Uncovering the Misconceptions Surrounding God

Rocketrazer: Makes you think about theist ideas

Canada on Jul 19, 2020

kie-ole: I'm in agreement with the other 2-3 star ratings of this book. I was relieved to see that other readers found the writing style clumsy, repetitive, and the insights to be a bit underwhelming. It's clear that the author is well-researched with intentions I agree with, but this seems like a book he wrote just to make a buck. He had a few neat ideas appropriate as short essays or journal entries, but he stretched them to write a book and simply expanded on the work of Haidt, Harris, Boghossian, Dawkins, and others (I enjoy all of their work as well) without clearly adding much clarity of his own. I had to skip around just to get through 80% of the content because of the repetition and tendency of the author to "tell you what he's about to tell you". Plus, the title is not really representative of the theme. Not a bad book, but I think there are much better works of literature out there on matters circumnavigating atheism.

I learned about this book from a podcast hosting the author and Peter Boghossian.

United States on Feb 08, 2019

Hande Z: When I recently reviewed John Loftus’ book, ‘Unapologetic’ I thought that it was the most advanced argument against theism. It still is, but it is a natural follow-up of this excellent book by James Lindsay. These are really the only two books atheists need. All the others retain their value and purpose, Lindsay’s book is the most enlightening.

Lindsay does not write to demean religion or believers. He accepts that religion is important to many people. He thinks that the term ‘delusion’ used by Richard Dawkins is too strong because sane people have religious beliefs. But he does say that ‘religious beliefs tend not to, but can be, delusional and they are likely to serve as the source of genuine delusions’. An example of a genuine delusion is when people ‘believe that prayers will heal someone or that a deity will protect one’s home in a natural disaster’. His point is that religious beliefs are misguided.

The point in his book is based on two observations: ‘(1) very many perfectly sane people, some very intelligent and some very educated, have believed in, and still believe in, and must mean something by whatever they call “God”, and (2)...

United States on Dec 01, 2016

Gottfried Beyvers: This book offers nothing new. The author argues that the word "God" is the product of believers' needs, mainly psychological and social needs.But Feuerbach, Marx and Freud said the same thing already many decades ago.

The relevant contents of the book could be told on five or six pages, but the autor inflates it to more than 200 pages plus 393 notes! It is a waste of time to read the book; I did learn nothing new.

The style of writing is boring, too.

Germany on Sep 28, 2016

Gailrachel: Brilliant book - I would highly recommend it as an honest account of looking at the world at it really is.

Australia on Jul 29, 2016

Lover of children's books: After beginning this book, my expectation was cautiously optimistic - that, since reading Pascal's Religion Explained, I might finally have found a worthwhile answer to the question "why does it seem that the need to believe in some kind of supernatural being is somehow buried in our genes - and, if so, what is/are the survival advantage(s) of such an evolutionary instinct?" To some extent, the long, central chapter of this book did come close to answering the first question, tho I still am at a loss to understand what could account for the survival advantage of such a belief. However, like several other reviewers, I found the constant repetition of the author's central points terribly tedious. Because of that, I probably did not give as much attention to the "action items" at the book's end that I should have, and really can't honestly comment on that part. My rating of 4 stars reflects my opinion of the very worthwhile middle chapter. My advice: skip the beginning chapters and start reading at that point.

United States on Apr 29, 2016

Denis Roy: A brilliant exposition on theism (and why people believe) and atheism. A necessary complement to Richard Dawkins God Delusion.

Canada on Mar 16, 2016

Mrs. H. Pluckrose: James Lindsay's Everybody is Wrong about God addresses non-believers with the intention of persuading us to move the conversation beyond the adversarial approach in which 'atheists' and 'theists' rehearse the same tired arguments repeatedly. (Anyone unsure how long these same conversations have been happening might find A Warning to Worldlings by Jeremy Corderoy published in 1608 startlingly familiar.) The book is densely packed with information and argument, clearly presented and tightly structured.

Lindsay urges atheists to recognise that the war of ideas has been won. This does not mean that religion has ended - clearly it hasn't - but that we now live in societies in which the idea of a deity does not work, does not explain anything and, in fact, is difficult to believe in any literal sense. "God" the concept may still exist but God does not. By continuing to entertain the concept of god as a serious proposition in theological terms, we not only legitimise it but miss the true sources of the belief which are psychological. To support this argument, the book draws heavily on the work of psychologists of religion, Hood, Hill and Spilka and shows that 'God' is best...

United Kingdom on Feb 14, 2016

Good times guy: This book gives a whole new twist to the problem of religion in society. That people use the concept of God as a source of passive control over an uncertain and dangerous world- that Americans will prosper and never have calamity it cannot handle. People give trust to this abstract notion of God to take care of circumstances. They have no idea how this abstract God would accomplish such a feat. The circumstances are too complex or mysterious- like people don't understand the power and mystery of the Sea so they created Poseidan, the Sea God.
People attribute Natural events to God and assume there is some force out there, looking after people. People assume there is some jealous force in nature somewhere up in the hills or the sky looking after us. This goes back into thousands of years of mythological assumptions that there must be some force out in nature which can help or hurt us. We assume this force created everything that is. We just have to appeal to the Good side of this force and we will be OK.
We don't have time to read a 300 page physics book about the origen of the Universe. Our ancient mythology book tells us us with great authority that the controller of all...

United States on Feb 10, 2016