Nothing here is very clear at all except that Ryan Bell felt uplifted by the book. He tells us that James Lindsay, author of the book under review, writes that "the central contention of this book is that theism, being a kind of mythology, isn’t technical or interesting," though he does not indicate what Lindsay's reasoning is for thinking such. Perhaps Lindsay doesn't give any reasons, since Bell tells us later that "the author does not spend time trying to prove his claim that theism is dead."
One would like to know what he means by "mythology." And I suppose we're just supposed to take his word that theism is dead. Obviously, churchgoers remain unaware of this. I am unaware of it myself. Richard Dawkins certainly didn't kill it, since his philosophical skills are practically non-existent. I do think the term "God" is frequently misused. The notion of God advanced by intelligent design advocates often seems to be of some everlasting Edison puttering about in his celestial laboratory pondering what to do about the wombats. I find this notion risible.
But I suspect that neither Bell nor Lindsay has any clear idea of what exactly they are talking about when they use the term. If they did, they would probably start by telling us what it is. Oh, and if everybody is wrong about God, I presume that includes Lindsay and Bell.
Why make an assumption about Lindsay's ideas without actually having read the book? Strange.
ReplyDeleteI was commenting on the review, which does not make plain why Lindsay thinks as he does and says that Lindsay "does not spend time trying to prove his claim." The point of a review is to tell you about a book you have presumably not read. On the basis of this review, I would not bother with the book.
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