The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions | 
| Author: David Berlinski
Publisher: Crown Forum
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  46 reviews
Sales Rank: 2658
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.8 x 1.1
ISBN: 0307396266
Dewey Decimal Number: 215
EAN: 9780307396266
ASIN: 0307396266
Publication Date: April 1, 2008
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Product Description
Militant atheism is on the rise. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens have dominated bestseller lists with books denigrating religious belief as dangerous foolishness. And these authors are merely the leading edge of a far larger movement–one that now includes much of the scientific community.
“The attack on traditional religious thought,” writes David Berlinski in The Devil’s Delusion, “marks the consolidation in our time of science as the single system of belief in which rational men and women might place their faith, and if not their faith, then certainly their devotion.”
A secular Jew, Berlinski nonetheless delivers a biting defense of religious thought. An acclaimed author who has spent his career writing about mathematics and the sciences, he turns the scientific community’s cherished skepticism back on itself, daring to ask and answer some rather embarrassing questions:
Has anyone provided a proof of God’s inexistence?
Not even close.
Has quantum cosmology explained the emergence of the universe or why it is here?
Not even close.
Have the sciences explained why our universe seems to be fine-tuned to allow for the existence of life?
Not even close.
Are physicists and biologists willing to believe in anything so long as it is not religious thought?
Close enough.
Has rationalism in moral thought provided us with an understanding of what is good, what is right, and what is moral?
Not close enough.
Has secularism in the terrible twentieth century been a force for good?
Not even close to being close.
Is there a narrow and oppressive orthodoxy of thought and opinion within the sciences?
Close enough.
Does anything in the sciences or in their philosophy justify the claim that religious belief is irrational?
Not even ballpark.
Is scientific atheism a frivolous exercise in intellectual contempt?
Dead on.
Berlinski does not dismiss the achievements of western science. The great physical theories, he observes, are among the treasures of the human race. But they do nothing to answer the questions that religion asks, and they fail to offer a coherent description of the cosmos or the methods by which it might be investigated.
This brilliant, incisive, and funny book explores the limits of science and the pretensions of those who insist it can be–indeed must be–the ultimate touchstone for understanding our world and ourselves.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 41 more reviews...
Faith is Faith July 8, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Berlinski does not declare a winner in the religious belief in science vs. religious belief of God debate. As he states in the book's opening, he is basically agnostic and if the evidence was overwhelming that God (whom I do believe in) created the universe, then Berlinski would not be an agnostic.
What Berlinski does do is systematically defang those who have made millions selling books claiming that science has shown God does not exist. These authors act as though they are merely dictating from "Science," and not basing their papers on their own various assumptions and biases. As Berlinski demonstrates, scientific endeavors are rarely a disinterested pursuit of truth, but rather generally is an activity which is affected by the tester's preconceived beliefs. The evidence is sufficient to prove what you want it to prove.
What Berlinski rails against is not that argument that science may have cast some doubt on the necessity of God, but rather on the pretentious and logically questionable arguments being made that those with religious beliefs are fools who need an emotional crutch to get through life. Berlinski shows us that the fool may be the person who is adamant that God does not exists because they cannot accept that they are answerable to anyone but themselves.
This book does not declare that God IS, or who He is; it merely points out that the evidence can be reasonably and rationally interpreted to support God's existence or deny it; the choice on how the facts are interpreted lies with the individual. Either one has faith in God who is spirit (i.e. cannot be seen), or in Science which is befuddled as to how the universe came into existence. You either believe in a God which exists without cause, or in a universe which created itself. Either way, faith is required, and faith is faith.
 the devil's delusion July 7, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
i found this book to be too philosophical and very convoluted in its stlye of writing - the work of an overeducated contemplative lost person. As an example this is the opening sentence "Upon just yesterday it was fashionable for scientists carefully to cast their bread upon various ecclesiastical waters". If you can be bothered to decipher what he is saying then good luck to you - why can't people speak in simple English without the need to sound pompous? I am a creationist, an engineer but not a Berlinski fan.
 A concise, thought provoking and very entertaining book July 2, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I read the book cover to cover and loved it. Dr. Berlinski's writing style is very concise and a little unique. The resulting concentration of ideas and references had me re-reading portions occasionally to make sure I didn't miss anything. The main topic is to throw very well reasoned arguments back in the face of some prominent atheists to show that their confidence is rather misplaced and to do so with the maximum of wit and humor. Topics covered include the real results of atheistic world views in government, the evidence for and against the possible existence of God, Darwinism, the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics, the mind, computers, the Standard Model and the big bang.
It's only 225 smaller-sized pages in 10 chapters. It is a quick read in one place but perfect for that nightly chapter that you can think about the next day. If you have an open mind you will like this book. If you are a Christian, you will like this book. If you are a determined atheist you will not like this book (see the one star reviews).
Not Bad, Could have Been Better July 1, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Good book, it makes some interesting points about hardcore Atheism. Never knew that some Atheists actually believe in a existing Universe before our own. Berlinski in this book, rightfully points out the non-scientific value of the hypothesis. To me, it's not scientific at all, I can understand why some would believe in it because they know fully well, something cannot be created out of nothing by itself on accident. So in order to explain it they come up with such unproven stories, like the alien hypothesis, other universes hypothesis, and so on...The book is lite in reading and easy to understand, worth the price!
cosmological romp June 26, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Dr. Berlinski is extremely well-read in philosophy, physics, mathematics, biology, history, and theology. He does an amazing synthesis in his lines of reasoning, proving if not the existence of God, then certainly the impossibility of proving the non-existence of God. Berlinski takes great delight in showing how scientific atheists have been insisting on an irrational agenda, fabricating any theory imaginable to skirt around the cosmological inconvenience of the Big Bang.
This was as much fun to read as C S Lewis' "Mere Christianity," though Dr Berlinski, as a secular Jew, comes to a few different, though not irreconcilable conclusions.
"We live by love and longing, death and the devastation that time imposes. How did they enter into the world? And why? The world of the physical sciences is not our world, and if our world has things that cannot be explained in their terms, then we must search elsewhere for their explaination.
We may allow ourselves in the twenty-first century to neglect the Red Sea and to regard with unconcern the various loaves and fishes mentioned in the New Testament. We who are heirs to the scientific tradition have been given the priceless gift of a vastly enhanced sense of the miraculous. This is something that the very greatest scientists- Newton, Einstein, Bohr, Goedel- have always known and stressed."
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