Product Description

Richard Dawkins, biologist and best-selling author, claims that belief in God is a "delusion" and that "religion" harms society. Dawkins contends that he has reason and evidence on his side, and he dismisses faith as unfounded, even irrational.

Dominican Thomas Crean tackles Dawkins' claims head-on. He presents straightforward arguments for God's existence, and he uses reason and evidence to defend such things as miracles and the authority of the Bible. He also shows how God is important for a coherent understanding of morality, and why Dawkins' approach winds up reducing morality to the individual's subjective likes and dislikes. By demonstrating how Dawkins' criticisms rest on misunderstandings, superficial readings, poor argumentation, a lack of historical awareness, and not a little prejudice, Crean reveals Dawkins to be out of his philosophical and theological depth, and his case against God to be fundamentally flawed.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #64242 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-31
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Customer Reviews

Pseudo-philosophical mumbo-jumbo
The author tries--and I emphasize the word try--to refute Richard Dawkins' attack on religious faith. While the God Delusion is far from flawless, God is no Delusion fails to counter any of its arguments. The author makes absurd claims, e.g. children are less likely than adults to believe in false things--Father Crean doesn't account for the relative adult lack of belief in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. Crean claims that atheists will never accept any evidence for a divine being. Being an atheist, I will offer him this challenge: show me one instance in history when an amputee has his arm or leg restored through prayer to Jesus. If you can do this, I will become a devout Christian. (Or, slightly more frivously, if God strikes down Christopher Hitchens with a bolt of lightning in his next debate, I will also be convinced). Until then, I remain unconvinced of God, resurrections, holy books, and miracles, and other far-fetched claims of religious people.

There are other weaknesses in Crean's argument that I could bring up, but let's not beat a dead horse. (God is good, because,well, he must be, is one). Don't buy this book and don't take it seriously.

I was disappointed
This book, like the book it purports to refute, is hogwash. Dawkin's main argument, the so-called 747, seemed to rest on a deductive fallacy. Yes, I know he claims the argument was inductive, or abductive. However, his conceptual scheme was a straw man. In the same vein, Fr. Crean's book is also full of fallacies.

Crean betrays his lack of knowledge of some hundred years of literature on the nature of mental states, i.e. he seems to have ignored the history of the philosophy of mind as it has developed from, let's say, Aquinas. His argument that materialism is false is childish. It is based on the outdated assumption that thought is immaterial, i.e. categorically distinct from material things. He takes the claim that "the brain causes the mind" means "the material brain causes the immaterial mind". What justification does he have for this? It seems to me the claim "the brain causes the mind" could mean "the material brain causes the material thing called the mind." To assume the first interpretation over the second one must actually show the mind is immaterial. He does this by attacking the infamous psychoneural identity theory, that is thoughts, or mental states, are identical to brains states. Even materialist philosophers, like Jeagwon Kim, Daniel Dennett, John Searle, Paul and Patricia Churchland, reject this position, though they still hold a physicalist position. He fails to take into account the Functionalist account of the brain/mind relation, or the connectionist account, or the behaviorist account. He ignores all but the easiest, well maybe not the easiest, but assuredly a dead materialist position of how the brain relates/causes the mind, and calls that a refutation of materialism. I don't buy it. This is the fallacy of the false dilemma; that is he assumes, either materialism via the psychoneural identity theory is true or materialism is false and the mind is immaterial. I reject this dichotomy, and he presents no argument in favor of it.

On another topic, Crean finds Dawkins views of morality troublesome, so do I, but I also find Crean's view of morality troublesome. I quote him "Morality is by definition something binding: an objective standard by which we must govern our personal impulses and desires." Crean thinks that morality is about duty, like a good Kantian or Utilitarian. What does Crean have to say to Aristotle, or to a lesser extent Aquinas, or me? I find the notion that morality is about duty highly suspicious. I do not define morality as something binding. What argument does Crean offer in support of his definition of morality? I found none.

The point of my review is that a refutation of Dawkins is pointless if you stand from an assured conceptual scheme, like Crean's. Much like Dawkins, Crean is guilty of arguing for his point from a conceptual scheme that is in doubt. Neither author approaches the other's position on his grounds, but tries to convince us, the undecided observe. However, neither author puts in any serious effort into arguing for their conceptual scheme. Thus, a rational skeptic, like me, finds both books riddled with biases, fallacies, and the occasional ad hominem. Both books are worth reading, in a sense, but neither book is worth the paper it is written on. However, I do give Dawkins more credit his fallacies are harder to find, though they are still there. Crean, like a good Catholic theologian, starts from the conceptual scheme implied by Dogma and never looks back.

Only Convincing if you're already convinced
If you're already one of the "faithful" and are convinced of the existence of God, reading this book will make you feel good and put to rest any doubts reading Dawkins' book may have given you. However, if you're at all a reasonable person there is nothing in this book to convince you that God exists. People who call Dawkins "militant" are simply not used to someone making a clear and convincing argument against "faith" and God, and so they feel very threatened and respond with stereotypes and labels (i.e. calling Dawkins "fundamentalist" when atheism has no dogma at all).

If you're one of the choir and you like being preached to, feel free to buy this book. Otherwise, I wouldn't waste my money.