The Irrational Atheist

The Irrational Atheist

infobox Book


caption =
author = Vox Day
name = The Irrational Atheist
country = United States
language = English
subject = Atheism
genre = Religion
publisher = Benbella Books
release_date = 2008
media_type = Hardcover, Paperback, E-book
isbn = ISBN-13: 978-1933771366
preceded_by = The Wrath of Angels

"The Irrational Atheist: Dissecting the Unholy Trinity of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens" is a 2008 book by American writer and technology entrepreneur Vox Day,a weekly columnist on WorldNetDaily and member of the SFWA, MENSA and IGDA.

Vox addresses the anti religious arguments advanced by authors like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and cite web ">url=http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1121/p09s01-coop.html | publisher= The Christian Science Monitor| title= Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history |accessdate= 3 August| accessyear= 2008 | date = August 3, 2008 ] Building on D'Souza's position, Vox has a sweeping looks at the average behaviour of Christian leaders since the dawning of Christendom and compares with the track records of the 89 known atheist leaders. He finds that over half of these leaders have committed acts of mass atrocity, so for atheist leaders mass murder is typical behaviour whereas for Christian leaders it is exceptionally rare. Vox adds that extending his analyses to Islamic and Pagan religious leaders doesn't significantly aid the atheist case. "The Irrational Atheist" has been ranked #65 on the url=http://irrationalatheist.com/downloads.html | publisher= Vox Day| title= The Irrational Atheist Download page |accessdate= 3 August| accessyear= 2008 | date = August 3, 2008 ]

Background

Vox had argued against what he sees as atheist propaganda for some years on his Worldnet column and his personal blog. On noting reports that some readers had lost their faith after reading the New Atheists, Vox decided to publish a book to tackle atheists on their own ground, with logic and evidence.

Richard Dawkins , Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, had already been labelled "The Unholy Trinity" by Robert Weitzel [cite news |first=Robert |last=Weitzel |title=Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris: The Unholy Trinity... Thank God. |work=Atlantic Free Press |url=http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/2112/1/ |accessdate=2007-09-14] and Vox used this catchy phrase for the book's title.

ynopsis

The book contains sixteen chapters. The first is a general polemic against militant atheism. The penultimate chapter presents a novel solution to the problem of evil where Vox compares God to a computer game designer and the last Anticipates the future prospects for militant atheism. The remaining chapters mostly deal with the arguments of specific atheists or discuss hotly debated topics such as how sure can we be whether there is a God, or to what extent is religion harmful or beneficial to society. There is some overlap, with the key topics being:

* The arguments of Richard Dawkins
* The arguments of Sam Harris
* The arguments of Christopher Hitchens
* The arguments of Daniel Dennett
* The arguments of Michel Onfray
* The danger of uncritical acceptance of what scientists says
* Religion is very rarely a cause of war
* Atheism causes far more oppression than religion.
* A strong rational case can be made that God exists There is also an appendix containing a mock Socratic Dialogue which Vox considers exposes the rhetorical traps that Socrates used to dishonestly fabricate the Euthyphro Dilemma.

Critical reception

"The Irrational Atheist" has been endorsed by numerous Christian organizations and by reviewers from organizations such as "Investigate Magazine". [IAN WISHART, [http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2008/02/the-irrational.html "The Irrational Atheist - Review,"] The Briefing Room, Investigate Magazine, February 3, 2008] The book was named a 2007 Christmas recommendation by "National Review Online". [http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjI4NGI0ZGI3M2RkOWMxZDZkZmRlOThlOGEwNTgxZDU= "Christmas Shopping 2007"] "National Review Online"]

The Rational Response Squad has issued several rebuttals to the book. [cite web|url=http://www.rationalresponders.com/vox_response_1|title=It's ON!|accessdate=2008-09-29] [cite web|url=http://www.rationalresponders.com/vox_response1|title=Response to Vox|accessdate=2008-09-29] [cite web|url=http://www.rationalresponders.com/vox_day_1|accessdate=2008-09-29|title=Vox Day - "There is no god. Because I'm an asshole."] [cite web|url=http://www.rationalresponders.com/vox_chapter_2|accessdate=2008-09-29|title=The (ir)Rational Atheist--More Vox Day] [cite web|url=http://www.rationalresponders.com/crossexam|accessdate=2008-09-29|title=The Second Cross-Examination]

ee also

*Criticism of atheism
*Criticism of religion
*Ontological argument

*Morality#Religiosity_and_morality
*Happiness#Religious_and_spiritual_views

References

Interviews

* [http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59905 Irrational Atheist trounces God-deniers] interview with WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah January 28 2008

Further reading

Chronological order of publication (oldest first)
* Alister McGrath: "The Dawkins Delusion", February 15 2007

* Scott Hahn: [http://www.amazon.com/Answering-New-Atheism-Dismantling-Dawkins/dp/1931018480/?tag=scfdm-20 "Answering the New Atheism: Dismantling Dawkins' Case Against God"] , 2008

External links

* [http://www.amazon.com/Irrational-Atheist-Dissecting-Trinity-Hitchens/dp/1933771364 Amazon page for "The Irrational Atheist"]
* [http://irrationalatheist.com/forum/index.php Discussion forum for "The Irrational Atheist"]
* [http://irrationalatheist.com/downloads.html Download page] for both free and paid e-book versions of "The Irrational Atheist"


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