Substitute the word `Satan' for `terrorism' and Sam Harris is in the same moral position as the Pope who sanctioned the Holy Inquisition.

Second, like many atheist writers, Harris fails to understand that people do not necessarily come to believe in a particular brand of moral teaching merely because they are told it is the word of some supernatural entity. They do so because the messages of these great religions chime with something within their humanity that addresses their deeply-held sense of injustice and suffering. Such messages provide hope. Secular political and moral philosophies can be attractive for just the same reasons, albeit that they are more firmly rooted in achieving change in this world rather than the next. Politics has therefore frequently hijacked religion, and vice-versa, to serve a common purpose: that of helping people to fight oppression, and to counter threats they perceive to their morally superior (as they see it) way of life.

By failing to understand this, Harris significantly underplays the extent to which the perceived intolerance of one moral framework for another is rooted in, and can be fomented by appeal to, political grievances (page 109). Unless these are tackled, the threat of Islam to Western secular moral values (which is his main concern) would not disappear even if every Moslem gave up their belief in Allah and the Prophet tomorrow. His attack on religious faith and belief is therefore misguided. Furthermore, his Crusade of intolerance against infidels who do not share his particular moral stance knows no bounds in the evils it might unleash against humanity. On pages 52-53 he argues: "Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them... This is what the United States attempted in Afghanistan and is what we and other Western powers are bound to attempt, at an even greater cost to ourselves and innocents abroad, elsewhere in the Muslim world. We will continue to spill blood in what is, at bottom, a war of ideas".

In my view, the answer to the problems Harris identifies is not to demonise all believers, but to recognise and support all those people of all professed faiths (and none) who already subscribe to moderate beliefs and who already understand the dangers of accepting ancient teachings as ossified absolutist moral frameworks. The enemy is not faith per se, but a heady mixture of fundamentalist beliefs that are impervious to reason with a wide sense of global social injustice which oppressed peoples are now learning to address through suicide bombings or the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction. To win this war, we need to tackle social injustice and to reach out to others in a way which shows that we occupy a moral position that is truly worthy of universal respect. It is by no means apparent that we occupy such a position nor yet fully understand what it might look like, but it first requires us to understand how others perceive us. Sadly, Harris seems to lack this insight.

We also need to do more to educate people and promote a greater understanding of what people believe and why, including the atheist standpoint. We should teach young people more about the role of religion in history. Although we should not declare war on faith, it seems to me not unreasonable to insist that children are not indoctrinated into any particular religion, any more than that they should be indoctrinated into any particular political philosophy. Moral teaching should be based on principles of mutual respect - the rules of behaviour that are expected if society is to operate fairly and efficiently in the interests of all its members.

Yet there remains a moral dilemma here that Harris is right to flag up (page 129): "what will we do if an Islamist regime... ever acquires long-range nuclear weaponry?" His answer is again revealing: "...the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first-strike of our own... it would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single day but it may be the only course of action open to us, given what Islamists believe". To be fair, Harris struggles with the morality of such an action, but the fact that he can entertain such ideas at all undermines much of his argument against the world-view of his perceived enemies. A better answer might be that if we ever find we need to use violent means to prevent an even worse evil, let us be first cast-iron in our certainty that the evil we fear is a real one and not a symptom of our paranoia, that all other methods have been tried and failed, and that our actions are targeted only at the perpetrators of the evil, and not at the innocent. And let us not kid ourselves that, if we ever commit violence that does not meet these standards, yet believe we were justified, we may be acting the way our ancestors did in the name of their God. It may be hypocritical to blame them.

All this said, Harris does a masterful job of rallying the arguments and pointing up the dangers that the West now faces from one ingredient in the potentially explosive mixture mentioned above. His diagnosis is incomplete and his prescription may be flawed, but his book provides ample food for thought. I would recommend it.


Disappointing - an undergraduate thesis, 22 Jun 2008
Apart from Chapters 3, 4 and 5, this book reads like an undergraduate thesis. It is overlong, confusing (seemingly for the sake of it) and a poor companion to Dawkins' The God Delusion, Hitchens' God Is Not Great and Harris' own Letters to A Christian Nation.

Chapters 3, 4 and 5 actually deal with the relevant subjects - and are excellent, compulsive reading. The rest is, frankly, dross with little meaning or clarity. For example, Dawkins writes very lucidly about very difficult and complex subjects, making them accessible. In this book, Harris mostly confuses and writes with a staggering lack of clarity.

I wholeheartedly recommend the three other books mentioned above. This one, you can take it or leave it.

Hard hitting religious polemic, 02 May 2008
Incredibly 120 Million Americans (who claim to be Biblical literalists) believe creation was 2,500 years after the Babylonians and Sumerians learned to brew beer. In this book, Harris argues daftness has a dark side; unquestioned religious faith causes some major problems.

A quick glance of the globe and one can easily correlate two competiting religions co-located and needless bloodshed:
Palestine: Jews v. Muslims
Balkans: Orthodox v. Catholics v. Muslims
Northern Ireland: Protestant v. Catholic
Kashmir: Muslims v. Hindus
Sudan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Muslims v. Christians

Harris also points out that religious faith, by taking dogmatic and unquestionable moral positions can block Scientific progress. For example, stem cell research - the candle of hope for those afflicted with insufferable conditions. It really isn't fair that someone can spend their life in a wheelchair or suffer Alzheimer's when a breakthrough in stem cell research could change their life.

However, some of his analysis is a bit one-eyed. For example in his analysis of Islam, he produces a range of statistics and surveys of Islamic countries which show them following a common thread of inhumane values. The problem is that he leaves out some of the more liberal Islamic countries, such as the U.A.E. and Malaysia. That said most of his points are well made, for example the insularity of the Arabic world is evident by the very low number of books translated into Arabic. In 2002 Spain was translating about the same number of books into Spanish in a single year as the entire Arabic world had translated into Arabic since the 9th century!

His writing style is methodical, surgical and logical. He coats that with the occasional dabble of dry, sardonic humour. For example, if the Bible is the word of God, how come Shakespear's writing is of a higher literacy standard? Or why did God creates 250,000 species of bettles?

It's a good book, but the hard line atheist angle won't win over most theists. There is the odd compliment to Religion. He does point out that the Muslim conquest of Spain meant that classical Greek texts were translated into Latin which eventually helped them find their way into the Renaissance. But overall, the standard theist will just feel they are being misrepresented and misunderstood. It's a hard hitting religious polemic, but it will more than likely just be read by those who already have a religious aversion.


Another Christian apologist apropos Dawkins, 10 Nov 2008
In this post-Dawkian world of militant, bulldog Atheism, we've seen a whole host of Christian apologists spring up with varying degrees of success, trying to claw back some of the authoratitive ground they once so fondly held. Ward's book attempts to find answer to just the philosophical arguments contained within THE GOD DELUSION (chapters 2 - 4) and therein lays both its strength and weakness.

WHY THERE ALMOST CERTAINLY IS A GOD shows less of the certainty of faith, at least in its title, than was possible before the arrival of the intellectually pugnacious Dawkins - although by the end, Ward, who remembered initially "how important it is to be critical of all our beliefs" has the graciousness to admit that, finally, what he's just toured the patient reader through "must seem like a wish-fulfilling fantasy ... (which is) not just a question of evidence ... (but of) basic forms of perception and action". The trouble is, for this reader at least, is that a good deal of Ward's "perception", being necessarily of the philosophical variety, comes across unduly complex and wishy-washy at the same time. It consists neither of Dawkins' wide appeal for the common reader, gained through a wide marshalling of arguments which give the impression of overwhelming probability in his favour, nor the arch atheist's clear and hard-hitting prose style. For Dawkins, evolution provides an excellent escalator of natural events which necessarily precludes the 'sky hook' offered by one's Invisible Magic Friend. It's an independent process which leads to increasing complexity. Whether or not he accepts the imperatives of evolutionary biology, Ward falls into the believer's habit of offering up that old stand by, faith, by way of alternative, suggesting that because something can't be proved not to be, so it really *has* to be, as he thinks so. The result is a lot of wishful thinking, typical of believers dressed up in verbiage.

For instance his insistance that mind can exist entirely outside of mechanical process: "This may seem rather odd, but it seems to be a possibility. There could be minds without matter.." so consciousness *might* be achieved by, er, well nothing tangible really... If I am simplfying Ward, then that's because stripped down to essentials it's the same old special pleading for something which, ultimately, IS just because it ("almost certainly") IS, see? And of course he is a professional philosopher, so he must know what he is talking about.

Incidentally Ward does not discuss just how pure mind can create matter from nothing - indeed the exact connection between the two is one of his book's more fuzzy moments. Just because we have thought and feelings, it seems, this is an argument for God who can also exist 'separately' from physicality - a dubious idea, given the necessarily mechanistic origin of those thoughts and feelings in the first place. But anything else, it seems, is consciousness "explained away".

In short, this fairly short book is full of academic special pleading. The denseness of argument here certainly proves that a. Dawkins is no professional philosopher in TGD ... but also shows b. that that wide-ranging book, though not without faults, has enough impact to remain impressive. Dawkin's broad assault on belief, built on the foundation strictures of evolutionary biology, creates an overwhelming sense of probability of world reality, one which makes Ward's necessarily narrow attack seem little more than more wishful thinking from an academic, and with none of the same impact.


Elegantly dismantles Dawkins, 31 Oct 2008
Ward does a good job picking apart Dawkins's attempts at philosophy. This is neither surprising nor particularly impressive considering Dawkins's book on God is a bit of jumble and should really be called 'Meditations on theology, history, American society and Constitutional Law, the Gnostic Gospels, and the thought processes of Pat Robertson by an OXFORD UNIVERSITY expert in the behavior of chicks at feeding time'. Even the ardent evolutionist Michael Ruse said it made him embarrassed to be an atheist. What's really good about Ward's book - and the reason I've given it 4 stars - is that it is a lucid, concise and penetrating introduction to theistic argument. I've withheld the fifth star because the passages on evolutionary biology could have been fuller. For a fuller critique of scientism in general with particular focus given to Dawkins, consult Peter S Williams's book 'I Wish I Could Believe In Meaning'.

Doubting Ward, 18 Oct 2008
With such a preponderance of books attacking Dawkins tending to uncritically recommend each other, it is hard to choose which makes the best case for theism to read as a foil to Dawkins. While the evangelism of John Lennox (or even the heartfelt sermonizing of David Robertson) might appeal more to committed Christians (and atheists playing "spot the special pleading"), this book comes closer to addressing Dawkins directly. More challenging