Customer Reviews
Useful, interesting, but not enough depth - By: T. C. Wilkinson, 31 Oct 2008 
First the good. It's extremely useful to have all these arguments & their refutations laid outin one place. Most treatments I have read tend to concentrate on the cosmological, teleological & ontological arguments. Here the author also deals with four subjective & four psycho-mathematical arguments. Full marks for breadth then. Also full marks for style - this is extremely readable & very funnyin places, & all without dumbing down.
The flaw,in my opinion, is that Paulos races through each argument, & particulary the refutations, far too quickly. Each one deserves more than a few pages, more depth & more consideration of counter-arguments. This might have been excused if there were a useful list of further reading for each argument, but one is not included.
A good read then, but there is not enough depth here for my taste.
I would recommend Roy Jackson's "The God of Philosophy" for anyone who wants a deeper look at some of the arguments, though this concentrates on the arguments themselves & is rather light on their criticisms.
God is dead! Long live God! - By: Dennis Littrell, 26 Sep 2008 God will exist as long as humansin their present form exist. God lives within the hearts & minds of humans. Whether God exists outside of our hearts & minds is what is at issue, & once again when the arguments are examinedin some objective depth it becomes clear that, as Paulos puts it, they "just don't add up."
He formally presents a dozen arguments & finds them all wanting. He begins with the "first cause" argument, namely that everything must have a cause & that God is the first cause. This argument was refuted many centuries ago, mainly because it begs the question of what caused God? The obvious answer, God is the uncaused cause, or God caused himself, or God always existed, doesn't help since we could simply say the universe is uncaused, or that it always existed & leave a superfluous God out.
The second "classical" argument for the existence of God is the argument from design. This is the one creationists employin their attempt to get around biological evolution. The world is too complex to have come about through the work of natural forces and/or it shows unmistakable signs of being designed. Therefore there has to be a designer & that designer is God. The problem with this argument is that what we think of as being "too complex" is more a statement about our lack of imagination than it is about anything else. The tendency for matter to self-organize along with the interplay of replication, mutation, & natural selection is more powerfulin its ability to bring about complexity than our poor minds can imagine. Furthermore, the universe & its systems are not "designed." They evolve. The idea of a designer is an anthropomorphic notion alien to the way the universe works.
The third argument, which Paulos calls the argument from the anthropic principle, is basically a version of the argument from design. Here it is argued that the universe is just so perfectly fine-tuned for humans (or life) that it couldn't have come about by chance. Consequently there must be a fine-tuner & naturally that fine-tuner is God.
The fourth argument, the argument from being or ontology contends that God is the greatest & most perfect of all beings, & that one of the attributes of perfection is existence. Therefore God exists. I might say that an attribute of perfection is non-existence. Therefore God does not exist. The ontological argument is really a play on words & proves nothing. Or one could say, as Paulos reminds us, that the most perfect island (or most perfect anything) must exist since a necessary characteristic of perfection is existence.
Most of the other arguments are even less compelling than these hoary old deceivers. Take what Paulos calls the argument from coincidence:
"1. All these remarkable events happening at the same time can't be an accident.
2. There must be some reason for their coincidence.
3. That reason is God.
4. Therefore God exists."
Note that "1." is an unwarranted assumption, as is "2." "3." is an assertion which assumes that which is to be demonstrated. Paulos allows that this howler "is seldom made explicitly, but a number of common inane statements do more than hint at it." (p. 52)
What most of these arguments havein common is human incredulity. That is, what exists or has happened is just too, too much for us to accept without calling on some supernatural explanation, & that explanation is God. Therefore God exists as the explanation for everything we can't understand, which is an "argument" for God that Paulos doesn't consider specifically. It could even be said that as long as we are confronted with things we don't understand or events that are beyond our comprehension--that is, forever--God will necessarily exist as an explanation for these things & events. Therefore, you can't kill God. God is part of human nature. It could also be said that if God didn't exist, we'd have to invent Him. And it could be added that we did.
Allin all this is a very readable introduction to a very slippery subject. Paulos is an engaging writer who knows how to entertain the reader. However, I was not quite so entertained here as I was with his A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market (2003) which I highly recommend. Probably I have been too much with the subject of arguments for & against God for too many years. For those of you interestedin a more nuanced & deeper look at this subject you might want to read The Impossibility of God (2003) edited by Michael Martin & Ricki Monnier. Therein you will find that SOME Gods (that is, definitions of God) really are impossiblein the same sense that there can't be an irresistible force & an immovable object, or a God that can do impossible things like squaring the circle.
Bottom line on all such philosophic adventures as far as I am concerned is this: you can't prove or disapprove supernatural things. Regardless, unlike Paulos, I am a deist, but as I like to say, the God I believein is nothing like the usual ideas of God. In fact I guess I could say I believein a God that represents what is beyond human understanding. Therefore I believein a God about which nothing can be said.
We needn't play along with Humpty Dumpty - By: Sphex, 24 Jul 2008 
John Allen Paulos is not alonein having been intrigued by "questions of existence & belief" since childhood, but few of us will have feigned beliefin Santa Clausin order to protect our parents from our "knowledge of his nonexistence". Unsurprisingly, Paulos suspects he has "an inborn disposition to materialism" (the "matter & motion are the basis of all there is" & not the "I want more cars & houses" kind). Don't let this put you off if you think there must be more to the universe than atoms & energy. While his opening question - "Are there any logical reasons to believein God?" - will make some wretch or reach for the remote, curious atheists & theists will find "Irreligion" irresistible.
The book is organized into three parts: first come four classical arguments for God's existence, then four subjective arguments, & finally four "psycho-mathematical" arguments. It's worth emphasizing that these are argumentsin the grown-up sense of offering reasons or evidencein support of a conclusion, & not simply statements of personal opinion. You're meant to take them seriously, to be prepared to change your mind if persuaded, and, if you disagree, to offer reasons why. Faith so often "wins" because it avoids the hard work of argument & plumps for wishful thinking to get to where it wants to go.
Each argument is clearly laid out, premises & conclusions enumerated & simplified so we see exactly what's going on. (This admirable quality, the will to explain & not obfuscate, is more often foundin scientists & novelists thanin theologians or pedlars of new age quackery, who cater for & prey upon the ignorance of those who "are more impressed by fatuous blather that they don't understand than by simple observations that they do".) The first-cause argument begins with "1. Everything has a cause, or perhaps many causes." It goes on to assert "there has to be a first cause" & ends with "5. That first cause is God, who therefore exists." To see whether this argument - or any argument - is true involves examining the premises to see if they are reliable & then checking that the conclusion follows. The gaping hole here is the opening premise: "If everything has a cause, then God does, too, & there is no first cause." If an exception is being made & one thing is allowed not to have a cause, "it may as well be the physical world as God".
There follow the arguments from design & the anthropic principle, & the ontological argument, then the subjective arguments from coincidence, from prophecy, from subjectivity itself, & from interventions, then the psycho-mathematical arguments, which explore complexity, cognition, universality, & Pascal's notorious wager. Unfortunately for religion, if true, some of these arguments have a wider utility & could support all kinds of hogwash. Fortunately for irreligion, Paulos shows how each fails to convince.
"How can an agnostic or atheist learn anything from someone who simply claims to know there is a God?" While acknowledging the fact that such "knowledge" is often strongly held & has a powerful effect on the person's life, the problem is that the "knowledge" possessed by different religious people & groups "is quite contradictory." It would be absurd to remind the reader of a novel "that writing about a character isn't sufficient to conjure up his or her existence." Holy books, whose taste for fiction is not widely enough recognized, ought to come with a health warning: "Statements or expressions can have a meaning yet lack a referent." The Christian knows as much about Jesus as I do about Hamlet, but only one of us is confused about reality.
In discussing so-called Bible codes, Paulos makes one of the few claims I am sceptical of: "Once the discovery of seemingly prescient sequences of letters is brought to our attention, it is only natural for us to wonder about the probability of their occurrence." Natural for a professor of mathematics, perhaps, or, flatteringly, for a reader of his books, but not for the average buyer of a lottery ticket. That's surely part of the problem: it's not just that people can't work out probabilities, but that they're not even curious. One other dubious note is the glib credit paid to Jesus as a great moral leader "whose ideas constitute a good part of the bedrock of our culture". There is truthin this, of course, but it should not pass by unexamined. Does Paulos rate the obscene notion of hell & eternal punishment as a crowning achievement of the human spirit? Or perhaps he was thinking about the more palatable (ifunoriginal) sayings?
A smile is never far away from the serious. Humpty Dumpty - that unwitting theologian & splendid role model for the religious - gets namecheckedin the preface: "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less." If God is defined "in a sufficiently nebulous way as beauty, love, mysterious complexity, or the ethereal taste of strawberry shortcake" then "most atheists become theists". Paulos prefers clarity & truth to these word games, & his book is an oasis of sense for anyone tired of "nonsense profferedin an earnest & profound manner".
"Irreligion" will not lead you into a spiritual desert nor will it suck meaning from your life. It is a handy prompt for when we stand up for what we don't believe, & contains a message rarely heard above the din of competing faiths: "the world would benefit if more people of diverse backgrounds were to admit to being irreligious."
Devastating the deity's dozen - By: Stephen A. Haines, 09 Jul 2008 Although titled "Irreligion", this book might is better typified by "Irrational". Paulos lines out the litany of weary old argumentsin support of the deity now dominating Western society. Reading them simple, straightforward format, they seem more like excuses than arguments. There are a dozen of them, the Classical, the Subjective & the Psyche-Mathematical. Each has been addressed many times, of course, but Paulos' particular style of wit seems to breathe a new, if transient, life into them. Paulos' examination of each proposal is incisive & devastating, relying on a combination of a mathematician's logic & a showman's delivery.
In his Preface, Paulos states his skepticism emerged at an early age. He hasn't let it rest, working it to confront numerous situations. He early recognised the unanimity of things, which made him feel part of everything. Instead of attributing the universal relationship of matter to the supernatural, he turned instead to wondering why others did. In so doing he's accumulated a number of assertions purportedly supporting the notion of a deity. Each sets a condition, proposes an absurd - if frequently forwarded - supportive supposition to reach an unwarranted conclusion. A typical classic runs:
1. The worldin general seems to evidence intention & direction
2. There must be a director behind this purpose
3. The entity directing must be a god, thereby proving its existence.
Paulos notes that the teleological argument goes back to ancient Greece, but is best typified today by William Paley's early 19th Century concept of "natural theology". That the idea remains current is a testimony to the failure of today's education or Western society's loss of a sense of logic. Paley influenced Charles Darwinin his early years, but the evidence Nature presented him on his HMS Beagle journey overturned Paley's failed assumption. Complexity means things are complex, but no designer is required, just time & opportunity. Paulos recommends a trumpet fanfare when we consider Darwin's achievement.
The author goes on to consider the remaining assertions, using logic that comes easily to a mathematician. He doesn't belabour the reader with formulae, since such arcane methods would leave one bewildered or exhausted. Instead, he laces his explanations with a wit that must be a wonderful experiencein his classroom. He spares none, taking to task the recent works attacking various forms of belief as "arrogant & overbearing". Instead, he presents his refutations of the hoary assertionsin a conversational style that can appeal to any level of reader, whether a sceptic or suffused with faith. He doesn't lash out, but presents the arguments for a deity as commonly stated, & shows their flaws without rancour.
As such, this book deserves the widest readership, perhaps starting with every minister of whatever faith permeating your local society. And he is at some pains to get his message across to his many countrymen who seem bent on "repealing the Enlightenment". If nothing else, the presence of such a threat makes this book mandatory reading - at leastin North America. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
A short logic evaluation of theist claims - By: Roland, 12 Jun 2008 This little book is a short overview about the main logical fallacies of religious deductions as "proof of god" ala Thomas Aquinas or St. Amseln.
J.A. Paulos just show several simple logical claims ridicules them like `I wish this to be true therefore God must exists' to make it very (far too) simple to understand.
The Mandelbrot set for example: instead just a short verbal mentioning it could be displayed as very simple algorithm & then display pictures of wonderful & amazingly complex structures which can be produced with this simple formula. This might show more how complexity can be `created' from very simple things.
A couple of ideas are taken from Richard Dawkins `The God delusion' & some own evaluations about mathematically probabilities with some anecdotes & that's it.
Too superficial for my taste, J.A. Paulos could dig much more into details & make logical sound refutations, but the purpose of this book seems to dumb it down enough, avoid mathematical formulas or logical syntax to make it available to a wider audience.
