What's your view on "The Irrational Atheist"?

Question

What's everyone's views on Vox Day's masterpiece "The Irrational Atheist"? It attempts to, and succeeds in, refuting the many atheist-fueled myths regarding religion. Here's the book's description:

"On one side of the argument is a collection of godless academics with doctorates from the finest universities in England, France and the United States. On the other is Irrational Atheist author Vox Day, armed with nothing more than historical and statistical facts. Presenting a compelling argument, Day strips away the pseudo-scientific pretensions of New Atheism with his intelligent application of logic, history, military science, political economy and well-documented research. The arguments of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett and MIchael Onfray are all methodically exposed and discredited as Day provides extensive evidence proving, among other things, that:

* More than 93 percent of all the wars in human history had no relation to religion

* The Spanish Inquisition had no jurisdiction over professing Jews, Muslims or atheists and executed fewer people on an annual basis than the state of Texas

* Atheists are 3.84 times more likely to be imprisoned than Christians

* "Red" state crime is primarily committed in "blue" counties

* Sexually abused girls are 55 times more likely to commit suicide than girls raised Catholic

* In the twentieth century, atheistic regimes killed three times more people in peacetime than those killed in all the wars and individual crimes combined

The Irrational Atheist provides the rational thinker with empirical proof that atheism's claims against religion are devoid of logic, fact and science."

Answer 1

Statistics have nothing to do with faith. Or with belief.



"The Irrational Atheist" sounds less like religious persuasion, and more like a very odd and ineffective anthropological exercise. No, I haven't read it. I'm sorry, but your description of it doesn't tempt me to read it, either.



Discrediting any religious views, *and/or* any form of atheism, on the basis of statistics is the work of fools. Discrediting someone else's religious opinions on the basis of *highly manipulated and misleading* statistics, such as these few from this book that you've illustrated your question with, is the work of bullies.



Bear with me for a moment, please: there is a persistent and distinct tone of ridicule in the quotes you've included. Of course, you *have* quoted the book accurately, I'm assuming. You may have noticed the belittling, ridiculing tone -- I hope you did, anyway. This kind of approach has no place whatsoever in rational, considered discussions between thinking adults. It's a shame this author has chosen this approach to such a huge and important subject. Ridicule *is* a form of bullying, in persuasive writings just as much as in daily personal interactions.



Beyond that, be very careful of factoids. NONE of the "facts" you quote from this book actually proves or disproves the existence of a god, goddess, or group of gods. And so NONE of these "facts" has anything at all to do with atheism!



All of these facts discuss the presence of religions in human populations. But if religious beliefs succeed in changing people's behavior (as they do), it's no surprise at all that there will be statistical differences between groups, based on the many religions of the many groups.



But the presence of religious belief in a group is not proof of any gods' existence. It's not DIS-proof of any gods' existence, either, of course. This book's arguments have nothing to do with much of any religious or non-religious thing, it seems.



I don't plan to read this book because I don't like any speech or writing that so thoroughly disrespects rational thinking. I prefer my persuasive-style reading to make sense, and if your synopsis is accurate, "The Irrational Atheist" just doesn't. This book certainly doesn't sound like "a masterpiece," by any standards. Sorry to disagree, but there it is.



What faith do you believe in, if any?



And yes, I'm sure we all expect LOTS of thumbs-down for this answer. And the world is full of bullies, too. :-D

Answer 2

'Soviet' is the Russian for 'council', so calling the inhabitants of the former USSR 'Soviets' was never sensible anyway. The Soviet Union no longer exists, and not all its former inhabitants were Russian. Call the country Russia and its inhabitants Russians - what's wrong with that?

Answer 3

Well....I can tell that most of it is just flat out lies. Just take the prison numbers. Atheists are 0.2 percent of the population in prison, but almost ten percent on the outside, so saying we are more likely to end up there is silly. We are less by about a factor of 50.



I'm also confused about what being sexually abused has to do with being an atheist over Catholic. I'm assuming you don't watch the news much.

Answer 4

Some of these are obvious, like Sexually abused girls are 55 times more likely to commit suicide than girls raised Catholic. No duh.



But the imprisonment one, I doubt.. I'm gonna read this and then edit my answer



EDIT: Yeah, this is a bunch oh bullshiit.



"Agnostic: I don’t believe there is a God. Because I haven’t seen the evidence.

Atheist: There is no God. Because I’m an assh*le."

If he had something of value to say, he wouldn't have to resort to petty insults.



And THEN it goes on to say that prisoners that say they have 'no religion' are atheists, that's where he got his data from. Anyone with an inkling of reason can see that no religion most likely means 'deist'.

Answer 5

Any book that refutes the juvenile and often untrue atheist arguments deserves to be on the bestseller list in my opinion.

Answer 6

I don't need that to tell me that atheism is false - there is no evidence for atheism; only unsupported big talks.