Good published retorts to The God Delusion?

[Alucard]

I had a voucher for a book, so I decided to pick up Dawkins' book, and I also ordered in McGrath's reply. But are there any better written rebuttals to the TGD that would serve me better?

[AngelDragon]

I've heard nothing but good things about The Dawkins Letters by David Robertson, but I don't have anything that I've personally read.

[Alucard]

Okay, thanks. I was also thinking of picking up God Is No Delusion by Thomas Crean.

[Silver Hand]

Douglas Wilson is about to released a couple book-length rebuttals of Hitchens' work from American Vision, if I'm not mistaken

[Jnthn]

There's a wealth of stuff available on the web.

J

[wingsxofxfaith]

On top of the written stuff, Veritas48, a christian apologetic on youtube, made a series of videos refuting it, and he breaks it down chapter by chapter. I haven't seen them all, but they seem to be pretty good.

[wingsxofxfaith]

If you're interested, this is a link to the introduction:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DIqiZbH72M&feature=channel_page

I would have put this in my original post, but I thought there was a playlist on his channel, which would make it easy to find. Unfortunately there isn't, and with the meager information I gave in my last post, it could be kind of difficult to find. From this video, it should be fairly easy to find the rest.

[gharfish]

Just a reminder about McGrath's book:

www.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawkins_Delusion%3F


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[Oolon Colluphid]

I can't understand why the McGraths' book (it's co-authoured) is so highly recommended. It's terrible! David Robertson's book is equally awful. Both repeatedly (and seemingly deliberately) set up endless strawmen. Wilfully mendacious and misrepresentative both.

Much better is Keith Ward' s 'Why there almost certainly is a God'. He avoids ad hominems and doesn't distort Dawkins' arguments. He also takes seriously Dawkins' challenge that the best refutation of TGD wouldn't seek to pick imaginary holes in his book, but would rather offer evidence for the existence of God. Although I disagreed with his conclusion, Ward's argument is compelling and cannot be as easily exposed as vacuous as those by the McGraths and Robertson. Additionally Robertson has blotted his copy-book quite badly by behaving like nothing so much as a troll over at RD.net with a frequency that is most unbecoming of a Christian minister. I anticipate Prof. Terry Eagleton's book (which also takes on Hitchens and amusingly conflates the two into a composite called Ditchkins) to be of a reasonable standard as well. I'm basing this on an interview with Eagleton in the current issue of 'New Humanist'.

[Oolon Colluphid]

Gharfish

I've just read the wiki regarding the McGrath's book. It claims they are gracious to Dawkins. What rot! They make lots of tediously pedantic points that in no way undermine the main thrust of Dawkins' arguments. For example, they excoriate Dawkins for mistakenly attributing 'Hebrews' to St Paul, but don't address the substance of his critique of 'Hebrews'. They then go on to call upon Luther in support of some other facile and insulting point, yet Luther also attributed Hebrews to St Paul!

Elsewhere they claim that Dawkins suggests that the JW position on the 144,000 "is normative for Christianity", when it's perfectly clear from the text that he does nothing of the sort. In fact Dawkins explicitly refers to the JWs and makes no mention of Christianity in general at that point in TGD. It's difficult to imagine that this could be a genuine mistake on the McGrath's part and all too easy to assume that they are 'lying for Jesus'. Almost every page of the book contains examples of this sort of deception. Really, it's a stinker.

There is a compelling counter-argument to be made against TGD, but 'The Dawkins Delusion' comes nowhere near it. If you're looking for a learned counter with integrity then try Ward's book.

[gharfish]

Thanks for that recommendation. I reminded people of McGraths(s') book after this old thread was sort of reactivated. I wasn't aware that there were a number of books that directly addressed whatever Dawkins had written in his. I haven't noticed them in (my) bookstore. I didn't read the wiki article--just skimmed quickly through it, to try to see if I saw in it an obvious bias of either 'side's' going on there. If there was, I thought it would have been sneakily subtle.


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[Oolon Colluphid]

Hi Gharfish

By all means read the McGrath and Robertson books if you wish. Afterall I had to read them to find fault with them! But for me they were dishonest and frequently resorted to personal attacks on Dawkins himself, rather than his arguments. Ward's book is above any such accusations and is all the more persuasive as a consequence. I realise I'm arguing against my position here, but Ward is very good. He certainly made me think twice. In fact I'm still thinking about it. I believe Karen Armstrong also has a refutation of of the new atheists in general out at the moment. I haven't read it (although I intend to), but I can tell you it's had some rave reviews in the UK press. Curiously, only the bad reviews have found their way on to RD.net...You can draw your own conclusions from that I'm sure.

There has been something of a publishing phenomena in the area of anti-Dawkins books. Something in the region of thirty have been published. I can't help wondering if some of these are just money spinners for their authors and publishers as opposed to being serious attempts at refutation. The McGrath's book is less than 100 pages long and so can't really be a decent rebuttal of a book that is over 400 pages in length.