Reasoned, cool and concise—a good-natured primer for infidels.
Add this impious brief to the growing stack of earnest texts by atheists set on debunking the venerable notion of an omnipotent, omniscient Almighty.
The old-time religion wasn’t good enough for Epicurus or, more recently, for infidels Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and others. And it isn’t good enough for Paulos (Mathematics/Temple Univ.; A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market, 2003, etc.). Heedless of the First Commandment, but not necessarily unmindful of other parts of the Ethical Decalogue, he explains in his brief manifesto why he belongs to the apparently burgeoning congregation of the seriously dubious. First, he assaults some classic arguments: anthropic, teleological and first cause. Next, he demolishes such subjective justifications for the Deity as coincidence, prophecy, emotion, unexplained phenomena and just plain faith. Finally, he deploys the nonbelievers’ philosophical-mathematical methods, dispensing theoretical and metaphysical algorithms with as light a touch as such weighty material can handle. Though Paulos promises no heavy math, many passages will be most meaningful to mathematically minded readers. Throughout, he demonstrates the foolishness of blind faith using seriously defective syllogisms constructed with flawed religious premises. Straw men are demolished with ease. Though even Mother Teresa may have had doubts, such proof is not likely to convert pious readers to the heretics’ cause. Paulos is preaching, naturally, to the choir. He has, thank Someone, considerable wit. He wonders why folk who abhor the notion of evolution are not bothered by the biblical claim that we come from dirt, and he ponders the source of Jesus’s DNA. In the beginning, he asks if there is any logical reason for belief in God. But in the mind of the faithful, logic, no matter how persuasive, has little to do with it. Paulos is speaking a different language.
Reasoned, cool and concise—a good-natured primer for infidels.Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-8090-5919-5
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Hill and Wang/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author’s sincere sermon—at times analytical, at times hortatory—remains a hopeful one.
New York Times columnist Brooks (The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement, 2011, etc.) returns with another volume that walks the thin line between self-help and cultural criticism.
Sandwiched between his introduction and conclusion are eight chapters that profile exemplars (Samuel Johnson and Michel de Montaigne are textual roommates) whose lives can, in Brooks’ view, show us the light. Given the author’s conservative bent in his column, readers may be surprised to discover that his cast includes some notable leftists, including Frances Perkins, Dorothy Day, and A. Philip Randolph. (Also included are Gens. Eisenhower and Marshall, Augustine, and George Eliot.) Throughout the book, Brooks’ pattern is fairly consistent: he sketches each individual’s life, highlighting struggles won and weaknesses overcome (or not), and extracts lessons for the rest of us. In general, he celebrates hard work, humility, self-effacement, and devotion to a true vocation. Early in his text, he adapts the “Adam I and Adam II” construction from the work of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, Adam I being the more external, career-driven human, Adam II the one who “wants to have a serene inner character.” At times, this veers near the Devil Bugs Bunny and Angel Bugs that sit on the cartoon character’s shoulders at critical moments. Brooks liberally seasons the narrative with many allusions to history, philosophy, and literature. Viktor Frankl, Edgar Allan Poe, Paul Tillich, William and Henry James, Matthew Arnold, Virginia Woolf—these are but a few who pop up. Although Brooks goes after the selfie generation, he does so in a fairly nuanced way, noting that it was really the World War II Greatest Generation who started the ball rolling. He is careful to emphasize that no one—even those he profiles—is anywhere near flawless.
The author’s sincere sermon—at times analytical, at times hortatory—remains a hopeful one.Pub Date: April 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9325-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The name of C.S. Lewis will no doubt attract many readers to this volume, for he has won a splendid reputation by his brilliant writing. These sermons, however, are so abstruse, so involved and so dull that few of those who pick up the volume will finish it. There is none of the satire of the Screw Tape Letters, none of the practicality of some of his later radio addresses, none of the directness of some of his earlier theological books.
Pub Date: June 15, 1949
ISBN: 0060653205
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1949
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
