Book name: Philosophical Atheism: Counter Apologetics and Arguments for Atheism.
Rating: 2/10. Not recommended, but thought-provoking in unexpected way.
1. Introduction
A few years ago, I ran into a review written by Tim o'neill and read this statement:
At that time, I thought this statement is a bit exaggeration. But after years of observation about theist-atheist debate and meeting hundreds of self-publishing books of both sides, I realized this is fair description of current situation. There are not just numerous self-publishing books, but also these books are written by atheist and theist who actually don't know what they are talking about. In following posts, I'll examine one of those; Philosophical Atheism: Counter Apologetics and Argument for Atheism.Barely a day goes by without being reminded that the internet is revolutionising publishing. Record companies are struggling to compete with artists who can release music direct to the public, e-publishing teens are making millions selling young adult novels via Kindle and we keep hearing predictions of the death of print newspapers. Part of this revolution is the fact that e-publishing and online "print-on-demand" self-publishing services like Lulu.com and Blurb mean that anyone can be a published author. The upside of this is that worthy writers of novels, short stories or poetry that have a market but are unlikely to get a traditional publisher can find their audience. Or someone writing a technical book on an obscure subject, such as how to dress and cook a swan or construct a Tudor ruffed collar, can do the same. The downside is that now all the cranks, lunatics, crackpot theorists or ranting loons who used to clutter the net with websites preaching their fringe theses have self-published books all over Amazon.com as well. I suppose you take the good with the bad.
The book I'll discuss is written by R. N. Carmona, who runs a tumblr blog Academic Atheism and a wordpress blog Naturalistic Philosophy. Actually, most of contents of the book is just little variation of posts in those blogs. Because of that, I'll link some of those posts when it is relevant to the discussion. I hope that link make you save some money buying the book because I think it is not worth it and should not be sold to any other readers who seek genuine investigation of ultimate reality and philosophy of religion. In most cases, it's just a collection of typical atheistic responses or failed attempts and not more.
Maybe you think I'm too harsh about the book. Well, if you will follow all of my review about it, maybe you can find whether I am or not.
* Relevant link
- Philosophical Atheism: Analytic and Normative Atheism
2. General problems of the book
Let's start from general problems of the book. At first, there are three problems appeared in general which are related to references and sources of references and sources of the book.
One of those three problems is there are too many net-based references and sources in the book. This book's reference section is filled with internet articles come from apologetics site, excerpts from internet encyclopedia, news articles available in internet and even a blog post written by writer himself. As you know, these kinds of references and sources usually aren't used in not only professional work, but any works considered as serious. But if it used those references and sources only for assisting proper references and sources like academic papers, this is not much a problem. unfortunately, it didn't. For example, in chapter 3: The Moral Argument refuted, it cited philosopher William Lane Craig's response in his famous Q&A section to show what the Moral Argument is and that's all he cited. So, it uses a very short, informal net references for making important point of its discussion.
But let's give him some credit. Considering average quality of self-publishing ebook, this book has much less net references and sources than others. There are also many proper references and sources in the book. If not, I don't even review this book. And anyway, I will also use many net references and sources in this discussion. However, these don't make the fact that the book not only has too many net references and sources to considered as serious work, but also makes them do more than they can is less problematic than before. So, the problem still stands.
Another reference-related problem the book has is many of those proper references and sources are too old to use without mentioning objections and answers to it. This problem appears in both atheistic references and theistic references. For example, in chapter 5: On Qualia and a Refutation of The Argument from Conciousness, the book cited philosopher Robert Adams' The Virtue of Faith and philosopher Richard Swinburne's The Evolution of the Soul for theistic side, and cited philosopher Steve Conifer's internet article The Argument from Consciousness Refuted for atheistic side. The problem is, two of theistic reference are published before 21 century(The Virtue is published in 1987, and The Evolution is published in 1986), and one reference for atheistic side is written in 2001. This doesn't mean those old references and sources are not relevant to contemporary discussions of the topic. But it does mean there are enough discussion and debate about them to make objections to them and answers to those objections. So if you really want to talk about the topic seriously and accurately, then you must mention those objections and answers, at least briefly. But this book didn't do that. As a result, discussion of this book doesn't describe a current landscape of the topic accurately.
Those two problems lead us to the final reference-related problem of the book; in most cases, it doesn't deal with most recent and rigorous defenses of those arguments. In other words, this book mostly deals with arguments from internet articles, dated papers, and popular apologetic books, which aren't guaranteed to be relevant to contemporary, serious discussion of the topics. This is a very terrible problem to the book because it presents itself as philosophical answer to arguments for God:
But if you really want to make philosophically honest, serious answers to some arguments, then you must deal with their most strongest form. Because if not, you can easily make straw-men of those arguments and defeat them. And as you know, straw-manning is not a good method to make philosophically honest answers.Thankfully, their approach to religion isn’t the only approach available to us. There are philosophical approaches to religion. There aren’t only ways of dealing with theistic arguments, but there are ways of devising arguments for atheism. These arguments would serve to debase theistic views and establish grounds for concluding that there is no god. (Carmona,R.N.. Philosophical Atheism: Counter Apologetics and Arguments for Atheism (Kindle Locations 65-68). Kindle Edition.)
Maybe the author of the book responds to me that I misrepresent the purpose of the book. He will argue that the purpose of the book is not refuting the strongest arguments for God, but refuting the most popular arguments for God. But I don't think this response solve the problem. After all, those popular arguments are mostly just weaker form of those strongest arguments for God. In other words, they are actually straw-manned form of those arguments. So, the danger of straw-manning still stands despite of the response.
All of these reference-related problems lead us to the most crucial and serious problem of the book; It doesn't present theistic side fairly and charitably. This problem not only appears when it discussed theistic arguments and refutation of them, but also appears when it discussed its own atheistic argument. That means it not only made straw-man when he refuted theistic arguments, but also it didn't show us objections to its own atheistic arguments correctly and charitably. Actually, it's more than that. In many cases, the book didn't even show us those arguments and objections. For example, when it discussed its own atheistic arguments, it only presented one objection to only one arguments of it(it has four own atheistic arguments). And let's see how it presented that objection:
That's it. No quote, no source, and even no more explanation about the objection. We don't know who make this objection, where he/she makes this objection, and how he/she formulates this objection. What we can only know is author's interpretation of this objection. Consequently, we don't even have a chance to judge whether the book presents the objection correctly and charitably.In responding to my Argument From Cosmology, one may say that the opposite of my conclusion is as follows: the fact that an x can’t be shown to exist in relation to y doesn’t mean that x doesn’t exist; in other words, that god can’t be shown to exist in relation to the Earth doesn’t mean god doesn’t exist.(Carmona,R.N.. Philosophical Atheism: Counter Apologetics and Arguments for Atheism (Kindle Locations 2577-2580). Kindle Edition.)
To be fair, It may be just a potential objection(actually, it's not). But if that's the case, then author should have not used this objection as an example of how theists misunderstand atheistic arguments and misinterpret it:
Such an assertion is not enough to refute my argument. In fact, all one would conclude is the opposite of what one misunderstood as my conclusion.(Carmona,R.N.. Philosophical Atheism: Counter Apologetics and Arguments for Atheism (Kindle Locations 2584-2586). Kindle Edition)
Oh, what an irony, what an irony.Some apologists are quite fond of straw men, which they use to make their arguments seem superior to those of their opponents.(Carmona,R.N.. Philosophical Atheism: Counter Apologetics and Arguments for Atheism (Kindle Locations 2614-2615). Kindle Edition.)
3. Minor problems
Now, I'll discuss about some minor problems of the book. These problems aren't much problematic to the book's main purpose, but still worth noting.
First minor problem of the book is its definition of scientism. In chapter 1: Introduction, author stated:
I fully agree on criticism about New atheist's attitude to relationship between science and other disciplines, but I'm not sure what he means when he discussed 'minimal scientism'. What does it mean that "the principles of science can illuminate other disciplines"? If it means scientific principles and discoveries can give new insights and perspectives to other disciplines, then there is no need to argue that because no one will be against it. In other words, if it means like that, we are all minimal scientismists. But if it means scientific principles can be used in other disciplines, then it seems very problematic because there are many disciplines which obviously can't use scientific principles. For example, History cannot use scientific principles because its objects and properties of those objects are very different from them of science(there is more thorough and rigorous discussion about this topic in here). Philosophy is also a discipline in which many of scientific principles can't apply because it deals with much broader subject than natural sciences. So, minimal scientism seems to me either meaningless to argue or indefensible.Atheists who don’t identify with the New Atheists have criticized their anti-philosophical and maximal scientistic attitudes. There is minimal and maximal scientism. Whereas minimal scientism states that the principles of science can illuminate other disciplines, maximal scientism is the claim that science is superior to other disciplines, indeed the only way of knowing.(Carmona,R.N.. Philosophical Atheism: Counter Apologetics and Arguments for Atheism (Kindle Locations 44-47). Kindle Edition.)
Another minor problem of the book is its attempts to determine what atheism should be. In chapter 2, he discussed what atheism is and what atheism should be. During that discussion, he thought Buddhism isn't qualified as atheism:
I just don't know why it should. To me, even the attempts to determine what atheism should be seems meaningless. Anyway, author continued to discuss how atheism and Buddhism are different from each other:When considering that a Buddhist can be considered an atheist, atheism should be more than simply lack of belief in gods. To see what atheism should be or what an atheist should be, it is required that we distinguish the atheist and the Buddhist. We are required to account for their differences.(Carmona,R.N.. Philosophical Atheism: Counter Apologetics and Arguments for Atheism (Kindle Locations 252-254). Kindle Edition.)
Buddhism divides into two primary schools: Mahayana and Theravada. These two schools divide further within themselves. We therefore have to narrow our focus. In other words, we have to focus on a certain type of Buddhist to see where the differences are. Thus, we will focus on Tibetan Buddhism.
So it seems to me that difference between atheism and Buddhism is belief in the supernaturals. To the author, atheists must adopt naturalism. Again, I don't know why it should. Why just say Buddhists are also atheists, but not naturalists? It seems more commonsensical than author's assertion. But even if we accept his assertion, there is stillTibetan Buddhism pertains to Mahayana Buddhism. It incorporates tantric and shamanic aspects, the latter of which was appropriated from the ancient Tibetan religion, Bon. For this reason, it is often conflated with or mistaken for a minor school of Buddhism, Vajrayana. Tantra, for instance, brings Tibetan Buddhism a rich catalog of heavenly entities. It also introduces multifarious rituals such as mantras, mandalas, ceremonies, and different kinds of yoga. Without going any further into Tibetan Buddhism, we can ask: does an atheist, as normally construed, believe in magical elements and heavenly beings? Does she participate in rituals or believe in their efficacy? The obvious answer is no. Therefore, when someone refers to Buddhism as atheistic, they mean only to point out that Buddhism doesn’t offer a concept of god. It isn’t, however, atheistic in a normative sense.(Carmona,R.N.. Philosophical Atheism: Counter Apologetics and Arguments for Atheism (Kindle Locations 255-264). Kindle Edition.)
a problem; why are atheists naturalistic? To answer this problem, he introduced "pluralistic atheism". According to him, pluralistic atheism is atheism which uses all kind of methods to justify it. He seems to think this pluralistic atheism can make difference between atheistic religion and itself because it incorporates naturalism:
Pluralistic atheism makes some use of every method discussed above. It doesn’t favor deductive over inductive atheology or vice versa. It can and very often does incorporate naturalism into its justification. It can and does invoke fallibilism in discussions with theists.
Now this statement seems to have obvious problem; you cannot simply move from can to must. Yes, atheism can and sometimes do incorporates naturalism. That's too obvious to mention. But it doesn't mean atheism must or always incorporate naturalism. That's just another story. However, To make 'the question of natural atheism' as 'the combination of other two questions(what atheism is and what atheism should be)', atheism must or always incorporates naturalism. So if the author wanted to argue that atheism must be naturalistic, then he must have shown us why it should be. But he didn't.So given this, the question of what atheism is, is answered by what atheism should be. Since pluralism incorporates naturalism, the question of natural atheism is essentially the combination of those questions.(Carmona,R.N.. Philosophical Atheism: Counter Apologetics and Arguments for Atheism (Kindle Locations 279-282). Kindle Edition.)
Eventually, I can't see any reason why atheism should be the way this book argue for. Moreover, I think any attempts to determine what some kinds of people or some kinds of beliefs should be is meaningless because in most cases, there are no unified core properties all of them have or should have. Instead, as Wittgenstein noticed, there are very vague resemblances between their use. I don't think there are no common definitions of the concepts. I think there are. And I also think it's essential to clarify concepts when you use them, but that doesn't mean those concepts must be accepted universally or have ideal definitions which all people should follow when they use them. That's not only needless, but also impossible.
Until now, I discuss about general problems and minor nitpicks of the book. In the next post, I'll start a main discussion with the methods author used to justify atheism.
