Manny’s review of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion > Likes and Comments

Question : is there any New Atheist writing that you actually like?

Paul wrote: "Question : is there any New Atheist writing that you actually like?"

I liked The God Delusion and Breaking the Spell, as you'll see if you look at my reviews! But sequels are iffy at the best of times, and it's even worse when someone else takes over the franchise...

On thinking about it some more, I guess what I have against most of the New Atheists is that they're superfluous. Why would any sensible person want to read A.C. Grayling when they could read David Hume or Bertrand Russell? I like Dawkins because he knows a great deal about biology, and he always manages to tell me something new and interesting. And Dennett, similarly, is very knowledgeable about philosophy and in general extremely well-read. But many of them don't appear to know anything. They've just jumped on the bandwagon.

Manny since you have read a lot about the New Atheists, and I have just started with Dawkins and Ibn Warraq, after finishing Hitchens' God is not Great, most of them, understandably critique the revealed religions ie Christianity, Judaism and Islam. What I wanted to ask you was, what would be their views about polytheistic religions such as Hinduism. I am asking this because, having been brought in a liberal Hindu Brahmin family, I have always been told about the vast number of gods that we have, how the Gita says this and that, hiw cow killing is a sin et al. On hearing about all this I read the whole Bhagwad Gita, in English and not in Sanskrit. Surprisingly, its a very erudite document. It talks about duties, concept of dualism etc but never commands or orders anyone to do anything in the name of God. Apart from my people's obssession with the vast number of gods, it was a perfectly sane book. Which cannot be said about the Bible, Quran or the Pentateuch. Your comments.

Akshat, the New Atheists I have read say little about Hinduism - as you say, they are focused on the Abrahamic religions, particularly Christianity and Islam, and to me read mainly as reactions to the more extreme versions of those religions. They are often explicit about excluding Buddhism as a target.

I am afraid I know very little about Hinduism. I should become better informed some time.

Great review! I've been looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this book for a while. I don't know how I managed to miss reading this until now...

Happy New Year! I hope next year you have more time for reading.

Lotz wrote: "Great review! I've been looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this book for a while. I don't know how I managed to miss reading this until now...

Happy New Year! I hope next year you have mo..."

Happy New Year to you too! And I think it may have been your recommendation that finally persuaded me to go and find a copy of this book :)

Really a well thought out review. Hume is definitely one of my philosophical heroes whom I need to get back to. 'Dialogues' continues to stare down at me daily. I also agree with you about the 'New Atheists '. While I greatly e

Once more with feeling.

Really a well thought out review. Hume is definitely one of my philosophical heroes whom I need to get back to. 'Dialogues' continues to stare down at me daily. I also agree with you about the 'New Atheists '. While I greatly enjoyed the science in Dawkins, his arguments are totally beside the point. It is not, and never will be a question of science versus religion. I call myself an atheist, not for reasons of scientific proof, but for the same common sense reason that I say there are no goblins behind the couch I'm sitting on.

As for Mr. Grayling, I tried reading his God Argument a few times and then took it down to the neighbourhood used book store. They were delighted to have it.

So yes, David Hume got much of it right. Whether he talks about the existence of God or the existence of causality, he is a skeptic who makes us call into question our assumptions.

Currently I am reading about Buddhist philosophical theories of truth/reality. It is amazing how often I find myself thinking of Hume, Wittgenstein and Moore during these readings. Indeed, I just started an article on Madhyamaka Buddhism and skepticism. Whether he is mentioned explicitly or not, the article has Hume written all over it.

Thanks for such a well written review. You have reminded me once again that I must get back to Hume.

Thank you RK! And I really should learn something about Buddhist philosophy... what I know now would fit comfortably into three tweets. Is there any book you'd recommend?

Manny wrote: "Thank you RK! And I really should learn something about Buddhist philosophy... what I know now would fit comfortably into three tweets. Is there any book you'd recommend?"

Manny _ If you're willing to be patient and work your way through it, 'Engaging Buddhism: Why it matters to philosophy by Jay L. Garfield is a very good introduction to the subject. It discusses Buddhist philosophy within a western philosophical tradition.

I believe that you have the basic background for it but, even though it is extremely well written, the vocabulary and some of the concepts can be challenging. I reviewed it recently so you can judge if you want to get into it. Really a lot of fun.

Hello Manny, Your point in dismissing much of the very selective borrowing of David Hume's book is well-taken. In reading "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion" I was amazed by how many times Hume references God, the "Almighty", "Providence" & similar expressions not usually invoked by atheists. Enjoyed your review! Bill

"...I was amazed by how many times Hume references God, the "Almighty", "Providence" & similar expressions not usually invoked by atheists."

Perhaps today's atheists write differently because the 21st century differs a bit from the 18th century, at least outside of the Islamic world. The auto-da-fé remained officially in force in Portugal until 1821. Hume would have enjoyed a bit more freedom but to question theism at the time was to invite a shall we say vigorous official or vigilante response.

By analogy, the videotaped "confessions" of American POWs in the Hanoi Hilton may not have reflected their true opinions, because the POWs were speaking under duress. Hume had to publish his Dialogues posthumously, and even his publisher would presumably have been at some risk, so it's hardly surprising to see the requisite sops to theists. Back then, theists tended to make their point with the axe blade and the bonfire.

If the New Atheists were publishing today from Islamabad, or from the new Kabul under the Taliban, they'd probably do well to flatter their oppressors too.

"We now have a great deal more evidence, but the difficulties in principle remain. With only a single universe, it is not obvious how one can use the scientific method, which relies on accumulating evidence from multiple related cases."

The difficulties in principle remain, but in practice they've shrunk by a factor of roughly 100 million. In Hume's pre-Darwinian day, the problem was to explain how millions of living species came to be. After Darwin, the only remaining problem was to explain how the first living cell came to be. Explaining one species is easier than explaining the ~100 mllion species thought to have existed on Earth at one time or another. It's about 100 million times easier. And scientists are chipping away at the abiogenesis problem, so that problem may be on the verge of falling to purely natural explanation as well (thus issuing yet another pink slip to God).

The whole universe on the levels of stars and galaxies is simpler than a single human brain. See for example the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram which captures pretty much everything stars (all 2 x 10^23 of them by one estimate) can do with just two dimensions. Thus to explain the human brain seems to be much harder than explaining the whole universe, and evolution already explains the human brain.

Back in Hume's day there wasn't a problem of explaining "the universe" as such, because nobody then had an inkling of how big it might be, or even what made the stars shine (that had to wait for Henri Becquerel's accidental discovery of radioactivity in 1896 and a few developments triggered thereby). It wasn't until around the 1920s that astronomers settled on the idea that the universe contains more than one galaxy. The main problem in Hume's day was explaining biodiversity, and that's handled nicely by science now.

This is why Richard Dawkins, for example, can be confident there's no need for a God. Science has already explained the hardest things.

There's still more for science to explain, of course. But Richard Carrier posits the analogy of science (i.e. metaphysical naturalism) and theism being like two race horses. They've raced against each other millions of times by now, with science winning every one of those races. This creates an enormous prior probability that science will keep on winning. And the gap for God will go on shrinking. Already the more thoughtful theists have had to shove God all the way back to at least 13 billion years ago, back to a time for which no good data exists. It's similar to the way primitive peoples would locate their gods on top of the highest mountains that nobody back then could climb, or in the deepest seas, or deep within the Earth.

Betting against science in favor of theism at this point is like betting that the Sun won't rise tomorrow morning. Due to the problem of induction, there's a chance the Sun won't come up again. But what's the smart way to bet?

You are stacking the deck in favour of atheism. Many reputable scientists are concerned about the fine tuning problem - this is is not well understood at all, whatever Victor Stenger may have said. Check out A Fortunate Universe for responsible discussion.

I'm with Hume, we just don't know. An incredibly smart guy.

The answer, of course, is 42.

If only we knew what the question was. Damn Vogons.

I have this book. But I still believe th Bible.
I go with Dylan:
You're gonna serve somebody...
It may be the devil, or it may be the Lord...
but you're gonna serve somebody.

I am sure this sounds neanderthal to you, but it is where i am now.
I see a pattern of atheists destroying the revealed religions and moving on to Beatles religions. The " if you dont stand for something, youre gonna fall for anything' crowd.
Evolution: I see know evidence whatever, that human beings have evolved in any significant way over known history.
With all due respect, i am not a buyer.
That said, I own this Hume book and plan to keep it. Seriously doubt I ever dig so deep into it that it eats me up. Definitely dont want to delve any deeper into Dawkins like rants.

No not know

Davy wrote: "I have this book. But I still believe th Bible.
I go with Dylan:
You're gonna serve somebody...
It may be the devil, or it may be the Lord...
but you're gonna serve somebody.

I am sure this sounds..."

Sorry, just saw this comment now.

Indeed you gonna serve someone. And better the Lord than the Devil. But it doesn't follow that the Lord made our world.