The Case against Religion and for Humanism - The God Argument

I had a hard time following this even though I enjoy hearing these arguments. In my opinion the author crammed 20 pages of writing into 75 pages. I admittedly didn't (couldn't) read the second half except for sections that looked interesting to me. I have no doubt that this is a well written argument but it just did not appeal to me.

The first section of this book took a bit to work through as the philosophical and ethical concepts are quite complex for the uninitiated, however the second part of this book is so well written I think anyone could get their head around.

The final page succinctly expresses what humanism really is, what it means and why we need to promote this world view especially at this time in history with religion trying to assert its domination over whole societies.

An excellent read! The book is divided into two sections. Section 1 evaluates common arguments in support of theism and shows how they are incoherent, inconsistent, or unnecessary - in particular unnecessary in forming the basis for ethics and morality. The second section lays out the way in which secular humanism may contribute to various ethical and moral issues. The writing is intelligent, witty, wise, sensitive, and compelling. Grayling is one of the most eloquent voices in contemporary “atheism” and secular humanism. Inspiring and hopeful.

a great positive outline for the future of humans on this planet. humanism is a much needed approach to our future and it's ideas are well thought out here. Grayling is a wonderful writer ... has a great way with words!

A.C. Grayling does a terrific job of putting the philosophical concepts behind the idea that there is no God in terms that are easily understood. Not only understandable, but convincing and enlightening. This book greatly clarifies some things I have always believed but found difficult to express. Now I know how to express these thoughts thanks to this book.

This was my first book on the topic of humanism and I have to say I did not learn much. Grayling must have been getting paid by the word. The lofty prose made it difficult to get the points Grayling was trying to make. Unless you are an English major or philosophy buff, this one will likely go right over your head. Keep a dictionary handy. I did get a few of his points, but it was a rather difficult read.

I am sold, and having tried the religious experience in various guises, am even more convinced that what Grayling puts into words, is a starting point to understand the reality of our senses. The use of fantasy, myth and superstition is a poor alternative to grasping the reality of our experience, and will not lead to any answers, only dogma to hide the truth, or else hell according to the self appointed guardians of the "big lie".

Grayling gives the best argument I have encountered for why so many scientists and atheists give useless statements about their “knowledge” relative to god-stories.

He also explains why a better answer is to explain why scientific arguments are rational descriptions of lots of evidence, while believing an evidence-lacking story is completely irrational.

Nothing new, same old, same old. Boring and I was really hoping for more. Perhaps if the author had started the book with some of the elements promised on the cover and in the reviews, I would have enjoyed it more. I simply do not need to review everything that's been said for years over and over again in every single text of this nature. Come on guys, get it together!

This book's subtitle - "The Case Against Religion and for Humanism" - perfectly describes it. Reading its two parts of approximately equal length - the "against" argument comprising the first part, the "for" argument the second - is akin to attending two separate lectures on two successive days given by the same erudite professor. Grayling's writing style is at the same time both learned and casual; in both sections, he attempts to persuade his readers by reason and common sense, as if he were having a private conversation with each of us. The "against religion" chapters offer little new to readers (like this one) already in the agnostic/atheist camp, other than to encounter our own personal convictions stated in such articulate sentences. Readers who hold religious beliefs may well find much to disagree with here, but I doubt they will find the reading experience all that unpleasant - Grayling is firm in his arguments, but not polemical as some other authors who have written on this topic. The real pleasure of this book awaits its readers (whatever our religious or philosophical persuasion) in the second half - the "for humanism" chapters. Here Grayling engages a wide range of social topics - most notably abortion and euthanasia - from a humanist viewpoint, challenging us to think them through anew. One disappointment - he does not address the one question that gnawed at me as I read each chapter in this section, to wit, why has humanism failed thus far to have a more positive impact in our troubled world?

AC Grayling has set out to make his case against religion and for humanism. Let me make comments on each section.

In Part I, Grayling makes the case against religion. Though Grayling does make some good points, I didn't find anything new or necessarily deep. As some reviewers have already noted, "The God Argument" lacks sufficient depth to deal with many of the arguments addressed. Since many arguments aren't given an in-depth treatment, unless you already agree with Grayling, I don't see many being persuaded by his case. Of course, I may be overstating things because even though lacking in depth, Grayling is clear, concise, and gets across many great points, which I agreed with. Also, given the succinctness of the discussions, I was hoping for a full bibliography where I could look further at the arguments. Alas, these were lacking. There are only 41 references in the whole book!

In Part II, Grayling makes the case for humanism. This is where the book shined. As a self-described humanist myself, I didn't need to be won over, but Grayling does a masterful job of explaining humanism and why it is the best system to guide our lives with. The section of the book on secularism was particularly good because you don't have to be a non-believer to be a secularist.

Overall, not a bad book. For all its faults, it is still worth a read, especially for Grayling's case for humanism.

Further recommendations:
Freedom of Religion and the Secular State
The Cambridge Companion to Atheism (Cambridge Companions to Philosophy)
The Belief Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life
Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity
Religion Explained

Great find. A.C. Grayling at his best. The book is broken into two parts. Part I is the arguments against Religion and Part II is the argument for Humanism. Part I is a excellent review of many of the long standing auguments against religion. There were a few new nuggets of insight, but most of it includes more refined arguments made by other authors. In all fairness the debate of religion vs. humanism has been going on for over 2,000 years, so it is difficult to come up with new arguments. Grayling resists the temptation to invoke the lastest findings of science that could bolster his argument perferring to rely on reason and logic alone. He is also not a scientist, but a first rate philosopher.

Grayling is a master at explaining philosophy. Perhaps I am biased since I have read most of his works, but I was literally mesmerised by his insight and clarity of exposition of difficult concepts for the layman. I thought Part II was the best part of the book and believe he presented a formidable case for Humanism. However, I believe one misses the point of this book if you are interested in keeping score between which camp (religion vs. secularism) makes the best arguments. I thought he did a good job of being respectful of those of us who are inclined toward religion. Unlike other writers, who take a more confrontational stance, Grayling appropriately takes the emotion out of the debate and makes his case using his materful command of the English language. He also shows us how important it is to be clear about the meaning of the words we use to engage in debate. I will pass this book on to my age appropriate children to read and hopefully savor it as I did.

Keep in mind I am a philosophical agnostic who enjoys this sort of discussion but leans strongly towards atheism. It is just that sort of book I can enjoy. Thinking about religion and Humanism but personally having no strong belief system to uphold. However, others might find his more systematic deconstruction of religion offensive if the are devout religious people. Or perhaps they would welcome the discussion. I would love to do an in depth review on the book and get into it in more depth but I feel that would incite people to defend their religion and others to defend atheism. I can see how intense those can get and they are besides the fact. It is entirely up to you whether you want to read a book that deconstructs the purpose and reasons and logic of religion, and promotes humanism as a more valuable replacement. Since that is the premise of the book. If it is not for you, then I would not recommend it at all.

I will say that I enjoyed the section on Agnostics. Those of us that sit on the fence and the reasons why we do. He quotes Bertrand Russell by saying "An agnostic is a man who thinks it is impossible to know the truth in matters such as God and the future life with which the Christian religion and other religions are concerned, or, if not for ever impossible, at any rate impossible at the present moment." And, "The agnostic suspends judgement, saying there are not sufficient grounds for either affirmation or denial. At the same time, an agnostic may hold that the existence of God, though not impossible, is very improbable; he may even hold so improbable that it is not worth considering in practice." In other words pretty close to an atheist but not quite, which is often where I find myself... with Bertrand on that one. Or at least I did for years until I realized it was just too improbable to make sense. But I still consider myself agnostic for other reasons. Reasons he missed, but he nailed all the others.

Grayling points out 'Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same things as proving it is true.' (60) Which makes a lot of sense really. There are arguments for the existence of God and against his existence and in the end it seems you cannot prove it one way or the other. 'Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder.' (60)

Anyway if you are interested in the topic of religion or humanism, are philosophical, are an agnostic... this book is for you. It is a very enjoyable read that makes you think of different scenarios in a new way. I didn't agree with everything he said, found some of the things he said compelling and it was definitely an interesting read.

Exposing the so called contradictions (flaws) of religion, A. C. Grayling argues for the superiority of humanism, whose central notions, he believes, can establish an ethics system based in human will, potentiality and contingencies. An ethics system based on religion's notions is inferior, because it ignores human potentialities and produces violence. The book is well written. The author expresses his ideas in a simple and understandable language. The matter is fascinating and controversial. One wonders if the author succeeded in making his case.

A C Grayling is a critical thinker on matters of importance and this book is a worthy read for anyone who is or who has been on a journey away from the restraints of enforced indoctrination to the experiential freedom which an informed maturity and insight afford. All the speculative metaphysics concerning the existence of God are discussed in lucid form and leave one in no doubt that the rational antitheistic stance is valid and highly convincing; albeit still a belief, projected into the world, as all belief systems are.
Interestingly, if it is possible to dismiss an objective "God", as an actual being by descriptive, analogical, one dimensional reasoning, it may also be possible to challenge the claims of mystics, sages, holy men and women, saints etc. from the contemplative traditions, East and West, down through the ages, who have stated that the mind can be trained so as to create for itself a wide, open, multi dimensional, experience of oneness, characteristic of an expanded consciousness.
By means of introspection or insight [there is a difference], non-verifiable claims are thus made as to the subjective existence of 'supernatural entities'. The non-dual adept, however, will say that purified consciousness [as awareness] is completely void of content and, simply is. Furthermore, all projections from an incompletely transcended, transpersonal self - ie visions, ecstasies and the like are to be considered as illusions.
Neuroscience has now placed belief systems [regardless of content], ego-maintenance systems [self-identity, self-esteem etc] and the emotional centre in close proximity, anatomically [pre-frontal cortex and limbic system] and neurologically [as neuronal connectivity].
It is, therefore, not difficult to understand how all beliefs [religious or otherwise] are now to be considered as projections from a conditioned consciousness, and when resisted evoke a variable emotional response.
The philosopher J. Krishnamurti once said that "all beliefs are absurd". I tend to agree and think that all beliefs unsupported by sufficient evidence are delusional; only facts should be considered as true, and to my mind, the only reality is that which is happening in the here and now.

Dr Richard Walsh [UK].

Many individuals have settled their beliefs about religion while many others, including myself, have experienced much doubt throughout life. Those with unsettled views probably have a larger tendency than others to gravitate towards philosophy, which tries to examine and assess broad questions about life and experience. In his new book, "The God Argument: the Case against Religion and for Humanism" (2013), the philosopher A.C. Grayling examines and rejects arguments in favor of religion and religious belief and opts instead for an outlook on life based on humanism.Grayling is professor of philosophy and master of the New College of the Humanities, London. Grayling has written more than 30 books, many of which involve questions about religion and humanism. He is a "public philosopher" in that he writes for lay audiences as well as for technically trained philosophers and addresses questions of immediate philosophical impact as opposed to what are sometimes termed technical questions for specialists. In addition to addressing religion and humanism, Grayling has written studies of Descartes, Berkeley, and Wittgenstein.

The goal of the book is less to change minds than to articulate the reasons which, for Grayling, lead to the rejection of religion and theism. Equally important, Grayling wants to show that the lack of theistic belief does not lead to a meaningless, ethically random life. The case Grayling makes for humanism is as important to his project as the case against religion. Accordingly, the book is in two broad parts, the first of which is titled "Against Religion" while the second is titled, "For Humanism".

Religious belief involves intellectual questions but it also raises questions of emotion, psychology, history and more. Thus, in the first part of the book, Grayling engages in a broad discussion of the origins of religious belief, historically and for the individual, and of the role religion has served for its believers. Speaking broadly, Grayling sees religion as arising in a pre-scientific world view when people tried to explain phenomena on the basis of mind or intentionally-based behavior rather than as the operation of laws of nature, including physics, chemistry, and biology. He sees religion as having great personal uses for people in providing forms of consolation, meaning, and ethical standards; but he also sees religion as wreaking more harm than good in the form of intolerance and hatred, ignorance, superstition, and the undue supression of natural and proper human desires including, in particular, sexuality. Grayling explores these factors and then turns to an examination of various philosophical arguments that have traditionally been offered for theism, including the argument from design and the ontological argument, and finds them wanting.

The best part of the discussion consists in Grayling's formulation of the question: determining what "religion" and "god" mean. Religion, for Grayling, is a "set of beliefs and practices focused on a god or gods," a definition that excludes Theravada Buddhism and Confucianism, among other possible candidates. In a telling passage, Grayling points to the difficulty of engaging with religion due to to the shifting character of concepts of God. He writes:

"[C]ontesting religion is like engaging in a boxing match with jelly; it is a shifting, unclear, amorphous target, which every blow displaces to a new shape. This is in large part because the religious themselves often do not have clear ideas, or much agreement among themselves, about what is meant by 'religion', 'god' 'faith' and associated concepts. And this is not surprising given the fact that these concepts are so elastic, multiple, and ill-defined as to make it hard to attach a literal meaning to them."

The considerations Grayling identifies make "religion" and "god" elusive targets. Educated religious believers frequently have far different views than the majority of people who attend houses of worship. And those believers who disagree with "fundamentalism" frequently "cherry-pick" among doctrines, disregarding those they find offensive and substituting, sometimes in a dogmatic way of their own, a more "liberal" point of view. I sympathize with Grayling's discussion of this situation. He tries to address it by mounting a broad-based attack on theism, in terms of the existence of god and of the value of god as a means of explanation in morality, physical causation, or anything else.

In the second part of the book, Grayling defines and makes the case for humanism. He says:

"In essence, humanism is the ethical outlook that says each individual is responsible for choosing his or her values and goals and working towards the latter in the light of the former, and is equally responsible for living considerately towards others, with a special view to establishing good relationships at the heart of life, because all good lives are presmised on such. Humanism recognizes the commonalities and, at the same time, wide differences that exist in human nature and capacities, and therefore respects the rights that the former tells us all must have, and the need for space and tolerance that the latter tells us each must have."

Grayling proceeds to give a broad discussion of how an individual may choose the pattern of his or her life and work towards its meaning under a humanistic outlook. He also offers what he admits are his own points of view on a broad range of social issues, including the distribution of wealth, feminism, gay rights, vegetarianism, euthanasia, abortion, regulation of drugs, and more. His views tend to be well on the liberal range of the social spectrum.

The book is provocatively and elegantly written. Grayling writes with a commendable passion and fervor as he seeks to engage the reader in the process of thinking issues through to a conclusion. I share much of his approach. In my view, "humanism" and more generally "philosophy" are terms almost as elusive and shifting as "god" and "religion". Grayling's "humanism" has many attractive features, but its emphasis of individualism and choice of goals speaks primarily to a certain type of educated, modestly well-to-do individual with a degree of leisure in a developed country. And Grayling's arguments for social and political positions do not seem to me in all cases to be required by a humanistically based ethics. Perhaps individuals have other options between the religion that Grayling critiques on the one hand and his humanism on the other hand. The works of the American philosopher John Kekes, for example, show a secular thinker with a social ethics that differs markedly from Grayling's.

I mentioned that Grayling has written about Descartes and Wittgenstein. In the book under discussion, written for a law audience, Grayling perhaps does not fully flesh out philosophical underpinnings and arguments. He offers a short and rather perfunctory chapter titled "knowledge, belief, and rationality" on the difficult host of questions that philosophers describe as epistemological. I am not sure from this work alone, but Grayling appears committed to a strong view of rationality and proof and to a representational outlook with which many philosophers would disagree. The outlook is broadly that words and thoughts somehow "mirror" reality. And so, when the word "God" is used, it refers to an existing being or to nothing at all. Some philosophers would reject this outlook and allow for the possibility of a "God" that is not an existent "thing" or a "being". Also Grayling seems to me to privilege scientific forms of explanation and he adopts what is close to a verificationist theory of meaning. He writes, "[r]eligious claims are, accordingly, irrefutable because untestable; and by this criterion are therefore meaningless." The trouble with this is that verificationism has a long philosophical history. If theological claims do not pass verificationism, many other types of claims that people would now want to give up do not pass it either.

Grayling could reject these forms of critique or he could restate his position to meet them. I think his discussion, rejecting a representationalist theism is valuable. The book is liberating, challenging, and worth reading by those readers emeshed in religious questions.

Robin Friedman

An amateurish attempt to persuade readers of two things: God doesn't exist, and that you can still live a 'good' life by designing your own rules.

Like all atheists, the author makes energetic appeals to such supernatural things as the laws of logic and mathematics without giving a logical reason for their existence and trustworthiness. In this way he steals Christian axioms, that such laws are unchanging and always predictable only because they are part of an eternal, unchanging and predictable God (Hebrews 13.8 reads “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and forever").

'Arguments' presented against God's existence and His absolute moral standards include:

i. The universe somehow caused itself and all things via evolutionary processes (there is no design).
ii. Natural evil makes God either evil or not omnipotent.
iii. The "Euthyphro [Non]Problem” makes God immoral (He could redefine evil as good), or morality an independent thing.
iv. For various political, social, and psychological reasons man simply created God, starting from nature gods up to a transcendent monotheistic God.
v. 'God' is undefinable and therefore cannot be argued for.

The author stumbles at ii. by ignoring God created a perfect universe, and that it was man who caused natural evil through sin (the author doesn't believe in sin). God is therefore unblameable for any natural evil in this fallen world.

For iii. he assumes "goodness" can be separated from God, an impossibility as God is good, not that he merely knows what good is.

iv. follows if i. is true and is where the 'action' lies, for atheism lives or dies by evolution. To prove all life came from non-life 4Gya years ago in a miraculous event (abiogenesis), then randomly mutated and was changed by the environment into every form of asexual and sexual organism, he offers:

i. Radiometric dating: no samples are provided and contrary evidence is ignored, e.g:
-Wild 'long-age' radiometric dates for rocks with known young ages, e.g., four twelve-year old dacite samples from Mt St Helens in 1992 yielding K-Ar ‘ages’ between 340k and 2.8m years old!
-2003 '1.5B year-old’ zirconium silicate crystals from U-decay had so much retained He gas inside their ages could only be 6,000 +/-2,000 years old.
-2006/7 carbon-dated Triceratops and Hadrosaur dinosaur material at c30,000 years old (not 65 million under the evolutionary story).

Grayling admits his "deep time" crutch is crucial noting Darwin’s confession that evolution was a non-starter without Charles Lyell's 'long ages'.

ii. Evolution is a biological fact: 'Vestigial' organs like the appendix are wheeled out which for a long time have been known to serve a purpose. The author refutes himself throughout Part I by asking observable and repeatable science to prove an unobervable and unrepeatable story about the past (evolution).

Regarding v., Christians have a simple definition of God: Jesus Christ (Colossians 2..9: “For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily”).

Overall, the work is a combination of man-centered morality, old straw man arguments, a poor understanding of the creationist position, and laziness or fear in keeping up with recent scientific evidence contrary to the author’s deeply held religious beliefs. It will succeed in deceiving simple or unstable souls looking for 'reasonable' excuses to live life denying God's existence and their accountability to His laws in life and after death.

I will not speak to whether I agree with the author's arguments or not, but rather, I want to praise what I feel is a very strong and well-described introduction to many philosophical arguments concerning morality, causation, and belief/non-belief in the supernatural from the perspective of a secular philosopher.

This book is geared towards a general audience, one that very likely won't be familiar with many of the premises and arguments contained within the text. Regardless of your positions on these topics, readers will be able to easily grasp Grayling's arguments, even if they lack for formal education in philosophy. The introduction to each argument is carefully laid out, with various perspectives from a variety of historical and contemporary philosophers as well as explanations of various concepts and terminology that, if left on their own, would have been confusing or even aggravating to the average reader. Grayling is always conscientious of the audience to which the material is being presented, and so while it is hardly a light read, it is one that can be easily digested, and Grayling, while stern in his criticisms, is never insulting to those with whom he disagrees.

Some readers may be disappointed with the amount of text he contributes to certain arguments, and perhaps wish he would go into greater detail or address a greater diversity of arguments for or against a certain topic. But given the sheer number of them already covered in the book, it would be inadvisable to go into greater detail, as it would make for an extremely ponderous tome. Readers hungry for a deeper discussion of certain topics, or those simply unconvinced by his conclusions as stated in The God Argument, will readily be able to find more substance in his other writings where it makes more sense to have a more elaborate dissection of various points, such as in a setting where the audience will be much more familiar with the material being presented.

If you are a theist, this will give you a clearer understanding of many of the substantive problems that non-theists have with organized religion and the existence of the supernatural. For the non-theist, this book will probably have a lot that you've already thought about, but from a different perspective that may help you to more formally explain your assertions, and even introduce you to arguments to which you may not have been introduced.

This book is a springboard that can launch readers into a deeper exploration of secular philosophy. If that is something with which you are interested, then I would highly recommend this book.

This was one the best books of it's kind that I've read so far. You don't have to be a humanist or atheist to enjoy it. It touches the heart and core of humanity. I can only wish that the principles talked about in this book could one day be applied all over the world. In the present state our world finds itself in, I believe if we just attempted to apply humanism, there could be a light of hope. Something has to be done because we as humans cannot continue to live on generation after generation with the same way of thinking. We are an intelligent species, but we have not demonstrated that yet. It's time we do, for our future's sake. This book is genuine, honest, and is a true joy to read for all who care about the future of humanity. Books like this are what our children should be reading...not these ridiculous religious/holy books that have our world in it's present state and enslave people's minds.

Yes! Thank you for this in depth, reasoned discussion on being human in todays world. This book isn't as much an argument on God as it is an inspiration for us all to look at who we are or who we wish to be. I found myself nodding again and again as I read—thank you for reiterating my exact thoughts on religion and humanism. I look forward to reading more of your writing!

This book is well-positioned to fit a niche both in Grayling's body of work and in the growing secular section of bookstores. It condenses the argument against supernatural belief and, most welcome, provides a review of what a secular creed might be. The latter represents what we might believe IN, not what we do not believe. It clearly was written for people living their daily lives, for those of us, for example, who attend weekly Ethical Union services, who are choosing charities, or who find ourselves in conversations with religious kith, kin, and neighbors about belief. The book clearly is not meant as a detailed ethical exploration, an academic treatise, or other exhaustive work. Those can be found elsewhere, even among the over two dozen other books the author has written. Grayling is explicit: "it is not the intention here to examine the great tradition of ethics in detail, but to draw on them for thinking about a humanistic conception of the good life."

Grayling has used a variety of genres for the message, including parable (The Good Book), playwriting (Grace), biography, texts, popular nonfiction, etc. The God Argument would be my favorite accessible writing on what current-day humanists can believe in.

This book is divided into two parts. The first part is "Against Religion" and the second part is "For Humanism". This is a 260 page book so the two fairly even halves are barely over 100 pages each. Given that, neither can cover these very large and complex topics in depth. Secondly it is written for the intelligent layman. The only knock I have is that it tried to cover too much too lightly. However, taking it for what it is and what it attempts, it does it very well.

Grayling writes very differently and less directly than many other atheists like Dawkins or Harris for example. He is attempting in this book to make very large points and not get caught up in the the details. That's very important in considering the content in this book. You have to take his big picture views. To do otherwise would be to expect this book to be much, much longer.

Grayling makes his sweeping points very well and takes up just a few issues as examples. I do think this is a very good introduction to what is wrong with religion and what is right about humanism. For me Grayling is already preaching to the choir but I still benefited from his insights. I would have profited from this book when I was young and struggling with these questions and I think others will as well.

Recommended.

I am so pleased to have come across Prof Grayling's writings (books) through the 2013 Singapore Writers' Festival. In particular, his book The God Argument: The Case against Religion and for Humanism through rational reasonings, clearly shows the harm that is caused by religious teachings (dogma). This is a profound contribution to mankind because probably only a small minority are aware of the harm (as very few would be brave enough to put them in writings). On his humanist outlook, amazingly, many of his ideas coincide with mine - ideas that I shared in my books Wisdom on How to Live Life: Transforming Earth into Heaven to Wisdom on How to Live Life (Book 5): Transforming Earth into Heaven. Some of the common ideas are: living humanely, with kindness, in harmony with animals and nature, and without reward and punishment from a supernatural being.

Religion is a pervasive fact of history. Grayling begins by observing that there are people of sincere piety for whom religion provides a source of powerful meaning and consolation, and also inspires some of the loveliest and most moving expressions of human creativity in art and music. However, in other manifestations, faith is neither kind nor attractive - creating individuals struggling with feelings of sinfulness because of natural desires, nations and groups engulfed in war and atrocity because of inter-religious hatreds, and cruelty to many even today - homosexuals hung in Iran, adulterous women stoned in Saudi Arabia, and 'witches' murdered in Africa. Critical examination of religion's claims places it in the same class as astrology and magic, characterized by ambiguity and contradiction, and dating back from our far less educated and knowledgeable early history - the Stone Age.

Somehow cancer, disability, tsunamis that kill tens of thousands are regarded as consistent with the existence of a benevolent and omnipotent God. And many mainstream believers cherry-pick doctrines, discarding those that make them uncomfortable (eg. contraception vs. Catholics), becoming hypocrites in the process.

Grayling's purpose is to set out the case against religion, in any form, thereby liberating human minds and providing a basis for a more integrated and peaceful world. In that vein he also offers an alternative - ethics free from religious aspects ('humanism').

The major reason for the continuance of religious belief is indoctrination of children before they reach the age of reason, combined with social pressure to conform, social reinforcement of religious institutions, and ignorance of science and psychology. (How many would subscribe to religion if such doctrines were not taught until people attained maturity?) As for contradictions and ambiguities, apologists counter that divine reality is too complex for comprehension. Those using God as an explanation of the origin of the universe fail to recognize they've simply created a new mystery.

Grayling also is careful to distinguish between philosophy (eg. original Buddhism, Confucianism, Stoicism) and religion. He also points out that the fact that the Chinese, the most numerous people on Earth, are mostly not religious (though often superstitious) refutes the theory that belief in a God is hard-wired in the human brain. What centrally constitutes the standard religions is faith in the existence of a supernatural being(s), values and practices required in response - including worship, praise, and submission, as well as historical human figures who enjoyed a special relationship with the supernatural beings - eg. prophets, Jesus, and Mohammed, and able to transmit their teachings, requirements, promises, warnings, etc.

Most Christians think their religion is unique - the mythologies that antedate Christianity contain many stories of gods impregnating mortal maidens who then give birth to exceptional individuals (eg. Zeus), some of whom then join their father in his abode. Everyone is an atheist about almost all gods, the difference between true athiests and Christians or Muslims being the latter still have one more god to go.

eating hallucinogenic mushrooms, getting drunk experiencing an epileptic aura or delirium of fever, being caught in thunderstorms and earth quakes, psychiatric hearers of voices, having a stroke, etc. easily give rise to supernaturalistic beliefs. Some saw the advantage to be gained from claiming to understand these phenomena and to be able to communicate with agencies lurking with them.

I think this author's arguments are weak and based more on his feelings about organized religion than anything else. I don't find satisfying logic here at all. Seems more like the case against humanism than for it.

sadly, the religious nuts on the right who need to read this, never will. I also recommend the book I fired god. the dominionists and the stone aged evangelithugs are ruining this country. grayling's statement about religion surviving because children, not of the age of reason, are indoctrinated early. please grant me freedom from religion all of them. take our country back in 2014

"Understanding the distinction between ethics and morality is important because it helps us to understand both." This is a quotation of page 187. It is a rather redundant statement. The book is full of sentences of this kind.
Quite wordy and one has to read each sentence twice (at least) to understand the meaning. I ask myself - Is it necessary to use such language?
The book is a collection of essays. Each chapter is not related to the others.
His argument is lost in the complex sentences. Besides he has no new idea to offer. Richard Dawkins "God delusion" is much much better.
Before buying pls take a look at a few pages and see if you like the language. Dont make my mistake.

I enjoy books like these that provoke thought and address serious questions candidly and forthrightly. As other reviewers have noted, this book is essentially two books: the first half, "Against Religion," is a refutation of the classic arguments for the existence of God, and the second half, "For Humanism," makes the case for ethics and morals from a purely humanistic viewpoint.

"Against Religion" argues that asserting the existence of an eternal, uncreated, intelligent being who created the universe and who has a particular interest in human beings is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence. Grayling does not think the evidence for a supernatural god is extraordinary at all. The origin and perceived design of the universe and living things can be explained in a more logical, less complicated way by other means. Indeed, the improbability that God exists is so high as to, in itself, virtually disprove the existence of any god whatsoever.

"For Humanism" essentially proposes an Epicurean life wherein "real reliefs and satisfactions come from relationships, the use of intelligence, curiosity or enquiry, activity directed at doing something or making something worthwhile" (page 214). His view of humanism seems akin to that of atheistic existentialism: "it is up to individuals themselves to inject meaning into their own lives by their own choices and efforts" (219). The primary constraint on human conduct is "The Harm Principle": "what we choose to do must not harm others" (215). Aside from that restraint, one should be free to do pretty much whatever one wants. Grayling is for the legalization of recreational drugs, prostitution, abortion, and euthanasia (both voluntary and involuntary) as long as no great harm is done to other sentient beings.

While Grayling's book is erudite, I did not find it pedantic or particularly difficult to read. I did learn some new words like "to resile" and "to embrangle," but I like learning things when I read, so his large vocabulary was not off-putting for me. Nevertheless, I often found this book to be unfair, unconvincing, and intellectually dishonest in its allegiance to an anti-religious ideology. Let me explain.

Grayling is unfair, in my judgment, because he systematically ignores or dismisses all the good religion has done in history. Whatever credit he gives to religion is always begrudging and whatever praise is of the faint and damning variety. He seems to think that religious art and music may be the only things religion has in its favor. Yet, he neglects to mention, for example, that the slave trade in England was abolished largely because of the lifelong efforts of William Wilberforce, a committed Christian acting on his Christian values. If ethics and morality are to be based solely on reasoned reflection (255), surely Grayling must admit that those who profited from slavery found it very reasonable. He never explains clearly how he can be so sure what right reason is (or even that it actually exists) and how it can be counted upon to prevail in a purely atheistic world. Without the absolutes of religion that transcend human reason, who is to say whose brain chemistry is superior to whose?

Graying is unconvincing, I think, in his reasoning about morality and his attribution of society's moral failings to religious tradition and indoctrination. Some of his assertions leave me incredulous.

* Does religious "rationing" of sex really lead to incest and child pornography? (206)
* Do men really save their marriages by frequenting prostitutes? (210)
* Are underpaid workers in American factories really analogous to teenage girls forced by pimps into prostitution? (211)
* Is the "charm of the forbidden" really the reason people use illegal drugs? (213)
* Is the psychological burden of giving an unwanted child up for adoption really as great as that of aborting one's fetus? (234)

It appears to me that many people will minimize, rationalize, or simply refuse to recognize the harm their selfish behavior might reasonably be expected to cause. Why? Simply in order to serve their own self-interest or that of a secular ideology like National Socialism or atheistic communism. Graying seems naïvely to maintain that there would be less war, bigotry, racism, injustice, and cruelty in human history if there had been less religion. I think the history of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, not to mention many others, has proven that contention absurd. Grayling's attack on religion as the main source of human misery is unconvincing.

Finally, I find Grayling to be intellectually dishonest in various ways. In his contempt for religion, he lumps all forms of it all together. Therefore, Christianity as a religion is implicitly to blame for the genital mutilation of women by Islamists (as if genital mutilation were actually a tenet of Islam). Making all religion guilty for every crime committed in the name of religion is like blaming socialism for every crime committed in its name.

Another example of intellectual dishonesty is Grayling's misrepresentation of Christian morality. He claims that Christianity requires its adherents to give away all their possessions, refuse to resist anything evil, and to abstain from marriage if at all possible (156, 238). This is a parody of Jesus' teaching that Grayling seems to have created as a straw man in order to convince readers unfamiliar with the New Testament. Sadly, no fundamentalist reads the Bible more literally and woodenly than an atheist with an axe to grind. It is the height of tendentiousness to read a sophisticated work of literature like the New Testament in such a way, blithely ignoring context and figurative language. Christianity has not held sway for 2000 years because it is as stupid and illogical as Grayling would like you to believe.

Since God does not exist in his view, Grayling maintains that religion is irrelevant to ethics and morality. "If interest in and concern for one's fellows is a reason for being moral, what relevance does the existence of a deity have?" (242). I suppose one could answer that the existence of a deity offers hope that ultimately justice will be rendered even when humans cannot or will not do it on earth. Perhaps just the possibility of an eternity in hell has occasionally deterred the strong from imposing their selfish brutality on the weak. After all, psychologists tell us that emotions are stronger than reason when it comes to determining human behavior, and religion addresses the emotional as well as the rational.

To those who believe in God, religion represents the mysteries that scientists will never understand, the longings that philosophers can never parse, and the poetry that philistines will never comprehend. This is the ineffability that Grayling, for all his erudition, fails to appreciate and contemptuously dismisses. I sincerely doubt this book will convince those who have personally experienced the beauty and benefits of faith, for they have much to lose and nothing to gain. Grayling is preaching to the choir of atheists.

Please don't think that this is an anti-religious rant. Quite the contrary, it is an extremely respectful and elegant analysis of why humanism makes complete sense. It's true that it passes over many topics that would deserve a deeper discussion but as a starting point for a study of humanism, I know of no other better book.

While listening to an interview on television, I heard Mr. Grayling confirm that human nature is inately moral. Based upon my personal observation, I disagree with this conclusion because as children, we are born with no sense of moral values. As we start to take in the world around us, we are guided into a selfish existence by everyone pampering us so that we become the centers of our own personal worlds. Later, through reverse guidance, we are taught to include others in our worlds in order to keep a sense of peace and security. In both cases, these were learned behaviors.The God Argument: The Case against Religion and for Humanism

This was more than a book refuting religion. It contained the flowing mind of an excellent philosopher and humanist. I enjoyed his personal approach to the complexities of life as much as the "Argument."

As a scientist, I favor Grayling's humanist suggestions to opening our eyes and gathering evidences.

However, I find the suggestion of being able to prove a negative silly. A logic framework rests on a set of axioms as its foundation. For humanists and scientists, observable and repeatable experiences (experiments) are the axioms upon which all subsequent claims rest on. God and miracles, which cannot be observed or repeated, at least in a universally accessible way, has no place in science. Science makes no claim on God (contrary to what the likes of Richard Dawkins seem to believe).

Many scientist refuse creationists bringing religion to biology. Likewise, the religious have the right to refuse humanist's point of view. Region and Science are two different conceptual frameworks that rests on different foundation.

As George Carlin states: "Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself."

It is very seldom that one considers a book "pointless," but that is certainly the case after trying to read THE GOD ARGUMENT. A. C. Grayling, a professor of philosophy at London's New College of the Humanities, marshals various kinds of evidence to prove that most contemporary religions are based on fallacious arguments that do not stand up to rational scrutiny. Nonetheless they exerts a powerful hold over individuals, to such an extent that people are prepared to die in support of their beliefs. Grayling believes that we need to understand the logical fallacies governing such religions: does a God really exist, or is that Being just a superstition harbored by those seeking to control others?

In its place Grayling advocates a "new humanism," based on community and individual loyalties, where people believe in reason and the desire to do good, while refusing to compromise the right to hold one's individual beliefs. This might be better termed a "democratic" world-view, permitting freedom of thought while embracing basic tenets such as the distinction between "good" and "evil."

Grayling's arguments might sound persuasive, but they do not allow for the presence in the human soul of spirituality; the belief that there are things in the world (and beyond) that cannot be explained. One such inexplicable formulation is that of "God": ask twenty different people what they understand by that entity and twenty different answers are guaranteed. More significantly, religion provides a source of comfort and support for millions of people throughout their lives. If, as Grayling claims, a "new humanism" should permit individuals to embrace beliefs of their own, why shouldn't they have the freedom to pursue their own religious beliefs, if they should so wish?

THE GOD ARGUMENT is redolent of western, post-Enlightenment rationalism; the kind of beliefs that might hold currency in Britain (for instance) but have little or no significance elsewhere. Other territories embrace very different views of what "religion" and "rationalism" signify; and their conclusions are very different from those that Grayling advances. On this view we might see THE GOD ARGUMENT as quasi-colonialist in outlook, an attempt to impose a belief-system (or should it be non-belief system) on people whose beliefs are both diverse and personal.

The book might have a certain cachet amongst readers interested in provocative discussion, but nonetheless seems ultimately without point.

Compared to others writing on the existence of God, Grayling seems to be just as passionate but somewhat ignorant. He does not seem to have considered some of the major arguments for or against God very seriously and therefore gets caught up in rather superficial issues. For example, he spends a great deal of time criticizing the evils that have been done in the name of religion without showing any significant understanding of religion. Similarly, arguing against the existence of God, he never addresses some of the stronger atheist arguments that others such as Dawkins have proposed. He overgeneralizes his arguments which makes them seem either evasive or plain ignorant. His over-generalizations lead to flaws in most of arguments that follow. If you are just beginning your search for answers on God's existence, this book may provide some interesting initial thoughts (regardless of whether you are leaning toward or against belief in God). However, if you are looking for a convincing argument against God, this book is not it.

This is a disappointing attempt to inform the reader of the author's erudition rather than the chosen subject. The result is a pretentious, turgid amalgam of personal theories linked to snippets of other writer's works that is often confusing and a hard read. I feel the author became overwhelmed by his atheistic convictions and lost perspective in trying to make his case.

On balance, the humanism side of the equation was much better argued and presented. I became better acquainted with the subject and benefited from the author's insights on it.

Overall, not a good read. The book was written to impress rather than inform.

I was hoping that this book would provide a concise outline of the New Atheism that has hit the bestseller lists; but Grayling's New Atheism turns out to be pretty much the old atheism, circa 1900. Rather than systematically address the three standard objections (rational, moral, and historical) to religion, Grayling throws out bits and pieces of each in a stream of consciousness diatribe. This book has no organization and few coherent arguments, and fails to achieve shrillness due only to its limp prose, not from any lack of ad hominem attacks on ignorant believers who couldn't possibly accept such nonsense if they hadn't been indoctrinated into it as children. Based on comments on this site, if you come to this book as an atheist then you may be tempted to write 'How true!' or 'Go team!' in the margins. But if you are religious or undecided then do not expect to find anything here that might challenge your views.

Despite an absurdly narrow definition of 'religion' (Buddhism and Taoism need not apply), Grayling does make a fairly direct rational argument against religious fundamentalism. But he then seeks to extend his conclusion to all religion simply by asserting that fundamentalism is the genuine article and other more complex religious beliefs are just watered down versions of it that are not worth taking seriously. This is rather like dismissing mathematics as watered down Pythagorean number worship, or indeed secular humanism as watered down Marxism--and Grayling really doesn't offer any other argument on this essential point. (He is a bit more organized in rejecting several traditional proofs of God, but he admits that few believers rely on these anyway, and his explanations are less clear than those in Jim Holt's excellent 'Why Does the World Exist?')

Grayling raises the moral objection (ie the problem of suffering and evil) in passing here and there, but does not seek to argue it in any sustained or careful way. Indeed he cannot really address this issue seriously due to his refusal to engage with actual religious belief. For someone presuming to write a book on this subject, his evident ignorance of theology is stunning.

The historical objection (ie that religion has done more harm than good) appears often, but only in rhetorical jabs where Grayling assumes that the reader shares his simplistic view of history--good secular Classical Age, bad religious Dark Ages, good secular Renaissance and Enlightenment--that seems to come straight out of HG Wells's 1920 Outline of History. Virtually every historical statement in this book is highly contestable or simply false. Most egregious (albeit tangential to his argument) is a footnote stating that ''Socrates was put to death when the Thirty Tyrants were in power, because he angered them. This could not have happened in Pericles' Athens.'' But the Thirty reigned in 404-403 BCE, several years before Socrates' trial and death in 399 under the restored democracy. And if Grayling hadn't lived under a rock for the last century he might know that Socrates was likely tried and condemned because, after two bloody oligarchic coups within a decade, Athenian democrats understandably saw him as the ideologist for the oligarchs, one who had encouraged young Athenian aristocrats--including Critias, one of the two leaders of the Thirty--to despise democracy and admire the Spartan constitution; and following the generous and successful amnesty accorded by the democrats to the deposed oligarchs, Socrates flouted the implicit terms of this settlement and openly continued to teach contempt for democracy to a new generation of wealthy Athenian youth. See IF Stone, The Trial of Socrates. Whether Pericles himself would have spared Socrates is at best an open question; but even if Grayling had gotten the simple facts right, his automatic tendency to associate Socrates, presumably as a humanist, with the Athenian democrats rather than with the oligarchic tyrants is unfortunately typical of his partisan approach to history.

Grayling's self-parody of Victorian historical prejudices leads to other bizarre claims as well. As one more example, he mentions Stalin, Mao, and the Holocaust not to counter the objection that atheism has its own historical baggage, much less that Marxism was itself a part of the humanist Enlightenment project, but rather to liken political ideologies to religions which in turn apparently explains why they go wrong.... (Really, I'm not exaggerating: see pages 20, 109, and 114.)

In the second half of his book, Grayling moves on from attacking religion to explaining his own humanist views on issues such as love, sex, homosexuality, pornography, drug use, euthanasia, abortion, and blasphemy. This is mostly platitudes and there are no prizes for guessing his views on every subject. But he makes two interesting points, both of which are borrowed from Nietzsche although Grayling doesn't say so (maybe because some associate Nietzsche with those crypto-religious Nazis?) even though he does include Nietzsche (along with Marx) in his list of recommended humanist authors. (I'm not suggesting that anyone shouldn't read Nietzsche and Marx, only that they and some of their followers raise obvious but unacknowledged difficulties for Grayling's simplistic views of atheism and humanism.)

First, Grayling asserts (my paraphrase) that each person is responsible for designing their own system of ethics to live by, as a sort of aesthetic project. The thought that this is a highly elitist vision, requiring anyone who wants to live a good life to have not only the leisure but also the aptitude and inclination to do philosophy, and that this fact might have something to do with why religion is popular and philosophy is not, has not disturbed Professor Grayling's repose. Nor does he notice the irony of writing a mass market book, full of specific advice, for the new ethically autonomous supermen (although, to be fair, he does say that these are only his own views and others might disagree).

Second, Grayling distinguishes between ethics (the development of personal character) and morality (obligations and duties regarding relationships with others), with morality being only a part of ethics. This is a useful distinction, but what Grayling does with it is telling: he largely rejects traditional morality as consisting of external, religiously motivated rules that arbitrarily constrain personal autonomy, while embracing a return to the broader ethical standards of classical philosophy that aspire to a good (well-lived) life rather than a moral one. Here Grayling unknowingly stumbles backwards over the historical argument FOR religion: that in the ancient Hellenistic world the classical ethical virtues (pragmatism, justice, temperance, courage, etc.) were found wanting and so were supplemented by, and subordinated to, the Jewish (and before that Mesopotamian) moral virtue of altruism (love, charity, etc.--Nietzsche's slave morality) which then became the core of Western morality from the early Christian church down through Kant and contemporary secular culture. If Grayling wants to reverse that historic shift in values, even among the most secular of humanists, then he will need far better arguments than anything hinted at in this book.

In the second half of this book, A.C. Grayling sets out to describe his moral principles, and those he thinks he shares with the humanist community in general. Among these are "magnanimity," which Grayling takes the trouble to give in both Latin and Greek (154), and being "informed, reflective, alert, responsive, eager for understanding . . . a good guest at the dinner table." This includes acting towards those one disagrees with, paraphrasing Plutarch, as "a good listener, who hears what his interlocutors say (not what he thinks they have said) . . . "

Sounds like a good approach!

Now let us see how Dr. Grayling actually deals with Christianity, and those who espouse it (and other theistic faiths) in the first half of his book. First, people, then ideas.

In his introduction, Grayling thanks a number of "colleagues and fellows in the cause" of secular humanism, including the New Atheist barbershop quartet (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens [DDHH}) along with Paul Kurtz and others, later naming Victor Stenger as another valued ally. He then explains that his first task in this book will be "to deal with what religious apologists say in defending themselves from the arguments of those just listed."

I happen to be the author of one of the first, and I think among the best, rebuttals of DDHH. So naturally I turned to the back of the book to see if Grayling mentioned me, or more likely, see on which of the bigger-name Christian writers he concentrated his fire.

Marshall? Nope. John Lennox? No. Alister McGrath? Nyet. Dinesh D'Souza? Tim Keller? David Hart? No, no, heck, no.

So with whom does Grayling argue? Page after page, he keeps mentioning these "religious apologetists," as if they surrounded him like the ether, and he could read their minds. So who are these people, and what do they say? Where are the quotes? Which books has he read? Grayling is a philosopher, so maybe he wants to argue with philosophers. And indeed, Grayling does promise to deal with two well-known Christian philosophers, Blaise Pascal and Alvin Plantinga.

After 90-odd pages of painful nonsense (details later), we finally get to arguments from actual apologists he keeps referring to. But there are few quotes, and one has to wonder if he has directly read even Plantinga or Pascal!

Plantinga, he accurately notes, argues that faith in God is warranted, even without evidence. (Though I think missing the fine shades of Plantinga's argument.) But then Grayling makes this statement: "It would seem that Alvin Plantinga has abandoned attempts to show by argument that it is rational to hold theistic beliefs, because he now argues that there is no need to provide such arguments . . . "

I can imagine Plantinga's wry respone to that gross non sequitur. This is like saying, "Marshall argues that peaches are not necessary for human health, so there must be no peach trees on his property." Well peach trees are not necessary, but I do have them. Of course the fact that evidence is not necessary (to Plantinga), in no way means there is no evidence. Plantinga thinks there is lots of it, and says so, as his actual readers know. A professional philosopher should not be so sloppy.

Pascal gets treated even worse. "The most celebrated such argument is Pascal's wager. Pascal said that because the existence of a deity can be neither proved nor disproved . . . by rational argument . . . " Again, "Pascal says that as long as the probability of a god's existence is non-zero . . . "

Rubbish. Has Grayling actually read Pensees? In fact, Pascal offers several lines of rational argument for Christianity, which he thinks (and I agree) are compelling. The Wager in no way concedes that the evidence for Christianity is weak. In fact, it is addressed to practical issues: even given all this positive evidence for Christianity, that Pascal is going to discuss, what if one still suffers doubts? How in practice should one deal with those doubts?

Dawkins made the same mistake about Pascal. One would hope that, as a professional philosopher espousing the value of listening well, Grayling would correct his ally and say "No, Pascal does not concede that the evidence against Christianity is either irrelevant or poor." Instead, Grayling falls into exactly the same trap, with less excuse.

Now let's go back to Grayling's moral values, again. He praises magnanimity, but he is seldom magnanimous towards Christians. He almost never praises those he disagrees with or gives their arguments the benefit of the doubt. He generally doesn't even bother to read them. In fact, if anything, Grayling appears to have read even less of those he purports to be disproving than Dawkins -- Dawkins at least quoted McGrath and Swinburne, and pretended to argue with them.

So how is Grayling "informed, reflective, alert, responsive, eager for understanding," such that even towards those he disagrees with, he proves himself "a good listener, who hears what his interlocutors say (not what he thinks they have said) . . . ?"

In fact, Grayling is just the opposite. He gets almost nothing about Christianity right, because he has not bothered to read or tried to understand what we really believe about practically anything. He quotes few Christian thinkers, more often he quotes nebulous "religious apologists" who appear to be little fairies roaming around the inside of his own thick skull. (Pardon the heat, I am feeling it after wading through this junk.)

Want more examples? I'll give some, but bare in mind that Grayling is here repeating common cliches in the skeptical community. If you're a skeptic, you may nod your head at times, because responsible parties like Dawkins and Grayling are too intellectually lazy to do their homework, and even let you know what we say is the other side of the story -- whether we're right or not. So even if you think these cliches are true, you should recognize that it is Grayling's self-confessed responsibility to listen, as he promises, and as his own best values commend, to what we actually say, not to what he imagines we say, and get our arguments right.

* "By 'faith' is meant belief held independently of whether there is a testable evidence in its favour, or indeed even in the face of counter-evidence." (19)

For the thousandth time, no. That is almost never what Christians have meant by faith. I have given long strings of quotes from the greatest Christian thinkers, from the 1st Century to the 21st, and am collaborating with other scholars on a book on this very subject coming out next year, showing that this is NOT at all what Christians mean by "faith." There's a whole chapter on this subject in my New Atheism book, which Grayling could have read -- and McGrath addresses it, as well.

* "When the evidence is not merely insufficient but absent or contrary, how much more wrong to do as Doubting Thomas was criticized for not doing . . . to believe nonetheless." (102)

Thomas was not criticized for believing without evidence. He was criticized for, having witnessed Jesus' many miracles, heard Jesus predict his resurrection, and then heard multiple reports of that resurrection from people he had known and presumably trusted for years, refusing to believe in the face of that already excellent evidence.

This understanding of the Thomas story is assumed throughout John especially, who is attentive to such evidence, and throughout the narrative parts of the New Testament. This will be explained (again) in our upcoming book, True Reason.

* "Most religious people do not, of course, subscribe to their religion because of arguments in favor of it . . . In the great majority of cases, people belong to their religion because it is the religion of their parents."

The word "because" is tricky here. One might be a Christian "because" one was raised a Christian, AND "because" it makes sense, you have examined and tried to live it, perhaps listened to its opponents and found their arguments unpersuasive. Ironically, Grayling speaks of believing without evidence, but gives no actual evidence to back up his claim about why people believe. A survey by the skeptic Michael Shermer shows that most believers do seem to cite rational reasons for their faith. (I did a similiar survey, and found experienced Christians cite evidence even more often.) So Grayling is asking us to "just believe," not only without evidence, but in the teeth of the evidence, on why Christians believe.

* "Explaining something by something unexplained amounts, obviously, to no explanation at all." (77)

Obviously not. "Where did my dolly go?" "The dog took it." "Well where do doggies come from?" "I don't know!" "But that's no explanation at all!"

Sure it is. One does not need to understand precisely how God is constituted, for "God did it" to be a rational explanation. Ultimately, none of our explanations are complete, and explanations of entities greater than ourselves will naturally be most tenous of all. As a philosopher, Grayling should be explaining such distinctions to his readers, not ignoring them.

* Grayling tries to flip the Ontological Argument on page 88 to disprove the Devil. "There is a being which is the least perfect of all beings; such a being which does not exist is -- since existence is a perfection . . . therefore the least perfect being necessarily does not exist."

Grayling doesn't seem to know he's refuting a heresy, here. The Devil is not God's opposite. He is not defined as "the least perfect being," but rather as the greatest angel, gone bad. Lewis says, "The greater something is, the worse it can become." Lewis is the most-read Christian writer of modern times, but Grayling evidently has never bothered to listen to him as a guest.

* Grayling's caricature of the Moral Argument (which I am cautious about) is a farce.

* From the 5th to the 17th Centuries, "Religion took the view that it was right and science was wrong, and anyone who disagreed might be killed (for example, Giordano Bruno) . . . " (107)

This history is rubbish, as many historians of science have shown. (Most recently, Dr. Allan Chapman of Oxford's Wadham College.) And "magnanimous" Grayling never bothers even to mention the many historians who tie the rise of modern science directly to Christian theology.

And always the same example. If there were so many examples of Christians killing scientists, why always name the same one? This one is mistaken, too. Bruno was killed, wrongly of course, for heresy, not for espousing science.

* The "major if not sole endevour" of Discovery Institute in Seattle "is to promote ID theory."

All Grayling had to do was check the DI website to find that they have several other major arms, including (my favorite, since I live in the Seattle area) their useful work on promoting better transportation options in the Northwest.

* Grayling conflates Intelligent Design with creationists who argue that "nuclear decay rates were billions of times greater" in the past, concluding, "Such is the quality of thought in Creationism-ID 'science.'"

Whether you like ID or hate it, that is not magnanimous, that is just sleazy. Grayling should quote the specific person who made that claim, and not try to blame everyone in the ID movement for a claim some unnamed numbskull outside that movement made.

* "The Greek thinkers premised their views on the recognition that Creationist accounts are projections from the human experience of agency."

Yet Richard Carrier, a radical atheist who happens to be an expert on the origins of Greco-Roman science, points out that many ancient scientists actually did their science in honor of the Creator God. He even credits the rise of ancient science in part to the rise of Greek philosophical theism.

* Grayling tries to credit the Enlightenment, somehow, for the scientific revolution, as well as for everything else good in the modern world, even though the scientific revolution began long before most of the heroes of the Enlightenment were even born. He also downplays the fantastic early scientific revolution of the 13th Century -- check that, he hasn't mentioned it in the first two thirds of the book, anyway -- or the rich and important Medieval precidents for modern science, that historians have explored. (Recently, James Hannam.) Grayling fails to breath a word of all this.

I could go on and on. Grayling misunderstands Confucian theology. (Which I wrote my dissertation on.) He tries to claim the Stoics for atheism, which they were not. He praises Epictetus, one of my favorites, but has he really read him? See my article last year in Touchstone Magazine, comparing Epictetus and Zhuang Zi. Epictetus not only believed in God, but was pious and zealous in his faith -- it permeates his teaching.

I am being harsher with Grayling, perhaps, than I would be with a popular writer, because he ought to know better. He is a philosophy professor, for Heaven's sake! He espouses humanistic values. He ought to live by them. He ought to have read and fairly considered his opponents' actual arguments, rather than pretend to argue with nebulous "religious apologists" whom he cannot name or quote because (it seems) he heard about them second hand, and chooses to believe every disreputable rumor about those he disagrees with.

This is thus an illiberal and (in the most literal sense) inhumane book. I know a few atheists who really do embrace humanity, by remaining aware of the good in those they disagree with, by trying to appreciate love, kindness, beauty, and excellence wherever they find it. But the fanatics seem to have the numbers, unfortunately. So do as Grayling says (on humanist values), but not as (in this book) he does. And don't believe one part in five of what he says about "religion." (A word he defines rather tendentiously, by the way -- but that is the norm.)

Just a short review.

Grayling is a libertarian who figures people can figure all out for themselves, and should do whatever they want, and all is groovy, man.

His list of platitudes lack consistency, cohesion, and civility.

He, astoundingly, favors freedom to do just about anything, except allowing religions.

If he could, like most totalitarians, he would outlaw religion, at least the one's he doesn't like.

A word to all you atheists, chill out, you're winning, don't make obnoxious bores of yourselves in print.

Like the other "New Atheists," Grayling "preaches to the choir" of the already-convinced. Filled with poor and sloppy summaries of theistic arguments, Grayling's book is rather boring and, at times, painful to read. Glancing at the citations at the back of the book, one sees that he, like Dawkins, likes to speak with an aura of authority about things that he gives no real evidence of having considered in any serious way at all. For instance, there is a very long tradition of serious reflection on harmonizing the attributes of God, language about God, etc., that Grayling doesn't even acknowledge. If one takes Garrigou-Lagrange's two-volume work on God's Existence and Attributes, for instance, and compares it with this work, it is not hard to see which one comes across as the more serious and compelling. Like the other "New Atheists," this work is welcomed by those who want to be reinforced in their atheism but profoundly disappointing to those who wish to have a serious exchange of ideas.

I only got to the second page before I was laughing out loud. The author writes that religion is only personal, and since religious folk ate only interested in telling other people what to do, religion should be kept out of the public discourse. So if you are trashing religion, that is for the public good and should be tolerated, but if you are religious, you should not be tolerated. I promptly stopped reading!