The
Errors of God is Not Great
a)
The deceptiveness of the book
In
chapter 1 of the notes, I listed seven deceptions which I reproduce
in a slightly shorter version here:
The
first ‘deception' is that the author comes powerfully
and authoritatively, not brooking opposition and stampeding down any
opposition. He gives himself the position of almost divine authority.
You wonder can he possibly be wrong!
The
second deceptive approach is that of the person
who appears so reasonable that you are seduced by their niceness and
really don't take in the significance of what they are saying. That
came over very strongly in chapter 1.
A
third deception is using half truths. It blends
truth with untruth to create an end product of its own making, to
suit its own presupposed conclusions.
A
fourth deception is to dump so much in one's lap
that it is almost impossible to take in individual points when the
chapter goes past like a fast flowing river.
A
fifth deception is to appeal to extremes of history,
silly comments of people whose understanding was less than perfect,
negative comments about people's inadequacies in general, and in respect
of religion specifically.
A
sixth deception, is to speak in such generalities
that it is impossible to tie down the truth.
A
seventh deception is to condemn by association.
The title of the book is God is not Great but actually very
little is about God.
These,
therefore, are the strategies that the author uses, purposely or not
I don't know.
b)
The Wrongs of the Book
There
are a number of things about this book that worry me if this is supposed
to be a book of integrity:
1.
Its Bitter Bias
The
further on this book goes, the greater the bitterness being revealed
in the writing. The language becomes more and more emotive and there
is nothing of objectivity about it; it is all-out crusading!
2.
Its One-Sidedness
Far
more than The God Delusion this book comes out of the school
of closed-mind, dogmatic mantras. So much is this evident that I have
near the end commented that “It's like going into the Labour Party
headquarters in London
and saying, “Tell me why Conservatives are wrong,” or going into the
Democrats' headquarters in Washington
(is that where it is?) and saying,
“Tell me why the Republicans are wrong.” It is so propagandist as
to be almost unbelievable.
3.
It is Ignorant of the Origins and Content of Scripture
Now
the Bible is one of the primary foundation stones for the Christian
Faith and one might expect these crusading atheists to have read it
and studied it and its origins, but all we find is a quoting of others
who have little or no knowledge as well, as if repeating shallow errors
might make them solid truth. The lack of knowledge and understanding
of the origins of the Bible and its contents is horrific coming from
those who dare to criticise it. The only reason they get away with
it with the media, is that they likewise are largely ignorant of it.
If they weren't all so ignorant of it, then perhaps they might not
be atheists!
4.
It has its own way of interpreting history
A
number of times as I read through this book, I thought, “This doesn't
correspond with my knowledge of history! I think he is assuming a
whole lot of things here, simply to fit his agenda.” I could be wrong
because in a number of areas he is clearly more well read than I am,
yet my readings of history suggest that quite a lot of what he says
will not stand up to scrutiny and it would be good to have an historian
check out much of what he says. I have doubts.
5.
It uses the ploy of Extremes
He
has no doubt learnt of Richard Dawkins who is the master of this –
focus on extremists and brand the middle ground ‘real article' with
the same stamp. It is intellectually very bad! Nowhere in this book
is there an examination of the experiences of the vast majority of
middle-of-the-road traditional Christians whose only fault is that
they seek to be good!
6.
It leads astray by sleight of hand
More
than a few times we are led to believe that the author is going to
cover a particular topic only to find we have been led into a completely
different area which has nothing to do with the chapter title or the
opening words of the chapter. The biggest criticism in this respect
comes with the very title of the book. Hardly anything or very little
in the book is about God Himself. It's mostly about how human beings
have done their own thing and used religion. If it had been titled,
“Man-Made Religion is Bad” I would have been the first to applaud
it!
7.
It lacks understanding of history
This
is a subject that I believe can stand on its own, and so we'll deal
with it more fully in Appendix 2 – Church and History.
In
addition to these general errors that come up again and again throughout
the book, you will find that we have itemised specific lists of errors
within chapters at the ends of chapters 5, 6, 7, 8, 13, 15, 17 &
18.