“I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist” by Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek
Overall, this book was pretty frustrating to read. I am a fairly open-minded person, but I don’t consider myself an atheist or a theist. I consider myself pretty intellectual, but I don’t consider myself an expect in science, philosophy or logic. However, despite these fairly even balances — which I expect to be the prime demographic for this book — I see a lot of flaws here. Beyond the fact that much of “I Don’t Have Enough to Be an Atheist” reads like Christian propaganda. The authors go through a point-by-point argument about how Darwinist theories and ideas are “flawed” and contain fallacies, but will often ignore those exact same fallacies as they exist for Theism.
All too often the authors make arguments that are simply too black and white (if theory x is not true, then y must be true), or simply use awful circular logic (e.g. we know God exists because it says so in the Bible). It has no problem pointing out these flaws in atheistic logic (which is fine), but will simply ignore them when they apply in just the same way to theism. From this the authors draw what they seem to consider solid conclusions that are “beyond a reasonable doubt”. Throughout the book they essentially acknowledge that “beyond a reasonable doubt” is acceptable enough as a conclusive state for theism, but not atheism.
For anyone with basic common sense, this book will just prove aggravating. For any who is gullible enough, believes everything they read, or has put his- or herself in a vulnerable mindset, they will likely find it inspiring and potentially life changing. Although no matter where you are, you will find it an interesting read that will make you consider the greater possibilities of life a little more deeply.
I don’t want to say too much more about the book, neither do I have too much more to say about it as a purely literary review, but I would like to do a multi-part series on the site, providing counter-points to many of the fallacies and arguments provided by the book. So, keep an eye out!
October 31st, 2007 at 8:38 pm
You said you didn’t even understand and yet you said,”For any who is gullible enough, believes everything they read, or has put his- or herself in a vulnerable mindset, they will likely find it inspiring and potentially life changing”. How do you know it will be if you don’t know what it says? And we know God exsist from the scientific and logical evidence in the book. He doesn’t quote the Bible till about chapter 8 i beleive.
September 18th, 2008 at 1:03 am
Hi, I found your blog on this new directory of WordPress Blogs at blackhatbootcamp.com/listofwordpressblogs. I dont know how your blog came up, must have been a typo, i duno. Anyways, I just clicked it and here I am. Your blog looks good. Have a nice day. James.