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I Don't Believe in Atheists
by Chris Hedges

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1888742.I_Don_t_Believe_in_Atheists?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="I Don't Believe in Atheists" border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41jGc60Dz9L._SL160_.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1888742.I_Don_t_Believe_in_Atheists?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">I Don't Believe in Atheists</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15438.Chris_Hedges">Chris Hedges</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/22004372?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 1 of 5 stars I opened up this book fully expecting to find some well-formed criticism of the less intelligent aspects of the new atheist "movement." I too had felt that Hitchens and Harris especially paint Islam with too broad a brush. But instead of a the insight I've come to expect from Hedges in the past, what I found was a deeply dishonest work that paints not with a broad brush but with paint balloons. Hedges represents the ideas of "these atheists" so falsely, with so much ad hominem rudeness and removal of context, that "straw man" doesn't even begin to describe it. A few points:
 
 1. He cites the authors he's supposedly critiquing a whopping total of 29 times in the whole book. That 29 includes 2 for E.O. Wilson (?) and another 16 for Hitchens alone. This should be a red flag.
 
 2. He makes blanket accusations about what they (as if they were all the same person) believe that are flatly untrue. At the center of his argument is a bizarre and ultimately cynical claim that they believe humanity can reach moral perfection if we could only just weed out those who don't think like them. Unsurprisingly, although he makes this claim over and over and over (...and over...), he never directly cites even one of them claiming it. The reason is simple: They never do. Every time Hedges says their problem is that they don't believe in human corruptibility, I wonder if he understands anything at all about evolutionary psychology. The basic point here is that he's utterly incorrect about a fundamental part of his argument. And I don't mean he's incorrect in some moral or philosophical sense. Rather, the claims he makes are flat out demonstrably untrue.
 
 3. He argues that scientific secularism lacks a sense of sacred beauty. This, too, is hogwash. Where is Carl Sagan when you need him? How about Neil DeGrasse Tyson? How about Dawkins even (Unweaving the Rainbow). What a bull-headed claim this is.
 
 4. His attacks are really malignant. At one point, he references a debate he had with Harris. When Harris stated that a number of studies and polls contradict Hedges' own personal experience from living in the Muslim world, Hedges calls it "non-thought." Well, I hate to break it to him, but Harris is right. One person's view, no matter how sophisticated and long-term, is never going to be as meaningful as multiple, well-crafted social surveys. He reminds me of an old man who smokes a pack of day, lives to be a hundred, and then snipes that anyone who things cigarettes are dangerous is an idiot and he's the proof. (Two more telling notes on this point: a) I hope it's obvious that Hedges is practically carrying a sign saying he doesn't understand the scientific method or statistics. b) Very cynically, when a transcription from the debate is included in the book, he includes all of Harris' fillers and pauses and leaves his own out. I watched the debate online, and what comes off in the book as Harris sounding like an stuttering buffoon is exactly the opposite in actuality.)
 
 There are many more problems I had with the book (in addition to the non-sensical title, of course), but it's getting late, and I've probably lost you by now anyway, so I'll just leave it. What a shameful little screed this is.
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/1009318?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Stu's review
rating:
bookshelves: culture, philosophy, religion, science

I opened up this book fully expecting to find some well-formed criticism of the less intelligent aspects of the new atheist "movement." I too had felt that Hitchens and Harris especially paint Islam with too broad a brush. But instead of a the insight I've come to expect from Hedges in the past, what I found was a deeply dishonest work that paints not with a broad brush but with paint balloons. Hedges represents the ideas of "these atheists" so falsely, with so much ad hominem rudeness and removal of context, that "straw man" doesn't even begin to describe it. A few points:

1. He cites the authors he's supposedly critiquing a whopping total of 29 times in the whole book. That 29 includes 2 for E.O. Wilson (?) and another 16 for Hitchens alone. This should be a red flag.

2. He makes blanket accusations about what they (as if they were all the same person) believe that are flatly untrue. At the center of his argument is a bizarre and ultimately ...more I opened up this book fully expecting to find some well-formed criticism of the less intelligent aspects of the new atheist "movement." I too had felt that Hitchens and Harris especially paint Islam with too broad a brush. But instead of a the insight I've come to expect from Hedges in the past, what I found was a deeply dishonest work that paints not with a broad brush but with paint balloons. Hedges represents the ideas of "these atheists" so falsely, with so much ad hominem rudeness and removal of context, that "straw man" doesn't even begin to describe it. A few points:

1. He cites the authors he's supposedly critiquing a whopping total of 29 times in the whole book. That 29 includes 2 for E.O. Wilson (?) and another 16 for Hitchens alone. This should be a red flag.

2. He makes blanket accusations about what they (as if they were all the same person) believe that are flatly untrue. At the center of his argument is a bizarre and ultimately cynical claim that they believe humanity can reach moral perfection if we could only just weed out those who don't think like them. Unsurprisingly, although he makes this claim over and over and over (...and over...), he never directly cites even one of them claiming it. The reason is simple: They never do. Every time Hedges says their problem is that they don't believe in human corruptibility, I wonder if he understands anything at all about evolutionary psychology. The basic point here is that he's utterly incorrect about a fundamental part of his argument. And I don't mean he's incorrect in some moral or philosophical sense. Rather, the claims he makes are flat out demonstrably untrue.

3. He argues that scientific secularism lacks a sense of sacred beauty. This, too, is hogwash. Where is Carl Sagan when you need him? How about Neil DeGrasse Tyson? How about Dawkins even (Unweaving the Rainbow). What a bull-headed claim this is.

4. His attacks are really malignant. At one point, he references a debate he had with Harris. When Harris stated that a number of studies and polls contradict Hedges' own personal experience from living in the Muslim world, Hedges calls it "non-thought." Well, I hate to break it to him, but Harris is right. One person's view, no matter how sophisticated and long-term, is never going to be as meaningful as multiple, well-crafted social surveys. He reminds me of an old man who smokes a pack of day, lives to be a hundred, and then snipes that anyone who things cigarettes are dangerous is an idiot and he's the proof. (Two more telling notes on this point: a) I hope it's obvious that Hedges is practically carrying a sign saying he doesn't understand the scientific method or statistics. b) Very cynically, when a transcription from the debate is included in the book, he includes all of Harris' fillers and pauses and leaves his own out. I watched the debate online, and what comes off in the book as Harris sounding like an stuttering buffoon is exactly the opposite in actuality.)

There are many more problems I had with the book (in addition to the non-sensical title, of course), but it's getting late, and I've probably lost you by now anyway, so I'll just leave it. What a shameful little screed this is....less

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