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Reading this summer
Jackie Blue:
--- Quote from: Ikrik on 07 Jun 2008, 20:52 ---The God Delusion
--- End quote ---
Really? Why? Dawkins is the worst kind of atheist, and his books are nauseatingly ignorant and intentionally controversial. He's no better a writer for atheists than the Left Behind series for Christians. He's like the Rush Limbaugh of atheism, preaching entirely to the choir and trotting out nothing but superficial and uninformed criticisms of his opponents.
Basically everything I think about Dawkins was said better in this review of The God Delusion, which neatly outlines exactly why his books are useless.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n20/eagl01_.html
The opening thesis paragraph sums it up, so if you're not up to the lengthy detail the review goes into (though it is really a good read) then here:
"Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology. Card-carrying rationalists like Dawkins, who is the nearest thing to a professional atheist we have had since Bertrand Russell, are in one sense the least well-equipped to understand what they castigate, since they don’t believe there is anything there to be understood, or at least anything worth understanding. This is why they invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first-year theology student wince. The more they detest religion, the more ill-informed their criticisms of it tend to be. If they were asked to pass judgment on phenomenology or the geopolitics of South Asia, they would no doubt bone up on the question as assiduously as they could. When it comes to theology, however, any shoddy old travesty will pass muster. These days, theology is the queen of the sciences in a rather less august sense of the word than in its medieval heyday."
Jimmy the Squid:
Well, it's Winter here but I just borrowed the 8 books of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher from Est. I've read the first one and they are really pleasently written detective novels about a wizard. I am so down with the noir-ish style that Butcher is good at that I'm really excited to read the rest of them (I have two months of holidays starting last week). I'm also going to borrow my friend's copy of Psychopathia Sexualis by Richard Von Kraftt-Ebbing which is, though outdated, meant to be fascinating.
Jackie Blue:
I watched some of the Dreseden Files TV series and thought it was pretty good; I've been meaning to read them as some quick, brainless fun, especially since I am very interested in the occult. I was impressed that the show (and, I'm guessing, the books) were very accurate about a lot of esoteric magical axioms and whatnot.
KharBevNor:
--- Quote from: zerodrone on 07 Jun 2008, 23:43 ---
--- Quote from: Ikrik on 07 Jun 2008, 20:52 ---The God Delusion
--- End quote ---
Really? Why?
--- End quote ---
So, if you don't like the dudes work, no one should read it? I don't particularly agree with the God Delusions reasoning myself but it's one of the most discussed books of the day. It's probably a good idea to have an opinion on it, and you can only get a proper opinion on a book by reading it. Are you afraid that other people do not have the capacity to read a book and not agree with it? Jesus.
I've got a few books lined up which I've bought but just haven't had time to get through. Most of these I've already started reading on a train or ferry but have just never finished.
Neomi Klein - No Logo
Ernst Gombrich - The Story of Art
Peter Bistkind - Easy Riders, Raging Bulls
Robert Service - Stalin: A Biography
Orlando Figes - Natashas Dance: A Cultural History of Russia
Robert M. Pirsig - Lila: An Enquiry Into Morals
I'll set aside a week some time over the summer to sit out in the garden in my floppy army hat with cigarettes and coca cola and read 'em. I'm particularly looking forward to Stalin; Service's biography of Lenin was one of the best history books I've ever read*, also Lila, the 'sequel', as it were, to Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which apparently enters into the metaphysics of Pirsig's philosophy of quality, which is already brilliant. The Story of Art should be interesting, though from what I remember of reading parts of it, it is rather dated and western-centric; No Logo is a book various, often unwashed people have been telling me to read for years.
I also just finished reading "How to Kill", by Kris Hollington. It's a history of assassination in the late 20th century. Fascinating stuff.
*Though of course, Orlando Figes 'A People's Tragedy' was the best history book I've ever read. I really should read more history books not about Russia.
Jackie Blue:
--- Quote from: KharBevNor on 08 Jun 2008, 01:10 ---So, if you don't like the dudes work, no one should read it? I don't particularly agree with the God Delusions reasoning myself but it's one of the most discussed books of the day. It's probably a good idea to have an opinion on it, and you can only get a proper opinion on a book by reading it. Are you afraid that other people do not have the capacity to read a book and not agree with it?
--- End quote ---
Well, no, but I don't think I need to read the entire Left Behind series or Dianetics to have an opinion about it.
The fact is that Dawkins is actually not seriously discussed among the academia. He's a pop-culturist, not a serious and informed critic. As is obvious from reading him, and pointed out in the article I linked, he is writing about religion with almost literally zero knowledge of it.
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