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Product Review Summary: Refuting an atheist This book is a response to Sam Harris' book "Letter to a Christian Nation" which I attempted to read some time ago. I had to put the book down because I was laughing so hard. While this book is fairly slight in its tone, it does a decent job of rebutting Harris. Harris' problem is that he treated the scriptures he used in "Letter" as fundamentalists do--every word is to be taken literally. Most Christians, and those with high school level reading comprehension skills can tell that not all of the Bible is to be taken literally; figurative language is used and people speak openly of having dreams and visions, which surely aren't literal. Because of this, Harris' book is easily refuted. Zacharias speaks of how he converted from atheism to Christianity as well, and apologist Lee Strobel contributes the foreword of the book. It's not bad, but I preferred "I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist" and "What's So Great About Christianity" more.
Product Review Summary: Not what it claims to be "The End of Reason" offers itself as a book addressing the problems with Atheism directly. It mentions the fact that it is mainly a rebuttal to Sam Harris' book, but insists that it is informative regardless to this reference. This claim could not be more wrong.
The book is nothing but an angry response to Sam Harris' letter. It is riddled with poorly phrased attacks, and arguments that simply fall short of making any sort of a serious point.
If you're a Christian, I wouldn't recommend this book on account of its blatant hypocrisy in charging Harris with intolerance and hateful words, then with Zacharias doing the exact same thing to Atheism.
If you're an Atheist, don't waste the few hours it will take to read this book.
Product Review Summary: Short and sweet response to Harris. Agreeing with other reviewers I was a bit put off with Ravi's example of a mother committing suicide over her son's rejection of the family faith (see foreward). In this hypothetical illustration Ravi is appealing to the reader's emotions just as Harris often does. St. Augustine's Confessions gives a more accurate and true account of how a Christian mother operates in response to a pagan son who rejects her faith. After careful thought, however, Ravi's hypothetical situation is most likely true in a certain context. A Jewish, Muslim or Christian mother would very likely kill herself as a result of her son rejecting her beliefs if she indeed held her religion as her savior and idol. If family tradition and religion are the end all be all of someone's existence then yes, not only would a mother kill herself if her son rejected the family faith but it would be the logical outworking of her broken faith to kill herself. I wish Ravi would have gone into detail explaining this illustration because, as it is, the argument is very weak and trite to the atheist reader. The illustration of the mother's suicide does nothing more than reinforce the evil's of religion to the atheist reader who would not understand the difference between a mother who places her faith in Jesus and a mother who places her faith in religion and tradition.
The meat of the book, the actual letter itself, is quite solid in dismantling the illogic of atheism. It's almost too easy for Ravi to dismantle atheism as he's been doing it for years. The book comes off as Ravi slicing a knife through room temperature butter. Thus the book is short and sweet. I would encourage the atheist reader that considers Ravi's argument weak to examine the philosophical foundation and implications of their non belief. The End of Reason is a good starting point in addressing philosophical inconsistencies within an atheistic frame work.
Product Review Summary: Responding to atheists Ravi Zacharias is not the sort of person to shrink back when someone is propounding anti-Christian views in a public forum, and this short book is a fine example of his argumentative style. The book is written as a letter to America in response to Sam Harris's atheistic diatribe Letter to a Christian Nation.
As a defender of the Christian faith, Zacharias has an interesting background. He was born in India, with ancestors who were priests from the highest caste of Hinduism. He found religion to be a bore, and lived as a practical atheist, but came to believe that a world birthed by accident, a life without purpose, and morality without a point of reference, lead to a heartless, pointless and hollow existence. After a failed suicide attempt he read the Bible and trusted the Christ of the Scriptures.
The book discusses and responds to numerous different arguments made by Sam Harris and his fellow atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens against religious belief and Christianity in particular. One thing which stands out is the emotional manner in which the "new atheists" make their arguments. If their atheistic beliefs really are based solely on reason, why is there so much anger and emotional antagonism behind the way in which those beliefs are expressed? And why do people who claim to be scientists assert as scientific facts propositions which cannot be established by scientific evidence?
Product Review Summary: Reason Requires Theism The air is thick with tension and angry rants. I'm discussing the epistemic necessities of reason, with a caustic atheist, during a one-on-one conversation, on the heels of reading Ravi Zacharias' book on the argument from Reason (obviously not all the new atheists are acerbic and pugnacious). Yes, I'm a Christian apologist trained to engage unbelief with careful analysis and sound arguments. One of my primary tactics is to demonstrate the untenable position of atheism's use of reason. One needs a resource that helps constrain atheistic fury while refuting their epistemic base. And this little book by Zacharias furnishes plenty of critical questions that exploit the flaws of atheism's epistemic ground in a congenial manner.
The author describes the numerous suicides among unbelieving university students (p. 16) and he proves that "atheism is bankrupt" (p. 17). He employs numerous humorous stories and powerful passionate philosophical inquiries and arguments. This international lecturer contends that the new atheists advocate "outdated, overused arguments" (p. 21).
Notable aspects of this volume are:
- The Forward is by Lee Strobel
- Michael Ruse is quoted as saying that the new atheists make him "embarrassed to be an atheist" (p. 22)
- Zacharias vehemently attacks the irrational notion that "reason comes from non-reason"
Additionally he:
- Deconstructs and confutes the argument against God from evil (p. 51)
- Discusses modern genetics and the need of theism
- Furnishes a form of a verificationist proof (almost cumulative formulation) and provides an explanation for the existence of God.
In this approach he contends that theism is true utilizing:
- Logical consistency
- Empirical adequacy
- Experiential relevance (p. 117).
The author may not extend indisputable or undeniable evidence for theism (I personally prefer certain and necessary proof from a priori essentials), but he does deliver a very enjoyable, capable, and profound evaluation of the new atheism's lack of epistemic capacity to account for reason.
Letter to an Atheist Nation: Presupositional Apologetics Responds To: Letter to a Christian
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