Product Description

This tightly argued, hugely controversial work convincingly demonstrates how the world's three major monotheistic religions-Christianity, Judaism, and Islam-have attempted to suppress knowledge, science, pleasure, and desire, often condemning nonbelievers to death. If Nietzsche proclaimed the "Death of God," Onfray starts from the premise that not only is God still very much alive, but increasingly controlled by fundamentalists who pose a danger to the human race. Documenting the ravages from religious intolerance over the centuries, the author makes a strong case against the three religions for demanding faith, belief, obedience and submission, and for extolling the "next life" at the expense of the here and now. Not since Nietzsche has a work so groundbreaking and explosive appeared to question the role of the world's dominant religions.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #529091 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 264 pages

About the Author
Michael Onfray was born in 1959. The prolific author of over 30 books, he teaches philosophy at the Free University of Caen and lives in Paris.

Customer Reviews

Michel Onfray dissects precisely, using a magnifying glass...
*This absolutely excellent work is a very precise deconstruction of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, charting the historic origins and evolution of these three closely related monotheisms.

*The original title in French is "Traite d'Atheologie", which accurately describes the contents. Here in Canada, the English translation's title is "In Defense of Atheism", which is unfortunate, the tone of the book being far from defensive (It's rather scathingly critical).

*Onfray is a very popular French philosopher, and I tremendously enjoyed his literary style: it's both flowery and ... meaty.

*The author obviously spent a tremendous amount of time pouring over the so-called "holy" texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (and other books). There are no factual errors in his work to my knowledge.

*Critics complain Onfray ignores the good side of religion. Well, he doesn't: he just dismisses it as relatively insignificant compared to its atrocious side.

*Onfray interestingly observes that even though our western societies are now secular, they are still pretty much stuck with judeo-christian values
(See for example the institution of marriage or the bioethics debates).

*I highly recommend this book, that I just finished reading today in its
original language.

Beautiful Book, Graciously Written
This book is beautifully, graciously and thoughtfully written. Conceptually clear and brilliant, Monsieur Onfray advocates philosophers, instead of priests, rabbis or mullahs, be our representatives. Who are these, his philosophers? The laughers, the cynics, the radicals, the atheists, the sensualists and voluptuaries, though he rarely names names. I did find three in the course of the book: Nietzche, Gilles Deleuze, and Jeremny Bentham (particularly Bentham's work, "Deontology"). Monsieur Onfray's analysis of Christian, Judaic, and Islamic faiths, all three united under the point of view of "hatred of life" (in conjunction with suppression of sex and advocacy of violence), is quite readable, fair, and clear. Monsieur Onfray makes clear as well that Hilter was a Roman Catholic and the Catholic Church, without question, supported Nazism. Monsieur Onfray's analysis is such that Catholicism appears to be the worst evil suffered in the West thus far. However, in his discussion of the Muslim faith, he reveals how frighteningly violent it is, particularly should it get a good foothold in the West. (Shades of Sam Harris's point of view about Islam in his book "The End of Faith"!) Michael Onfray, in the last pages, speaks of the "final battle" (post-Christian experience) which, he asserts, is "already lost." He wants us to live in a de-Christianized society, but it is as if this idea is really but a dream. Social critic and author Curtis White has an important insight that Monsieur Onfray (and Sam Harris as well) might do well to consider: the Manichean conflict between atheism and religion is less significant to the future of the West than the evils that have been created in the West by state/corporate capitalism, particularly in the United States. This book is well worth the purchase price. I have no regrets. We can dream. It's a treasure.

Spirited Polemic - Vigorously Argued
An age of rational inquiry, the Enlightenment, constellated with the genius of Voltaire, Descartes, Kant, et.al. followed by an age of "suspicion" that included Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud - these two great periods gave mankind the philosophical tools to question the authority of and ultimately see the damage perpetrated by the three dominant religions. Onfray's indictment of religion is laced with sarcasm for its banner of "brotherly love". He reviews its complicity in thirty centuries of crimes and injustices. As for the authority of their holy books, they are a hodge-podge of improbabilities, fables and - an this is critical - enough contradictions and inconsistencies to justify virtually any act of violence against the non-believer.

Onfray outlines the similarities of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. He then sketches the growth of their influence. In the end Onfay offers readers a choice. On the one hand we have reason, knowledge, freedom, pride, democracy, equality of the sexes, the joy of sex, and a passion for this world. Religion offers us dogma, faith, a distrust of science, submission, theocracy, guilt, misogyny, sexual repression, and an unhealthy focus on an afterlife. Simply stated, Onfray's manifesto starts from a flat rejection of God - and an afterlife that discounts this precious life - as a fiction in the face of what is obvious - extinction.

For all the promise of secularism - its greatest victory is the separation of church and state - we are still in a religious era. Still, Onfray sees signs of turbulence that signal a tectonic shift into a transitional post-religious age. But he chides the post-Christian secularist movement for not being "militant" enough (viz. too accomodating) in its opposition to all religious thinking. Borrowing from Nietzsche, he says, and this is where he loses me - we can choose not to make a choice - in this application, between "Israel" and the goals of an Iranian revolution. His point: all the religions are equally bad. From this side of the Atlantic (Onfray's book has been translated from his native French), it appears that cracks in the Judeo-Christian religious world are coincident with the eruption of militant, political Islamic states. Pragmatism and morality suggest siding with the better of the two.

So is Onfray unfair? Is he inclined to bully his case? Not the point. This is a polemic intended to shake the rafters. The ideas rush with energy and passion (I count one sentence with over ninety words!). Open your mind and you will read this book with rapt attention.