22 February 2008
David
Berlinski and The
Devil’s Delusion
http://www.uncommondescent.com/religion/david-berlinski-and-the-devils-delusion/
GilDodgen
David Berlinski is my favorite secular Jew and quintessential
iconoclast. How could one not adore a guy who is a mathematician, no advocate
of any religion, a
His latest opus
is The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions, due
out in April.
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.