Eric Reitan breaks good ol’ Dick down:
How are books born? The one you’re reading now was born when a colleague gave me a photocopied page from a book, without identifying information, and asked me to evaluate it as I would a student’s paper. The page offered “summaries” of the first three of St Thomas Aquinas’ five arguments for God’s existence (popularly called the “Five Ways”). The writer of the passage got the arguments wrong – and then objected to them at precisely those points where he got them wrong.
The writer was Richard Dawkins. The book was The God Delusion. The photocopied passage, had Dawkins turned it in to me for a grade, would have earned him a whopping “D.” And for many people, this D-level work may be their only exposure to Aquinas’ arguments for God’s existence.
And so I bought Dawkins’ book. And as I read it, I was taken in by the author’s swagger. Dawkins is clearly confident, writing as if he knows what he’s talking about. The only problem is that, as often as not, he has no idea what he’s talking about.
Eric Reitan. Is God A Delusion: A Reply to Religion’s Cultured Despisers (Kindle Locations 1430-1435). Kindle Edition.
UPDATE: Upon reflection, I thought this too cavalier an attack so I decided to provide an example. Continue reading “Why I Don’t Read Ideological Media: Dawkins Edition”
