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136 of 154 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Pretty Polarising: Atheist Or Believer, This Book Won't Change Your Stance, 17 Dec 2007
So, having really enjoyed the celebrated work to which this book is a counter, I thought I'd give Dawkins's nemesis's book a try. After all, it's easy to choose to listen to someone who's arguing from your side; the challenge is to hear the counter arguments respectfully.
I'll give the professor his due; he has a measured approach that makes him far more charming a narrator than is Dawkins. The latter tends to go for the jugular, and I can envision him red-faced, pounding his keyboard at times.
Professor McGrath wisely lets Dawkins hang himself at times; when Dawkins is silly enough to use absolutes ("all religion is evil"), attention is drawn to it.
Nonetheless, writing a rebuttal to this book should also prove easy. After all, whilst it's true that Dawkins deliberately extracted bad bits of the Bible, it's still the case that they are in it, irrespective of whether there heppen to be good bits too.
Likewise, one of the most striking pages of Dawkins's work describes the god that is mentioned in the Old Testament using very negative adjectives based on accounts contained therein. McGrath's answer to that is "I don't believe in a god like that." That may be the case, but it doesn't change the fact that the stories that Dawkins read to come up with such a description are there, and so the professor's rebuttal is not effective.
I don't know. It's hard not to automatically side with the person who espouses one's own opinion, of course, in which case I'd be with Dawkins. But when all is said and done, this is not a cut-and-dried debate, and there is much that is worthwhile in the riposte. I would say, though, that Dawkins didn't totally undermine the case for a god; he undermined the case for organised religion. In a similar vein, professor McGrath's book is more a defence for the religious that Dawkins attacked with such zeal, rather than a matter of making "God" much more a viable concept for me.
This is only a short book. I'm not sure that I'd recommend it, just because there's nothing to it. Anyone that reads Dawkins's work can see that he's aggressive. Reasonable people are well aware that there are fanatical atheists that are just as zealous as their believing equivalents; we don't need to buy a book to realise this.
I'm glad that I bought this book just because I like to practice what I preach, about listening to both sides of the argument. It didn't dissuade me from my own stance at all, but I'm sure for those who share the author's opinions and beliefs, it will come as a welcome defence to Dawkins's affront.
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38 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Good Rough Draft of Ideas - where's the rest of the book?, 18 Nov 2007
To Alistar McGrath's credit he got me thinking a bit about some counter-arguments to Richard Dawkin's book 'The God Delusion'. He is a very good intellectual writer and puts forth a few good ideas such as - some beliefs may not be proven but justifiable (especially considering that half the world believe in some God), the relevance of a world view, and how evolution is not regarded as being incompatible with religious beliefs. He also tries to provide a balance to some of Dawkins very strong views about the role in which religion plays in our every day lives and how it impacts society. Unfortunately, he never follows through and hence leaves the reader wanting. He does make it clear up front that he did not want to write a detailed book that counters against every anti-religion point that Dawkins makes in TGD but that is precisely what I was hoping he would do (perhaps not with a 400 page book, but with something a bit more than a short high level essay). Like it or hate it, 'The God Delusion' puts forth some very powerful arguments against religion and the perceived irrational thinking that accompanies it. Dawkins does not don kid gloves and attacks religion very aggressively in his book - which was his intention. He was not looking to publish a politically correct book. Hence a strong rebuttal would have been appropriate and potentially very interesting - especially from somebody of McGrath's intellectual caliber. I am an atheist but continue on my quest for answers and I have a good appreciation for rational counter-argument. This was McGrath's opportunity to put forth some solid rebuttals but it doesn't happen. He stops well short of a full rebuttal to almost all of the issues raised by Dawkins so he lost his opportunity to persuade otherwise - which I assume was the reason for publishing the Dawkins Delusion in the first place. In short - had potential but fails to deliver.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
God is still a delusion., 13 Dec 2009
Having read The God Delusion twice, and having sympathised with Dawkins' clear frustration at feeling the need to write it, I felt it the decent thing to read at least one response to it. Alister McGrath's work was the first I encountered.
My interest was in spite of the subtitle: "Atheist fundamentalism and the denial of the divine." This indicated before I even opened the book that its author had fallen into the same trap to which even some of my friends who claim to be atheists succumb; he believes that atheism is a religion. Atheism, it seems, is faith in the non-existence of God.
"Atheist fundamentalism" is a phrase that permeates the book even to the extent of doubting Dawkins' claim that he isn't an "atheist fundamentalist". Dawkins has a very strong case here which McGrath seems unable to counter. The term is an oxymoron. Anyone - including McGrath - who juxtaposes the words outside of quotation marks can't know the meaning of at least one of them. Atheism is the antithesis of fundamentalism. It's the willingness and ability to abandon a long-held and cherished belief when all evidence proves this belief to be wrong. If the creation and evolution of the universe is ever shown by science to be the work of an intelligence, all atheists will immediately and gladly accept it. It would be a cause of great joy amongst atheists that such an important question has at last been answered. This is to be contrasted with the position of religion if the creation and evolution of the universe is ever proven beyond doubt to be random. Few if any would accept this immediately. Many would never accept it. It would be the cause not of joy but of immense angst amongst the religious community. The reason? Religion epitomises fundamentalism. This is its inherent weakness and the reason Dawkins and I reject it.
Now that I've made clear my views before reading this book, I was hoping to find a far deeper challenge to them than McGrath provides. As an atheist I can never be absolutely certain about anything. My views stand to be challenged. The Dawkins Delusion has made it clear, if it wasn't already clear, that only a scientist whose views are not fettered by superstition can change my mind on the nature of the universe.
Yes, Dawkins is rude. After five thousand years of this nonsense and in the age of nuclear weapons, someone needs to be.
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