/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.12384741]

Is this shit as pretentious as people make it out to be? Why does /lit/ hate it?

[Anonymous No.12384745]

>>12384741
open it up and look yourself. even atheists cringe.

[Anonymous No.12384748]

>>12384741
It's pretty badly written.

>Why does /lit/ hate it?
Embarrassment because it makes people remember being smug atheists in their youth.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.12384790]

>>12384741
It's actually not that bad

[Anonymous No.12384799]

>>12384741
I'm an atheist and I have never read it and I never will because of pic related.
a book that makes you that much of a reddit edgelord cant be good in any way

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.12384804]

>>12384790
I only read The Greatest Show On Earth
Read the Hutchins piece, God is Not Great

>>12384741
Only the plebs. A loud and obnoxious subset unfortunately

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.12384828]

>>12384799
I think this guy is parodying the meme

And that’s a trilby

[Anonymous No.12384866]

>>12384828
no this guy is 100% unironic
seriously go look him up

[Anonymous No.12385179]

>>12384741
read it 2 times. Was not bad. Just read some chapters one some online pdf

[Anonymous No.12385208]

>>12384741
Nothing wrong with the book. lit hates it because they like to pretend they are a christian board

[Anonymous No.12385212]

>>12384741
I wouldn't call it pretentious, the writing is not intelligent enough for that. The book is just mid-wit hubris in physical form.

>Why does /lit/ hate it?
/lit/ is a Catholic board.

[Anonymous No.12385218]

>>12384799
>>12384828
https://twitter.com/LucasTheMagnif
BRO

[Anonymous No.12385240]

>>12385218
holy fucking yikes

[Anonymous No.12385244]

>>12384741
I remember reading it years ago. I stopped halfway because I didn't like the particular argument he was making in a chapter and so I never read the rest. (I don't recognize or worship any god btw.) Pic related is even more pretentious IMO. I couldn't get past the prose from the start.

[Anonymous No.12385250]

>>12385218
>>12385240
this has to be a parody account

[Anonymous No.12385294]

>>12385250
>https://twitter.com/LucasTheMagnif

100% has to be a parody account, very clever and well done too

[Anonymous No.12385313]

>Be a good scientist and make some new theories
Really cool
>Become a pop scientist and devalue yourself
As long as it helps spreading scientific thought... good I guess
>Actively criticize religion because some dumb creationists disliked your work
He is on his right to do so
>Go full autist using your pop fame as a tool for your cringy atheist crussade devaluing yourself in a topic that was never really your field
yikes

[Anonymous No.12385345]

>>12385313
Good Quality

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.12385347]

>>12385313
Ridiculous

[Anonymous No.12385408]

>>12385250
It has to be a joke, but 4 years is a lot of time dedication

[Anonymous No.12385418]

>>12384741
As ex-atheist, I'd say it has some value in being babbys first book into mystery of God, babbys first theology.

[Anonymous No.12385488]

>>12384790
No it’s pretty bad. It has some alright critiques of American- style Christian fundamentalism but everybody already knows that’s retarded so the book wasn’t necessary in that regard. The rest of the work shows a pretty weak understanding of mainstream Christian theology. His absolute worst moments are his “refutations” of divine simplicity. This was a really big topic of debate during the medieval era and there are a lot of arguments from Avicenna or Scotus he could have gone after. Instead he just asserts that God can’t be simple because he knows a lot of stuff and knowing s lot of stuff would require, like, a really big and complex brain.
The whole book operates under the assumption that God is some quasi- physical being who operates according to physical laws. It’s true that some theists think of God in this way, but some don’t. You can’t really claim to have disproven the concept of God if you’ve only address the opinions of half the people who claim he exists. He doesn’t even touch the classical understanding of God, which is a huge oversight considering this understanding is still popular in universities and among Catholics and high church Anglicans, who constitute over half of all Christians.

[Anonymous No.12385502]

>>12384866
He's a victim of the meme.

[Anonymous No.12385507]

>>12384741
It is a book for nobody. If you are an atheist it is just reinforcing beliefs you alread had. If you are a Christian you won't read it. If you are on the fence you might be convinced, I guess, but you weren't very good at being religious to begin with, weren't you?

>>12384748
>Embarrassment because it makes people remember being smug atheists in their youth.
this desu

[Anonymous No.12385550]

>>12384741

it's idiotic "durr I'm so rational because I believe in secularism which is what everyone in society on average believes anyways unlike all those religious sheeple"

like ya duh christfags are dumb too wow people are dumb checkmate christfags

anyone stupid enough to think the arguments in this book are good is invariably an insufferably smug pseudointellectual reddit-positivist

[Anonymous No.12386157]

>>12385488
>You can’t really claim to have disproven the concept of God
Why would anyone even need to do that? The issue with this kind of books is that they legitimate theists and their idiotic beliefs. The burden of proof is on the one who claims; it's the theists who have to work hard and "prove" the existence of their alleged God (good luck with that). When a supposed scientist like Dawkins starts to refute the retarded "arguments" put forward by theists, they only feel emboldened; they're grateful for the attention; they can pretend that they're having a serious discussion on something that actually matters, they can pretend that they have opponents who take seriously their deranged "proofs". The best cure for theism is just to ignore it instead of wasting time arguing with overgrown children.

[Anonymous No.12386183]

>>12386157
Cool

[Anonymous No.12386428]

>>12386157
Cringe

[Anonymous No.12386479]

>>12386157

No it's not up to anyone to prove anything to you. Others have faith and something that reinforces solidarity, and you're trying to measure the ether with a ruler. Using your metrics for something that by definition, cannot be quantified.

Fuck off you little pop sci autistic, because I guarantee you'll call me a racist if I start talking about racial IQ and gender, other things that are now taboo in your gay little religion.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.12387694]

>>12384741
It's pretty bad. He gives some really half-assed responses to the classic arguments for god. His response to the ontological argument is basically "lol that sounds weird."

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.12387700]

>>12387694
If you can’t even give the example, stfu mothfaux

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.12387712]

>>12387700
I don't know how much more specific I can be. I'm not dredging up my old ebook edition and finding the page number where he talks about aquinas' arguments for god

[Anonymous No.12387749]

>>12387700
He strawmans every famous cosmological argument by assuming they hold "everything must have a cause" which leads Dawkins to believe asking "but what created God" is an intelligible response. There's quite a few problem with his understanding of philosophy but my absolute favorite is this gem:

>"I've forgotten the details, but I once piqued a gathering of theologians and philosophers by adapting the ontological argument to prove that pigs can fly. They felt the need to resort to Modal Logic to prove that I was wrong" ( God Delusion , p. 84).

I would love to see what his argument actually looked like but what makes this so funny is that his attempt to adapt the ontological argument to prove pigs can fly is an act of modal logic. He's engaging in the thing he's criticizing others for. I don't know how his editors let this get printed but he must have been a real cunt to work with.

[Anonymous No.12387846]

>>12387749
>I made a stupid argument
>they resorted to logic to prove me wrong
Yeah, I still have no idea how the editor let that slip through. Hated working with him and let him make a fool of himself?

[Anonymous No.12388687]

>>12387694
Why are you namefagging?

[Anonymous No.12388700]

>>12387700
You couldn’t give an example the other day of which 19th century thinkers supposedly refuted Plato. Looks like you can add “hypocrisy” to your long list of faults.

[Anonymous No.12388786]

>>12386157

Well no, not really, a cursory study of our historical understanding of causation shows understanding there to be no God isn't the default position. I don't mean God as in a kind of entity, an accidental being or a being to which the perfections are accidents, I mean the wellspring of being itself.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.12389033]

>>12387749
Thanks. Now we can laugh at the philosophers

>>12388687
He wants o make me look bad or something

>>12388700
It was kind of obvious who I meant. Are you implying there is no other philosophers who contend with/refute Platonism?

[Anonymous No.12389535]

No it’s actually pretty good.
It’s strictly scientific and gives a large number of evidence and scientific speculation over spiritual matters which are fundamentally evil because of their maliciously built doctrines.
It’s an accurate representation of the modern era and clears ideas Which serve as the basis of our understanding as human beings.
Richard Dawkins is a fine man, and I stand behind him.