The Attempted Murder of God: Hidden Science You Really Need to Know [Hardcover]

I am not surprised to see that this book was self-published; it's drivel. I suspect it was written by a monkey with a typewriter. Can't the author at least put this on Kindle, so trees and paper aren't wasted.

If all this content was available, for free, I would feel aggrieved if I had wasted my time reading it.

Did the person who wrote this book get any GCSEs/OLevels (or equivalent)?

Very poor understanding of science.

One person (the author, quite possibly) has suggested this is a 'parody'. Parodies are funny. This is not.

I'm sure I wasn't the only one who observed the cleverness of the title; "attempted murder" when of course to 'murder' something, it must first exist in the first place. Indeed, it's not just the title of this book that this assumption is made, many times throughout the writer repeatedly uses terms like "create" and "design" when surely the whole premise of the book is proving the existence of a creator/designer, so it's pretty easy to come to the conclusion such a being exists, when you've already used such words in your questions and premise.

Arousing suspicion from the early pages, i started to wonder if this book was meant to be something as defined by Poe's law:
"it's hard to identify a parody of a crackpot, since they seem equally insane"
and having read the book completely, I can honestly say I am no more enlightened as to which it is.

If it is a parody of creationist reasoning, half truths and extremely non-objective observations, then it is indeed a comprehensive, albeit, pretty annoying one.

If it's meant to be a serious statement as to god/a creators existence, then I can only hope this does not reflect the best we can come up with; the use of heavily contorted maths and science to fit into something many people merely hope is real.

whichever the case, it is not a book of answers you were hoping for, be they for gods existence or agin, and you will no doubt have to put down the book occasionally to ponder (as I did) whether it's meant to be a parody or not, often hoping that it is.

There's not enough hours in the day to reproduce every glaring omission or frankly scary misinterpretation of certain observations, but since they're exceedingly numerous, I'll list a few.

"We can all agree that Carbon-14 has a half life of 5730 years. So in other words, the last molecule of Carbon-14 on earth disappears in 11460 years."

Umm... No, anyone who studied basic chemistry in school could tell you what a half-life is.
So, a book which "uncovers hidden science" by someone who either doesn't understand (science at all) the half life of a radioactive isotope, or doesn't want YOU to.
I suspect however that this is the latter, intentional lying, since the author shows he understands the concept of infinite halving in another ridiculous statement which goes along the lines of:

"If you take any measured distance between two points, halve it, then add half that, then add half that, you will never cover the original measurement.
This means that the distance between these points is infinite."

No, the measurement is finite, but as maths allows, you can perform a function on it that will keep recurring infinitely without achieving a definite end.
....So?
Well you'll see for yourself if you read it, the author has to contort maths as well as science to make the views he has, seem to hold weight.
But it gets a lot more desperate.
A long drawn out contortion of logic in this book, can be shortened to:
"what exists between nothing and something (anything) is god.
God is 0 thing and N-E thing.
God is ONE."

yeah ok, it works in THIS language, but you probably deny the obvious evolution of language as well, in favour of "the tower of babel" story as told in the bible.
through use of more contorted maths-
"god is the reflection of us; he is 01 and we are 10.
I just realised, we have 10 fingers and toes, coincidence?"

Well yes, but if you want to get as childish as that, lets run with your "god = 01" idea and observe:
"well I only have 01 head/brain/mind, surely then that's the place outside existence where god 'exists,' in our minds."
Since there are so many thousands of concepts of who/what god is/has done, it's actually surprising just how many people don't recognize god is just that - a concept.
"God is real."
Which one?
It might be because such people refute the evolution of their own religion, and the numerous branches it has spawned at various dates in history, that then causes some to then refute the evolution of anything - "it was created that way; it didn't evolve."
Yeah, Ok then... just ignore the other branched off religions or denominations of, just as you equally ignore the evidence (including the ERV sequence in our DNA) that our ancestors branched out into our species and chimps.

The author comments on various coincidences like this, including one in which he has just turned 42, when 42 is the number regarded as "the meaning of life" in the book; "Hitchhikers Guide to the galaxy," written by the late atheist Douglas Adams.
Scrooby then writes "as if a number in itself could explain everything."
I'm sure it was apparent to most people that Douglas Adam's actual point in this matter was - if you ask a nonsense question, you will of course get a nonsense answer - ike asking "what was the name of the fairy that farted out our sun?" but of course it seems this message was missed by Scrooby.
(another reason I suspect the book is a parody)
"What is the meaning of life?" is a typical question of the self-reverence, and overestimated significance we'd like to think we have in the universe.
"I'm special - I must have a divine purpose to exist."
yeah OK, does the fungus that grows deep in the woods that no one's ever seen have a special purpose other than to survive?
Do the thousands of ants in an entire colony have a special god given purpose, other than to survive?
No, and all life is the same. If you want a purpose, maybe because you can't find one yourself, (I'm sure the reason desperate/dying people turn to god) consider it "to survive," something every living thing does, and something the human race seems to excel at overall.
We just class ourselves above the rest (as I suspect most creatures with a brain do) and think the world exists to provide for us. (as I suspect any creature that might ponder existence and significance of anything and other life forms would)

Comments on evolution.
I'd hoped for some fresh arguments, I was again disappointed.
The usual tactic was right at the start; "scientists don't understand abiogenesis, that means evolution is wrong."
Now the (pretty blatant) clue to what evolution is, was in big letters on Darwins book on the subject; "The Origin Of SPECIES," but of course as ever, a creationist has to misrepresent evolution as "the origin of LIFE" to bring it into the realms of "what no one fully understands," before they stand a chance of refuting various theories on 'abiogenesis,' not evolution, then try to associate the two again.
"well if you dont understand abiogenesis, then that means you don't understand/are wrong about evolution."
That's precisely how desperately lame the creationist argument is.
Like any creationist I have yet seen, the only way one (anyone in fact) can refute or deny the fact of evolution is by either:
A - not understanding it
B - pretending to not understand it, thereby making it easy to misrepresent, then refute the misrepresentation.

I personally am convinced Scrooby comes under the B category, which is surely worse than being deluded, (A) it's being intentionally deluding.

The rest of the "evidence" for god, was (to no surprise) exactly as Richard Dawkins describes it; "god of the gaps" evidence, in other words, because humans cannot explain certain things, this is therefore direct evidence (and proves to us) that god did it.
I have already touched on this and cannot over-enphasize how inaccurate and wrong this kind of argument is.
"science cannot explain something, that means god did it."
The level of arrogance in such logic frankly bowls me over, and I had to put the book down no less than 50 times because I was amazed that anyone should have such confidence in what humans do, or should know.
If there is one lesson over history that science has told us, it's that not understanding something, doesn't mean "god did it," it simply means we don't understand something.
Does exactly as it says on the tin - no "god did it" added.
I'd hoped that Scrooby would avoid things we DON'T understand as if they were evidence for a creator/god but no, he goes down this avenue multiple times, eg:

"where do stars come from?"
other stars.
"Ok, where did the first star come from?"
We don't know.
"AH HAA...!!! Proof!! That means god did it!"
No... it just means 'we don't know.'

How did the first chlorophyll evolve?
In fact, fit any question you might like into this space; if the answer is "we don't know," you'll always find someone willing to plug the "unknown" with "god."
"god explains that."
yeah ok.
There's no reasoning with such logic as it leads to the ultimate cop out that believers in god have:
"God made everything the way it is."
which begs the question (and the second part of the copout)
so if he made everything, why has he undeniably made it look like he had zero influence on anything, and his existence is non demonstrable?
"aah, because he's testing your faith."
and the copout is concluded, leaving you with very little, if any come back.
Of course this argument works equally well with the true creator of the universe and life on earth, the invisible undetectable dragon in my garage, the one which no can prove does not exist, who is testing everyone's faith so I must spread word of his existence, and I shall always accept as real because as i said, nothing can disprove his existence, existent or not. Read more ›