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Is God A Delusion?: A Reply to Religion's Cultured Despisers
Is God a Delusion? addresses the philosophical underpinnings of the recent proliferation of popular books attacking religious beliefs.
256 pages, Paperback
First published November 24, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 24, 2024
This is an amazing book for those who want to read a philosophical response to the popular atheist movement that occurred around 2005-2010 (e.g. Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris), but does so in a fair, and non-pandering way.
May 21, 2010
Eric Reitan’s Is God a Delusion? is a great response to the so-called new atheists: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Victor Stenger. In Is God a Delusion?, Reitan argues that what the new atheists attack is largely a straw man: the new atheists attacks are aimed primarily at fundamentalist forms of religions, and Reitan argues forcefully that fundamentalist religion is really superstition and is not true religion at all.
The superstitious fundamentalists worship god, not God; they worship idols of their own ideologies. Reitan is quite happy to skewer the narrow-minded bigotry of such superstition. Of course, since Reitan is a universalist (arguing against the hideously despicable doctrine of eternal damnation), since he denies that any holy book is the infallible word of God, since he argues that homosexuality is not an abomination, since he readily embraces the fact of Darwinian evolution, since he argues that no one church is God’s representative in this world, many of the superstitious religionists would deny that Reitan is what he claims to be: a Christian. Such religionists, however, fail to see what Reitan argues is the true nature of religion: a sense of awe and wonder and a feeling of dependence upon the transcendent yet still personal reality—that is, God—which sustains the empirical world.
Reitan makes a forceful case that the new atheists fail to address the existence of God and spend their time attacking god. Reitan does not argue that he can prove that God exists, but he does argue that believing in God is not unreasonable, that believing in God is not a delusion. And I would have to admit that he succeeds in his endeavour: he shows that belief in God is reasonable. Belief in god, however, is another matter entirely.
Reitan also presents an excellent account of the cosmological argument. Personally, I don’t find the argument to be all that strong, but I find Reitan’s arguments far more compelling than those of Christian apologists like William Lane Craig, and Reitan is not trying to use the cosmological argument to prove that God exists but only that belief in God is not unreasonable, and he certainly succeeds here.
I was a bit disappointed in Reitan’s treatment of the problem of evil. He focuses primarily on why and how belief in God gives us hope that evil will ultimately be overcome but gives no strong arguments for how the existence of the good God in whom he believes is consistent with the existence of evil. What I do like, though, is that Reitan affirms John Hick’s position that the problem of evil would be absolutely insoluble if the fundamentalist teaching on eternal damnation were true: if some are damned forever to hell or some other type of separation from God and those that they loved in this life, then God is not God but is god or rather is the devil himself.
As a non-theist, it seems to me that many of the most prominent Christian philosophers of religion (I’m thinking here especially of Plantinga and Swinburne) are more committed to their pre-existing theistic beliefs than to the truth. Rarely do I stumble across Christian philosophers who seem to be actually committed to seeking the truth and who are willing to buck the orthodoxies of their traditions when truth and orthodoxy are in conflict; in this latter group of philosophers I would locate John Hick and Eric Reitan.
Is God a Delusion? is a great book that will challenge both theists and non-theists alike. Fundamentalists would be especially well served by reflecting on the nature of God as described by Reitan. Reitan’s God is far more worthy of worship than the god of the fundamentalists, and while Reitan does not prove that God exists (a task that I believe to be impossible, and so, too, I think, does Reitan), he does show that belief in God is not delusional.
The superstitious fundamentalists worship god, not God; they worship idols of their own ideologies. Reitan is quite happy to skewer the narrow-minded bigotry of such superstition. Of course, since Reitan is a universalist (arguing against the hideously despicable doctrine of eternal damnation), since he denies that any holy book is the infallible word of God, since he argues that homosexuality is not an abomination, since he readily embraces the fact of Darwinian evolution, since he argues that no one church is God’s representative in this world, many of the superstitious religionists would deny that Reitan is what he claims to be: a Christian. Such religionists, however, fail to see what Reitan argues is the true nature of religion: a sense of awe and wonder and a feeling of dependence upon the transcendent yet still personal reality—that is, God—which sustains the empirical world.
Reitan makes a forceful case that the new atheists fail to address the existence of God and spend their time attacking god. Reitan does not argue that he can prove that God exists, but he does argue that believing in God is not unreasonable, that believing in God is not a delusion. And I would have to admit that he succeeds in his endeavour: he shows that belief in God is reasonable. Belief in god, however, is another matter entirely.
Reitan also presents an excellent account of the cosmological argument. Personally, I don’t find the argument to be all that strong, but I find Reitan’s arguments far more compelling than those of Christian apologists like William Lane Craig, and Reitan is not trying to use the cosmological argument to prove that God exists but only that belief in God is not unreasonable, and he certainly succeeds here.
I was a bit disappointed in Reitan’s treatment of the problem of evil. He focuses primarily on why and how belief in God gives us hope that evil will ultimately be overcome but gives no strong arguments for how the existence of the good God in whom he believes is consistent with the existence of evil. What I do like, though, is that Reitan affirms John Hick’s position that the problem of evil would be absolutely insoluble if the fundamentalist teaching on eternal damnation were true: if some are damned forever to hell or some other type of separation from God and those that they loved in this life, then God is not God but is god or rather is the devil himself.
As a non-theist, it seems to me that many of the most prominent Christian philosophers of religion (I’m thinking here especially of Plantinga and Swinburne) are more committed to their pre-existing theistic beliefs than to the truth. Rarely do I stumble across Christian philosophers who seem to be actually committed to seeking the truth and who are willing to buck the orthodoxies of their traditions when truth and orthodoxy are in conflict; in this latter group of philosophers I would locate John Hick and Eric Reitan.
Is God a Delusion? is a great book that will challenge both theists and non-theists alike. Fundamentalists would be especially well served by reflecting on the nature of God as described by Reitan. Reitan’s God is far more worthy of worship than the god of the fundamentalists, and while Reitan does not prove that God exists (a task that I believe to be impossible, and so, too, I think, does Reitan), he does show that belief in God is not delusional.
May 10, 2012
Over the last few years there have been many strident angry attacks on religions and belief in God. Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion is a manifestation of a trend to view theistic religious belief as irrational and inherently evil. Many within powerful religious organisations of our day have been almost as vitriolic in their rebuttals of the new atheists.
This book is a powerful argument, rich in profound insight, and deep scholarship that points to a more balanced position between the two extremes. Using Schleiermacher’s celebrated 19th century Speeches on Religion to its Cultured Despisers as a basis for his philosophical argument, Reitan posits a brand of theistic religion which both respects science and is able to work within its limits.
Reitan does a great job of carefully and plainly dealing with many of the arguments raised against a theistic worldview, and handles the philosophical arguments against the existence of any theodicy raised by the atheists with his own well rounded philosophical argument that moderates and tempers the fundamentalist approach to certainty, an approach which the author claims cannot be supported by a simple definition of ‘faith’.
The standout for me is the final chapter of the book in which Reitan launches ian attack on those who insist that religion is the cause of all the greatest evils in the world. He argues that many far from positive traits of the human mind (e.g. a need for absolute certainty, a laziness in the face of the daunting task of creating a truly just society, a fear of the other, etc.) can, if unchecked, lead humans to an ideology with divides the world into the children of light and the children of darkness. Religion can, and has, been used as a way of achieving this division, but as Reitan notes, so have race, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, etc. And these things, unlike religion, have no inherent power to say "No" to the tribalism that so often takes possession of humankind. Religion, however, if it is true to itself, does have such power since it is rooted in the intuition that there is an infinite good that is present in, with, and under all finite beings.
This book is a gem and I would positively recommend it for every student of theology and philosophical thought.
This book is a powerful argument, rich in profound insight, and deep scholarship that points to a more balanced position between the two extremes. Using Schleiermacher’s celebrated 19th century Speeches on Religion to its Cultured Despisers as a basis for his philosophical argument, Reitan posits a brand of theistic religion which both respects science and is able to work within its limits.
Reitan does a great job of carefully and plainly dealing with many of the arguments raised against a theistic worldview, and handles the philosophical arguments against the existence of any theodicy raised by the atheists with his own well rounded philosophical argument that moderates and tempers the fundamentalist approach to certainty, an approach which the author claims cannot be supported by a simple definition of ‘faith’.
The standout for me is the final chapter of the book in which Reitan launches ian attack on those who insist that religion is the cause of all the greatest evils in the world. He argues that many far from positive traits of the human mind (e.g. a need for absolute certainty, a laziness in the face of the daunting task of creating a truly just society, a fear of the other, etc.) can, if unchecked, lead humans to an ideology with divides the world into the children of light and the children of darkness. Religion can, and has, been used as a way of achieving this division, but as Reitan notes, so have race, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, etc. And these things, unlike religion, have no inherent power to say "No" to the tribalism that so often takes possession of humankind. Religion, however, if it is true to itself, does have such power since it is rooted in the intuition that there is an infinite good that is present in, with, and under all finite beings.
This book is a gem and I would positively recommend it for every student of theology and philosophical thought.
October 10, 2009
So why is your booky bud reading THIS? And don't worry, this is a liberal (of course) academic type DEFENDING belief. So what's with Mark? (Conversation at social gathering: "Oh, he's a SCIentist." (cue the clinking glasses and rolling eyes) "It's just HIM, you know".)
Yes, this is kind of "schoolish" stuff, and you don't need it if you are devout and secure (not like me.)This professor (from Oklahoma State!)is not a snarling atheist or a screechy preacher. He talks about those people, but this is calm. Yes, reasonable, "educated" (whatever that means) people can believe (please realize he is not saying that believers are uneducated). He quotes famous philosophers and that kind of stuff.
Yes, God is about love and we aren't going to Hell. No, my gay friends aren't going there either. Yes, you can talk youself OUT of believing, but why?
I've always enjoyed this kind of reading. I work by the State Capitol and go to the state library. This was in the "Books for People Who Think Too Much" section.They call me the seeker/I've been searching low and hiiiigh/I won't get to find what I'm after/'Til the day I die (followed by awesome WHO guitar riffs),or as Bono said: I stiiiill haven't fouuuuund what I'm looking for.
Yes, this is kind of "schoolish" stuff, and you don't need it if you are devout and secure (not like me.)This professor (from Oklahoma State!)is not a snarling atheist or a screechy preacher. He talks about those people, but this is calm. Yes, reasonable, "educated" (whatever that means) people can believe (please realize he is not saying that believers are uneducated). He quotes famous philosophers and that kind of stuff.
Yes, God is about love and we aren't going to Hell. No, my gay friends aren't going there either. Yes, you can talk youself OUT of believing, but why?
I've always enjoyed this kind of reading. I work by the State Capitol and go to the state library. This was in the "Books for People Who Think Too Much" section.They call me the seeker/I've been searching low and hiiiigh/I won't get to find what I'm after/'Til the day I die (followed by awesome WHO guitar riffs),or as Bono said: I stiiiill haven't fouuuuund what I'm looking for.
Read
December 16, 2013The author of this book uses philosophical arguments to poke holes in the aggressive atheists' case against God. He focuses particularly on Richard Dawkins and his book The God Delusion. He pretty much eats Dawkins for lunch as far as I'm concerned. Particularly effecting is his explication of the simple question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" Why indeed? Unfortunately, Reitan spends part of one chapter to explain why structured religious denominations that put stock in the concept of authority on the earth--the Catholic church, specifically, but you could apply his arguments to my own faith, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints ("the Mormons")--are somewhat misguided and inferior to his loosey-goosey, non-denominational left-wing Protestantism. Seems like a silly nit to pick at a time when people of faith should be banding together.
July 23, 2010
his specific arguments against 'new atheists' are...OK, but his liberal presuppositions shine through, and that may actually be the strong point of this book, as many more people would agree with him contra the 'Brites' crowd if this were more widely read - but he is trenchantly on the Low-Christology religious Left.
Want to Read
December 26, 2015From Lisa
A philosophically sophisticated defense of theistic religion, responding to arguments of 'New Atheists' like Richard Dawkins, Dan Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens
A philosophically sophisticated defense of theistic religion, responding to arguments of 'New Atheists' like Richard Dawkins, Dan Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews