Paul’s review of The Experience of God : Being, Consciousness, Bliss > Likes and Comments
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thanks Shaun - I will continue my exploration of belief and unbelief with pleasanter guides.
Wow, Paul. Sounds like it was love at first sight between you and DBH! Well, I agree about the pomposity of his style. But I would see that only as the tip of the iceberg. That's how the guy expresses himself. Unfortunately it sounds like your disappointment at his style didn't leave much room in your review to share some thoughts about the points he is making - overall, they are really just a few. I didn't get the impression that he is regarding atheists as idiots. On the other hand, most atheists I've been listening to or reading, including Dawkins, make it very clear that anyone who believes in God actually IS an idiot. And that is also an opinion that a large chunk of our mainstream culture is happy to endorse. So I welcome a certain forcefulness in DBH's message. Granted, by definition there can be NO end to the eternal argument between atheists and believers, because of the way we are made, and our natural internal contradictions.
More interesting I find the problem of seeing the majority of Christians as wrongly or poorly informed about the concept of God, as outlined by Fathers of the Church like St Augustin or St Thomas. I think DBH is absolutely right about this. While most Christians probably have an intimate approach to their faith, that involves their heart and helps them keep in touch with their feelings, I bet most of them don't give a rat's ass about St Augustin, St Thomas and any type of philosophical tentative to squeeze religion into a rational framework (does that make them idiots? Of course not. Just not as intellectually curious as the minority). This is exactly what DBH is trying to do, by articulating and summarizing philosophical arguments that have already been made hundreds of times before: "Science cannot explain everything, so why does existence exist?", "Sod that question, it doesn't make sense", etc.. repeat ad infinitum.
My own personal stance on the philosophical approach to faith is that it's not the most important one - what matters is your heart. However, before receiving communion in church, you make a sign across your mind AND one across your heart, therefore technically your rationality needs to be engaged as well. That is where I think it's impossible to come to a definitive conclusion in either one direction, and the argument can go on forever. And I'm very happy with that: it syncs well with the fact that we are all very flawed, VERY contradictory, and very inquisitive beings.
Hi Tabasco - I want honest and clear books about God, not windy rhetoric and gesturing, so me and DBH were never going to be seeing eye to eye. It just goes to show you can't trust these damn book reviews ! (Except mine of course).
I had a very memorable moment at my daughter's long-ago nativity play. I was there with my then mother in law, a venerable lady who thinks she is a Christian. There were various Muslim parents present and sotto voce I wondered what they might be thinking, since the Christian's belief that Jesus was God is pure blasphemy to them. My mother in law at first didn't understand what I said. Jesus is God? She's never heard of such a thing, and clearly thought I was slightly unhinged so say so. Son of God was not God in her mind. To call Jesus God was to her, a person who thought of herself as a Christian, was blasphemous!
I think many Christians don't have the foggiest notion of what their faith actually is.
So i think what we have under the umbrella of Christianity is several DIFFERENT religions, all using similar terminology but meaning different things by them. I do not see anyone exploring that idea.
Paul wrote: "So i think what we have under the umbrella of Christianity is several DIFFERENT religions, all using similar terminology but meaning different things by them. I do not see anyone exploring that idea. "
I just read a book titled Misquoting Jesus. It would seem from the beginning Christianity has always been several different religions made up of various sects that often disagreed on key elements. For example, and I apologize if you already know this as it was news to me, but there were early Christians who believed that the God of the New Testament and the God of the Old Testament were in fact two different gods. There were also Christians who believed that Jesus was in fact not divine but only a man, others who believed he was both divine and human simultaneously, and those who believed that Jesus was a man temporarily inhabited by the spirit of Christ.
Anyway, you might enjoy one of his books (he's written several with similar themes, though I've only read Misquoting Jesus which I think is his most popular). His name is Brad Erhman and he is a textual critic who studies the Bible and its origination. He was a born-again Christian, who I think now identifies as a secular humanist/atheist. But even if you don't arrive at his conclusion (that the Bible cannot be the inerrant word of God...since it is full of errors), the book still offers some interesting insight into the evolution of Christianity and maybe where some of these differences come from.
yes, those are examples of early heresy! I read a book about that & here it is:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
And all the best to you too , guys :)
Happy New Year - and please stay away from piranha until you find a better book!
Paul wrote: "I think many Christians don't have the foggiest notion of what their faith actually is.
So i think what we have under the umbrella of Christianity is several DIFFERENT religions,"
Very true in my experience: I was raised as a practising Anglican, and am related to many who still are, but I am now faithless.
Great review. I read it after Tom Tabasco's. who is camping in another area of this vast meadow. I had to look up 'otiose'. Very useful word I think. Also I will sound brighter when I use it.
Well, to be fair *technically* he says metaphysical materialism is idiotic not atheism proper 😜
No but seriously, you're right about his tone being condescending. I've read it as snarky humor but I suppose that is an interpretation that is predisposed for his favor.
I will say I think he makes a good point (although admittedly pompously) about the question of existence as such being (and of God in particular) being philosophical rather than one of physics.
Regardless, I'm sorry you felt insulted- as a Christian intellectual, he should do a better job being considerate. There are ways to be witty, even saying ideas are not coherent or viable, without being insulting.
I agree that the author's tone is a bit pompous and aggressive (I wouldn't say insulting), but there are far too many new atheists using such a nasty and offensive tone against "religion" (Dawkins and friends) that I don't see why defenders of religion should just sound meek and subdued.
Another important note: yes, within the Christian umbrella there are many different flavors. But within Catholicism, which is the author's faith, there is only one single doctrine and it's easily accessible to everyone. The fact that the majority of Catholics might not be able to articulate it has more to do with education rather than the religion in itself.
Correction: he is Eastern Orthodox, very similar to catholic but they don't recognize the pope as their Church's leader.
I haven't read the book, but the general defensiveness of your review, together with your quotes from the book, make me think Hart is right. You don't actually refute anything he says,n you just don't like his tone. And I agree with what he says about Hawking's position.
Renee, it's a very good book, read it if you can.
Witty funny review. You nailed it in the last paragraph.
Renee wrote: "I haven't read the book, but the general defensiveness of your review, together with your quotes from the book, make me think Hart is right. You don't actually refute anything he says,n you just do..."
Tom, I did and just reviewed it. I hope you will check out my review.
Your ad hominum attack here does not do this book justice. Though he uses big words, he uses them skilfully and in support of some very clear defenses of classical theism. In particular, the book treats the argument from contingency and the argument for divine simplicity by offering much needed clarity. I'm sorry you could not get past the verbiage to the good arguments his words bear.
I'm sorry too, but you must admit his hauteur puts up a severe barrier between his arguments and his readers.
If you think his writing to be snobby you should check out some of his talks on YouTube. I agree he is a character, but his skill in connecting classic theological arguments to lived human experience is what grabs me.
I appreciate your review. Bentley Hart comes across as VERY smug in this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpLxC... His tone and choice of words goes along great with your review. I am watching all of his "closer to truth" interview clips and I cannot see anything that compels me to think I would benefit from reading his book. The interviews and this article by him seem to tell me all that I need to know:
https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/article...
In that article, he covers his basic view of what "god" supposedly is. I am... not impressed. His definition of a "god" is basically a god of the gaps, crafted so you cannot disprove it with bad arguments for god smuggled in and he contradicts himself.
I could instead say "consciousness is mysterious and I largely agree with Colin McGinn's view of it" (from the book The Mysterious Flame) and "The universe that grounds all being is mysterious and I'm not sure we'll ever fully understand it" (I might even say that I could see Spinoza's "god" plausible, but that isn't David Bentley Hart's god). That would be more honest and require less weird extra assumptions.
He doesn't seem charitable or intellectually honest. He cherry picks other religions in the interview I linked to, grouping all theistic religions together when it suits him which is... not at all philosophically honest, rigorous or respectable. I liked Jerry Coyne's review: https://newrepublic.com/article/11739...
Yes, he sounds arrogant. No, you’re not right about his definition of God being equivalent to the “god of gaps”. He clearly states in the article that no contingent quality can be ascribed to God. That means that, no matter where science takes us in the future, God will always be beyond that contingent level.
I disagree. As Jerry Coyne said "Hart’s book, then, is a sophisticated version of old God-of-the-Gaps arguments, and it’s gained traction because of two things: Hart’s exceedingly rarified notion of God (one shared by almost no believers but admired because it can’t be refuted); and his well-written—and sometimes pedantic—reiteration of shopworn arguments about phenomena that supposedly elude science, and can hence be peddled to a new generation of believers as signs of God."
From Hart's article: "God must be conceived not as a discrete being among other beings, but as being itself in its fullness."
"He is not the same “sort of thing”, like Zeus or Wotan, or any other limited being comprised within nature, or within any specific category (such as the category of “gods”). He is not any “sort of thing” at all — any more, say, than infinity is a sort of number, or existence a sort of object."
"Just as God is not a being, but Being itself, so he is not someone good, but Goodness as such; not something true, but Truth as such; not something beautiful, but Beauty as such; and not something singular, or even simply unique, but Oneness as such "
Maybe not the usual conception of a god of the gaps, but more a god that he hopes science (or just what could be investigated using critical thinking) could never touch (which is basically what a god of the gaps has always been). Qualia, "being", infinity, numbers, rationality, "goodness" etc. Those all have in common that they're really hard to examine scientifically. Not everything can be examined scientifically. That doesn't mean there's a god, though or that god is those things. Coyne wrote "He brings up the cosmological argument (something that is itself uncaused had to get the universe started) as well as the existence of things like consciousness, rationality, and our love of beauty—all things that, argues Hart, could never be explained by naturalism. Indeed, at times Hart seems to claim that beauty, consciousness, and rationality are God, a tactic that completely immunizes his views from disproof. I could just as well claim that God is the sense of accomplishment I get when writing a piece like this, or the enjoyment I derive from a good Havana cigar."
But yeah, some of that is based on what is in his book (which may not be included in the article). Nevertheless, what he argues in the video interviews and some of what he says in the article are a sort of god of the gaps. Could even use a different term or just say "an unfalsifiable version of god that you cannot really examine scientifically."
Jerry Coyne! I might listen to what Donald Duck has to say about theology with more attention.
"I might listen to what Donald Duck has to say about theology with more attention."
Cool. Sounds about as useful and fruitful as reading David Bentley Hart's definition of "god". Hey, I just found a much more interesting book that I think will tech me much more about religion, god and humanity. It's called "Complicity in the Holocaust: Churches and Universities in Nazi Germany" by Robert P. Ericksen. Sounds interesting. I guess god wasn't "love" in that case. But yeah I just by chance saw a movie about it in my YouTube recommended videos and then found the book. Fascinating and terrifying. Take care.
I can't say I was even remotely interested in reading this book but I was a little curious about it. Thanks for sating my curiosity and reinforce my belief that it would be better off left.
He knows so much more than you do. Stand down.
Well I wouldn't disagree, but unfortunately for reasons beyond human understanding God cursed him with a horrible prose style and an unpleasant personality.
Paul, you gave the same rating to Mere Christianity by CS Lewis and your comments are of a similar tone, starting by demolishing the author’s persona. I understand you are no friend of religion apologists, so I’m really curious that if you dislike them so much why you keep reading them. Personally I’d never get even close to authors of the likes of Richard Dawkins, simply because I know off hand they’d be a waste of time for me. I still find your reviews amusing, though.
It does seem so... but in mitigation I did like Roger Olson a great deal
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
although he isn't an apologist, and I also liked the choleric and very funny Paul Johnson
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
although he also is a historian....
But you know I am still looking for a book which will explain the Christian faith !
Why are you looking for that ? Like all smart and thoughtful atheists, you have an irresistible attraction to God. Could you guys just not care and move on, especially once you know all the rational arguments back and forth? You probably also know that rationality, while very important, is not what ultimately leads you to God.
yes it's true, and I have stopped reading all these pop theology books.
Jeez every time there is a good book which is actually written well some loser comes in and says “big words me not understand author too smart” dog the author doesn’t think your an idiot, you are one.
Just so that you are aware, that's two sentences.
if such discussions and criticisms of ontological assumptions bore you, why are you trying to read philosophy? stick to reading Richard Dawkins or whatever. any philosopher, theist or atheist, would critique naturalist assumptions about God to some degree, if he has any respect for his own field of study. that’s not ‘dishing’, grow up
It strikes me that the argument from contingency is just as unfalsifiable as naturalism. The observable universe is a one-off phenomenon, so there's really no way to determine whether something else, or nothing, might have happened instead. I suppose the anthropic principle -- the fact that cosmological constants and physical laws are set at the exact arbitrary values necessary for complex emergent phenomena like stars, planets, and life -- might be treated as the basis for an argument. But as yet we have no way of weighing that against the possibility of an eternal multiverse that includes every imaginable set of physical laws.
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thanks Shaun - I will continue my exploration of belief and unbelief with pleasanter guides.
Wow, Paul. Sounds like it was love at first sight between you and DBH! Well, I agree about the pomposity of his style. But I would see that only as the tip of the iceberg. That's how the guy expresses himself. Unfortunately it sounds like your disappointment at his style didn't leave much room in your review to share some thoughts about the points he is making - overall, they are really just a few. I didn't get the impression that he is regarding atheists as idiots. On the other hand, most atheists I've been listening to or reading, including Dawkins, make it very clear that anyone who believes in God actually IS an idiot. And that is also an opinion that a large chunk of our mainstream culture is happy to endorse. So I welcome a certain forcefulness in DBH's message. Granted, by definition there can be NO end to the eternal argument between atheists and believers, because of the way we are made, and our natural internal contradictions. More interesting I find the problem of seeing the majority of Christians as wrongly or poorly informed about the concept of God, as outlined by Fathers of the Church like St Augustin or St Thomas. I think DBH is absolutely right about this. While most Christians probably have an intimate approach to their faith, that involves their heart and helps them keep in touch with their feelings, I bet most of them don't give a rat's ass about St Augustin, St Thomas and any type of philosophical tentative to squeeze religion into a rational framework (does that make them idiots? Of course not. Just not as intellectually curious as the minority). This is exactly what DBH is trying to do, by articulating and summarizing philosophical arguments that have already been made hundreds of times before: "Science cannot explain everything, so why does existence exist?", "Sod that question, it doesn't make sense", etc.. repeat ad infinitum.
My own personal stance on the philosophical approach to faith is that it's not the most important one - what matters is your heart. However, before receiving communion in church, you make a sign across your mind AND one across your heart, therefore technically your rationality needs to be engaged as well. That is where I think it's impossible to come to a definitive conclusion in either one direction, and the argument can go on forever. And I'm very happy with that: it syncs well with the fact that we are all very flawed, VERY contradictory, and very inquisitive beings.
Hi Tabasco - I want honest and clear books about God, not windy rhetoric and gesturing, so me and DBH were never going to be seeing eye to eye. It just goes to show you can't trust these damn book reviews ! (Except mine of course). I had a very memorable moment at my daughter's long-ago nativity play. I was there with my then mother in law, a venerable lady who thinks she is a Christian. There were various Muslim parents present and sotto voce I wondered what they might be thinking, since the Christian's belief that Jesus was God is pure blasphemy to them. My mother in law at first didn't understand what I said. Jesus is God? She's never heard of such a thing, and clearly thought I was slightly unhinged so say so. Son of God was not God in her mind. To call Jesus God was to her, a person who thought of herself as a Christian, was blasphemous!
I think many Christians don't have the foggiest notion of what their faith actually is.
So i think what we have under the umbrella of Christianity is several DIFFERENT religions, all using similar terminology but meaning different things by them. I do not see anyone exploring that idea.
Paul wrote: "So i think what we have under the umbrella of Christianity is several DIFFERENT religions, all using similar terminology but meaning different things by them. I do not see anyone exploring that idea. "I just read a book titled Misquoting Jesus. It would seem from the beginning Christianity has always been several different religions made up of various sects that often disagreed on key elements. For example, and I apologize if you already know this as it was news to me, but there were early Christians who believed that the God of the New Testament and the God of the Old Testament were in fact two different gods. There were also Christians who believed that Jesus was in fact not divine but only a man, others who believed he was both divine and human simultaneously, and those who believed that Jesus was a man temporarily inhabited by the spirit of Christ.
Anyway, you might enjoy one of his books (he's written several with similar themes, though I've only read Misquoting Jesus which I think is his most popular). His name is Brad Erhman and he is a textual critic who studies the Bible and its origination. He was a born-again Christian, who I think now identifies as a secular humanist/atheist. But even if you don't arrive at his conclusion (that the Bible cannot be the inerrant word of God...since it is full of errors), the book still offers some interesting insight into the evolution of Christianity and maybe where some of these differences come from.
yes, those are examples of early heresy! I read a book about that & here it is:https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
And all the best to you too , guys :)
Happy New Year - and please stay away from piranha until you find a better book!Paul wrote: "I think many Christians don't have the foggiest notion of what their faith actually is.
So i think what we have under the umbrella of Christianity is several DIFFERENT religions,"
Very true in my experience: I was raised as a practising Anglican, and am related to many who still are, but I am now faithless.
Great review. I read it after Tom Tabasco's. who is camping in another area of this vast meadow. I had to look up 'otiose'. Very useful word I think. Also I will sound brighter when I use it.
Well, to be fair *technically* he says metaphysical materialism is idiotic not atheism proper 😜No but seriously, you're right about his tone being condescending. I've read it as snarky humor but I suppose that is an interpretation that is predisposed for his favor.
I will say I think he makes a good point (although admittedly pompously) about the question of existence as such being (and of God in particular) being philosophical rather than one of physics.
Regardless, I'm sorry you felt insulted- as a Christian intellectual, he should do a better job being considerate. There are ways to be witty, even saying ideas are not coherent or viable, without being insulting.
I agree that the author's tone is a bit pompous and aggressive (I wouldn't say insulting), but there are far too many new atheists using such a nasty and offensive tone against "religion" (Dawkins and friends) that I don't see why defenders of religion should just sound meek and subdued.Another important note: yes, within the Christian umbrella there are many different flavors. But within Catholicism, which is the author's faith, there is only one single doctrine and it's easily accessible to everyone. The fact that the majority of Catholics might not be able to articulate it has more to do with education rather than the religion in itself.
Correction: he is Eastern Orthodox, very similar to catholic but they don't recognize the pope as their Church's leader.
I haven't read the book, but the general defensiveness of your review, together with your quotes from the book, make me think Hart is right. You don't actually refute anything he says,n you just don't like his tone. And I agree with what he says about Hawking's position.
Renee, it's a very good book, read it if you can.
Witty funny review. You nailed it in the last paragraph.
Renee wrote: "I haven't read the book, but the general defensiveness of your review, together with your quotes from the book, make me think Hart is right. You don't actually refute anything he says,n you just do..."Tom, I did and just reviewed it. I hope you will check out my review.
Your ad hominum attack here does not do this book justice. Though he uses big words, he uses them skilfully and in support of some very clear defenses of classical theism. In particular, the book treats the argument from contingency and the argument for divine simplicity by offering much needed clarity. I'm sorry you could not get past the verbiage to the good arguments his words bear.
I'm sorry too, but you must admit his hauteur puts up a severe barrier between his arguments and his readers.
If you think his writing to be snobby you should check out some of his talks on YouTube. I agree he is a character, but his skill in connecting classic theological arguments to lived human experience is what grabs me.
I appreciate your review. Bentley Hart comes across as VERY smug in this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpLxC... His tone and choice of words goes along great with your review. I am watching all of his "closer to truth" interview clips and I cannot see anything that compels me to think I would benefit from reading his book. The interviews and this article by him seem to tell me all that I need to know:https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/article...
In that article, he covers his basic view of what "god" supposedly is. I am... not impressed. His definition of a "god" is basically a god of the gaps, crafted so you cannot disprove it with bad arguments for god smuggled in and he contradicts himself.
I could instead say "consciousness is mysterious and I largely agree with Colin McGinn's view of it" (from the book The Mysterious Flame) and "The universe that grounds all being is mysterious and I'm not sure we'll ever fully understand it" (I might even say that I could see Spinoza's "god" plausible, but that isn't David Bentley Hart's god). That would be more honest and require less weird extra assumptions.
He doesn't seem charitable or intellectually honest. He cherry picks other religions in the interview I linked to, grouping all theistic religions together when it suits him which is... not at all philosophically honest, rigorous or respectable. I liked Jerry Coyne's review: https://newrepublic.com/article/11739...
Yes, he sounds arrogant. No, you’re not right about his definition of God being equivalent to the “god of gaps”. He clearly states in the article that no contingent quality can be ascribed to God. That means that, no matter where science takes us in the future, God will always be beyond that contingent level.
I disagree. As Jerry Coyne said "Hart’s book, then, is a sophisticated version of old God-of-the-Gaps arguments, and it’s gained traction because of two things: Hart’s exceedingly rarified notion of God (one shared by almost no believers but admired because it can’t be refuted); and his well-written—and sometimes pedantic—reiteration of shopworn arguments about phenomena that supposedly elude science, and can hence be peddled to a new generation of believers as signs of God." From Hart's article: "God must be conceived not as a discrete being among other beings, but as being itself in its fullness."
"He is not the same “sort of thing”, like Zeus or Wotan, or any other limited being comprised within nature, or within any specific category (such as the category of “gods”). He is not any “sort of thing” at all — any more, say, than infinity is a sort of number, or existence a sort of object."
"Just as God is not a being, but Being itself, so he is not someone good, but Goodness as such; not something true, but Truth as such; not something beautiful, but Beauty as such; and not something singular, or even simply unique, but Oneness as such "
Maybe not the usual conception of a god of the gaps, but more a god that he hopes science (or just what could be investigated using critical thinking) could never touch (which is basically what a god of the gaps has always been). Qualia, "being", infinity, numbers, rationality, "goodness" etc. Those all have in common that they're really hard to examine scientifically. Not everything can be examined scientifically. That doesn't mean there's a god, though or that god is those things. Coyne wrote "He brings up the cosmological argument (something that is itself uncaused had to get the universe started) as well as the existence of things like consciousness, rationality, and our love of beauty—all things that, argues Hart, could never be explained by naturalism. Indeed, at times Hart seems to claim that beauty, consciousness, and rationality are God, a tactic that completely immunizes his views from disproof. I could just as well claim that God is the sense of accomplishment I get when writing a piece like this, or the enjoyment I derive from a good Havana cigar."
But yeah, some of that is based on what is in his book (which may not be included in the article). Nevertheless, what he argues in the video interviews and some of what he says in the article are a sort of god of the gaps. Could even use a different term or just say "an unfalsifiable version of god that you cannot really examine scientifically."
Jerry Coyne! I might listen to what Donald Duck has to say about theology with more attention.
"I might listen to what Donald Duck has to say about theology with more attention."Cool. Sounds about as useful and fruitful as reading David Bentley Hart's definition of "god". Hey, I just found a much more interesting book that I think will tech me much more about religion, god and humanity. It's called "Complicity in the Holocaust: Churches and Universities in Nazi Germany" by Robert P. Ericksen. Sounds interesting. I guess god wasn't "love" in that case. But yeah I just by chance saw a movie about it in my YouTube recommended videos and then found the book. Fascinating and terrifying. Take care.
Hart is an absolute jerk. He spends his book defending universalism ("That All Shall Be Saved") personally attacking anyone who believes in the doctrine of hell- he calls them morally bankrupt and evil for such a belief. For example, he writes that they are, "exquisitely malicious"; "viciously vindictive"; "inherently incredible"; "morally obtuse"; "ostentatiously absurd"; reflective of, "an intoxicating atmosphere of corroborating nonsense"; that they engage in, "specious reasoning" and that they are "extravagant absurdities". Regardless of whether hell is defensible, those are sweeping statements of the very worst kind, as many of the greatest minds in history have thought that hell exists. He even has no patience for people like C. S. Lewis, who was deeply troubled by hell and found his belief challenged by it. And he similarly despises annihilationists.
But it gets worse. He also bloodthirstily attacks Karl Barth, who was himself a universalist! The reason is that he thought that universalism couldn't be proven- in other words, he thought it was up for debate. This to me has echoes of thoughtcrime- the idea that even questioning certain beliefs is immoral (I jest, of course, but you take my point. Almost everything, especially in fields like theology, is up for debate.)
Also- I have followed the blog of Catholic philosopher Edward Feser for years, and every so often, Hart attacks him viciously and then acts as if Feser has taken it too far when he responds. For example, here is a response he gave to one of Hart's more bitter and unjust attacks: https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2017...
I think this is all an immense shame as his writings are often very good- for example, his translation of the New Testament is superb. But he lets himself down in his personal conduct (he also has hateful things to say about:
1: Christians who are not socialists, Communists, anarchists or some other form of revolutionary (this is because he thinks capitalism is immoral- though of course he only dislikes Christians who are immoral, as all atheists are immoral by necessity, he says.)
2: People who believe in the death penalty.
3: People who have been married all their lives.
4: The New York Yankees (seriously.)
5: Quentin Tarantino
6:Israel.
...and a bunch of other things I've forgotten.)
But it gets worse. He also bloodthirstily attacks Karl Barth, who was himself a universalist! The reason is that he thought that universalism couldn't be proven- in other words, he thought it was up for debate. This to me has echoes of thoughtcrime- the idea that even questioning certain beliefs is immoral (I jest, of course, but you take my point. Almost everything, especially in fields like theology, is up for debate.)
Also- I have followed the blog of Catholic philosopher Edward Feser for years, and every so often, Hart attacks him viciously and then acts as if Feser has taken it too far when he responds. For example, here is a response he gave to one of Hart's more bitter and unjust attacks: https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2017...
I think this is all an immense shame as his writings are often very good- for example, his translation of the New Testament is superb. But he lets himself down in his personal conduct (he also has hateful things to say about:
1: Christians who are not socialists, Communists, anarchists or some other form of revolutionary (this is because he thinks capitalism is immoral- though of course he only dislikes Christians who are immoral, as all atheists are immoral by necessity, he says.)
2: People who believe in the death penalty.
3: People who have been married all their lives.
4: The New York Yankees (seriously.)
5: Quentin Tarantino
6:Israel.
...and a bunch of other things I've forgotten.)
I can't say I was even remotely interested in reading this book but I was a little curious about it. Thanks for sating my curiosity and reinforce my belief that it would be better off left.
He knows so much more than you do. Stand down.
Well I wouldn't disagree, but unfortunately for reasons beyond human understanding God cursed him with a horrible prose style and an unpleasant personality.
Paul, you gave the same rating to Mere Christianity by CS Lewis and your comments are of a similar tone, starting by demolishing the author’s persona. I understand you are no friend of religion apologists, so I’m really curious that if you dislike them so much why you keep reading them. Personally I’d never get even close to authors of the likes of Richard Dawkins, simply because I know off hand they’d be a waste of time for me. I still find your reviews amusing, though.
It does seem so... but in mitigation I did like Roger Olson a great dealhttps://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
although he isn't an apologist, and I also liked the choleric and very funny Paul Johnson
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
although he also is a historian....
But you know I am still looking for a book which will explain the Christian faith !
Why are you looking for that ? Like all smart and thoughtful atheists, you have an irresistible attraction to God. Could you guys just not care and move on, especially once you know all the rational arguments back and forth? You probably also know that rationality, while very important, is not what ultimately leads you to God.
yes it's true, and I have stopped reading all these pop theology books.
Jeez every time there is a good book which is actually written well some loser comes in and says “big words me not understand author too smart” dog the author doesn’t think your an idiot, you are one.
Just so that you are aware, that's two sentences.
if such discussions and criticisms of ontological assumptions bore you, why are you trying to read philosophy? stick to reading Richard Dawkins or whatever. any philosopher, theist or atheist, would critique naturalist assumptions about God to some degree, if he has any respect for his own field of study. that’s not ‘dishing’, grow up
It strikes me that the argument from contingency is just as unfalsifiable as naturalism. The observable universe is a one-off phenomenon, so there's really no way to determine whether something else, or nothing, might have happened instead. I suppose the anthropic principle -- the fact that cosmological constants and physical laws are set at the exact arbitrary values necessary for complex emergent phenomena like stars, planets, and life -- might be treated as the basis for an argument. But as yet we have no way of weighing that against the possibility of an eternal multiverse that includes every imaginable set of physical laws.
Smug, overbearing, pompous, self-regarding and lofty – we should be grateful he has found the energy to explain to us in words of ten syllables just exactly what idiots we all are.
This about sums up my impression.
he does kind of sound like the kid saying, yeah, well I can think of a bigger number than you – a million million million million million million million million million million AND ONE!
Perfect.