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Should You Buy a New Atheist Book?--Skeel

I’ve been thinking for some time about reading Christopher Hitchens' book God is Not Great. I’m on a trip to California at the moment, and now would be the perfect time to load it onto my new Kindle. (Actually, my wife’s new Christmas-present-from-me Kindle, but that’s a different story). My only hesitation is a hesitation about buying, and thus contributing to the success of, a book that attacks my faith. Should I? My tentative answer is that I wouldn’t pay money for a book that seems destructive of reasonable discussion of these issues, any more than I would pay money for pornography. I personally think Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins are charlatans on these issues, and wouldn’t buy their atheism books. Hitchens, on the other hand, seems much more morally serious to me. I’ll probably be reading his book on the plane home.

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Posted by David Skeel on January 6, 2011 11:13 AM | |

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Comments ( 7 )

If you do, please give us a review.

Posted by Steve | January 8, 2011 1:38 PM

I'll look forward to your thoughts.

Posted by hdp | January 8, 2011 8:33 PM

Surely there must be some atheist who's written a reasonable book supporting his position. It doesn't sound as if even Hitchens is one of them. Bertrand Russell, maybe?

Posted by Anonymous | January 10, 2011 9:46 PM

I would find it very helpful if you could expand upon your conclusion that Dawkins and Harris are charlatans. Or have you done that in a prior post? (I just discovered the blog a couple months ago.) Also, have you read Dennett's contribution?

Posted by Peter Alces | January 11, 2011 7:44 AM

Could you check it out from the library?

Posted by Anonymous | January 12, 2011 1:09 PM

You could buy it used, though not for the Kindle. And then you have the negative signalling effects.

Posted by Randy | January 12, 2011 3:27 PM

I believe god and never want to by that book. Thank you for your post.

Posted by Çocuk Parkı | January 16, 2011 4:18 PM

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