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The Irrational Atheist

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The Irrational Atheist Praise for The Irrational Atheist “In a day when too few of the recently published ‘New Atheists’ get hoisted on their own petard, it is gratifying to see Vox Day undertake that assign- ment with warmth and enthusiasm.” —DOUGLAS WILSON , Christianity Today “Vox Day frags the New Atheism movement with the kind of logic and fact that Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, and Onfray only claim to use. The impor- tant factor is that Day makes his challenging assertions without faith-based cross-waving.” —DR. JOHNNY WILSON , Editor-in-Chief, Computer Gaming World “The Vox is in the henhouse, with the scent of Dawkins’s blood in his nos- trils and a mouthful of Hitchens’s feathers! Harris, alas, doesn’t make it out of the book alive and the emergency team is still waiting to see if Dawkins will pull through after receiving one of the most visceral literary lobotomies ever inflicted in publishing. In the culture wars between New Atheism and The Rest of the World, The Irrational Atheist is ‘must-read’ material.” —IAN WISHART , Investigate Magazine “Day’s work is a healthy kick in the head to the comfortably numb. Using their own claims against them, he uses logic, reason, and rhetoric to reveal that atheists are the new fanatics, and that we should all—religious or ir- religious—be very wary of their schemes. G. K. Chesterton once remarked that without God, there would be no atheists; Day updates this by showing how atheism itself is an evolutionary dead-end. A provocative, gutsy, and in-your-face book, but eminently enjoyable reading.” —REA D MERCER SCHUCHAR D T , Assistant Professor of Communication, Wheaton College “In The Irrational Atheist, Vox Day plays the card that the atheists consid- er their trump—reason—against them in a devastating and highly enter- taining manner. With clarity and wit, he presents a wealth of evidence to demolish the arguments put forward by the leading ‘brights’ of the day.” —CHA D THE EL D ER , Fraters Libertas Dissecting the Unholy Trinity of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens THE IRRATIONAL ATHEIST Vox Day BENBELLA BOOKS, INC. Dallas, Texas Copyright © 2008 by Vox Day All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embod- ied in critical articles or reviews. BenBella Books, Inc. 6440 N. Central Expressway, Suite 503 Dallas, TX 75206 Send feedback to [email protected] www.benbellabooks.com Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Day, Vox. The irrational atheist : dissecting the unholy trinity of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitch- ens / Vox Day. p. cm. ISBN 1-933771-36-4 1. Atheism. 2. Dawkins, Richard, 1941—Religion. 3. Harris, Sam, 1967—Religion. 4. Hitchens, Christopher—Religion. I. Title. BL2747.3.D39 2007 211'.8—dc22 2007041413 Proofreading by Maggie McGuire, Emily Chauviere, and Yara Abuata Cover design by Todd Michael Bushman Text design and composition by John Reinhardt Book Design Printed by Bang Printing Distributed by Independent Publishers Group To order call (800) 888-4741 www.ipgbook.com For special sales contact Robyn White at [email protected] DE D I C AT I O N This is for those who walk The Way, Weak and stumbling, poorly shod. May they find strength in every day To persist on the path to God. This is for those still lost in night, Angry, doubting, trapped in strife. May they find answers in the Light That leads to the eternal life. This is for those who fall for Christ, Faithful, fearless before Cain. May they find courage to suffice And know that they die not in vain. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ITHOUT THE EXAMPLES AND INFLUENCE of my parents, Dr. Gregory Boyd, Tim Stahl, and Andrew and Marit Lunstad, this book would not exist. It is not always our strengths that tes- tify to the truth, sometimes it is our flaws. I Whave been fortunate to enjoy the unrelenting support of my most faithful readers, the dread Ilk of Vox Popoli, whose encouragement, criticism, and general insanity have provided many ideas that have been incorporated, one way or another, into this text. I must also thank my sometime nemeses, especially Dark Window, Brent Ras- mussen, and Dr. P. Z. Myers, for their forthright defense of their own beliefs and the sporadic clashes that have aided me in articulating my own position. I am grateful to Jamsco, whose detailed perusal of the early drafts was invaluable. Thanks to readers Giraffe, SZook, and BAJ as well. Meredith Dixon helped with the Latin translations and HuckG pro- vided a speedy and dependable procurement service in tracking down various required texts. Special thanks to Mr. Frederick Dawe, Esq., who is equally reliable vii viii THE IRRATIONAL ATHEIST in contract negotiations and bar fights. And most of all, I am deeply appreciative of the love and support of the lovely Spacebunny, and am much obliged for her willingness to participate in the occasional midnight symposium on life, the universes, and everything. CONTENTS Preface 1 I A Pride of Atheists 5 II Defining Science 27 III The Case Against Science 43 IV The Religion of Reason 61 V Sam Tzu and the Art of War 79 VI The War Delusion 97 VII The End of Sam Harris 113 VIII Darwin’s Judas 135 IX A Marxian Apostate 161 X The Pragmatic Philosopher 179 XI The Robespierre of Atheism 197 XII Hitler, the Inquisition, the Crusades, 209 and Human Sacrifice XIII The Red Hand of Atheism 233 XIV Occam’s Chainsaw 251 XV Master of Puppets or Game Designer? 269 XVI “I Belong to Jesus” 285 Appendix A 289 Appendix B 291 Bibliography 301 About the Author 307 ix PREFACE Get ready for the throw down. —TUPAC SHAKUR , “2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted” hat’S YOUR OBSESSION with these guys?” A reader e-mailed to ask after my fourth column addressing the in- tellectual sins of the three leading New Atheists was published on WorldNet- “WDaily, the independent news site where I write a weekly opinion column. After all, the Creator God of the universe is presumably ca- pable of defending Himself, and the elephant is what it is, regardless of what I, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, or anyone else might imagine it to be based upon our different experi- ences of it. When it comes to understanding God, are we not all blind men feeling up an oversized mammal? And while I am a believer, a non-denominational evangelical Christian to be precise, my purpose in writing this book is not to 1 2 THE IRRATIONAL ATHEIST defend God, or even to argue for the truth of my particular religious faith. Instead, I intend to defend those who are now being misled into doubting their faith or are fooled into feeling more secure in their lack of faith on the basis of the fraudulent, error-filled writings of these three men. I do not make this triple charge of fraudulence lightly, nor is my doing so a fearful response to their churlish disre- gard for what to me and millions of other individuals is the central element of human existence. There is simply no more fitting description of the cerebral snake oil that Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens are selling to the unwary reader—and the media—under the false label of science and reason. I am confident that no one, not even the most purely rational, über- skeptical agnostic or card-carrying ACLU atheist, will take serious exception to my charge by the time they finish this book. It took me some time to decide what this book should be titled. Part of the challenge was due to the fact that it addresses the philo- sophical and ideological arguments of three very different men. If the book were to solely address Sam Harris, I should likely have enti- tled it The Incompetent Atheist. In the case of Christopher Hitchens, I could have reasonably named it The Irrelevant Atheist. And given the way in which the eminent Richard Dawkins has apparently decided to abandon empirical evidence, the scientific method, and Reason herself in embracing a quasi-medieval philosophical ontology, The Ironic Atheist would surely have been most fitting. In the end, I settled upon The Irrational Atheist for the following reason. This book is a direct challenge to the idea that atheism is the proper philosophical standard for human reason, that being an athe- ist is an inherently rational perspective, and that attempting to build a civilized society without religion is a rational object. This is not a theological work. The text contains no arguments for the existence of God and the supernatural, nor is it concerned with evolution, creationism, the age of Earth, or intelligent design. It con- tains no arguments from Scripture; in attacking the arguments, as- sertions, and conclusions of the New Atheists, my only weapons are the purely secular ones of reason, logic, and historically document- ed, independently verifiable fact. This is not a book about God, it is about those who seek to replace Him. PREFACE 3 At first glance, it may seem crazy that a computer game designer, one whose only significant intellectual accomplishment of note is to have once convinced Michelle Malkin to skip an opportunity to promote herself, should dare to dispute an Oxford don, a respected university professor, a famous French philosopher, a highly regarded journalist, and an ecstasy-using dropout who is still working toward a graduate degree at forty . okay, perhaps that last one makes sense.
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