David Berlinski Supporters Are Delusional

This is a repost of an earlier blog post. I wanted to repost it because as I predicted I've been getting several illogical Christians down-voting my Amazon.com review and posting snide remarks in the comments. Please help me out by countering these imbeciles and up-vote my review. Thanks!


I bought David Berlinski's book The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions and instead of doing a thorough review on my blog I've just decided to write a brief review on Amazon.com. I've refuted other books that make much the same claims as this one so I didn't feel the need. Plus, if I had written a review it would have been a pain in the ass because he failed to cite his sources so it would have been very difficult, if not impossible in some cases, to verify his quotes and claims.

If you come across my review, and you believe it's worthy of it, please give me a favorable vote because I'm sure I'll be getting a horde of irrational, hateful Christians down-voting my review once they see it. Thanks.

David Berlinski is a well-known fellow at the infamous Discovery Institute, a group that seeks to “replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.” In the preface Berlinski claims that he is a “secular Jew” and that his “religious education did not take,” no doubt to distract readers from his obvious bias that is apparent not only throughout the text of the book itself, but also because of the ultra-religious group he is associated with, namely the Discovery Institute.

This book's aim is to answer numerous claims by the New Atheists, such as their belief that science has disproven god. I do not think for one second that Berlinski has made a good case whatsoever. In fact, in a few places he outright misconstrues scientific research and misrepresents some of the arguments of the likes of Richard Dawkins for example.

As I read the book I kept thinking to myself, “This is what happens when a non-scientist philosopher tries to critique science...” He just makes himself sound ignorant. In the second chapter he asks, “Why should a limited and finite organ such as the human brain have the power to see into the heart of matter or mathematics? These are subjects that have nothing to do with the Darwinian business of scrabbling up the greasy pole of life.” This is an absurd question and is easily answered. Even other animals are able to perform mathematic calculations, albeit not as advanced, but the ability is still there in “lower order” animals.

Berlinski tries as he might to somehow prove that the universe had a beginning and attempts to engage the scientific consensus that the universe had no beginning, or singularity, but fails to answer the argument. He simply dismisses the scientists' answers and mocks them without even considering why scientists changed their minds on the issue. He simply accuses them of being anti-religious and wanting to do whatever it takes to 'avoid' a beginning to the universe, which is nonsense. The reason is because once you rewind the Big Bang backwards in time the theory of general relativity breaks down. After this point quantum mechanics must be used to determine the universe’s behavior and once quantum physics is taken into account there is no longer any beginning. Stephen Hawking said as much about twenty years ago in his popular book 'A Brief History of Time.' He writes, “[...] I am now trying to convince other physicists that there was in fact no singularity at the beginning of the universe – as we shall see later, it can disappear once quantum effects are taken into account.”

While going through the book I jotted in the margins brief comments and rebuttals to claims I've come across (and refuted) numerous times. Most of the book spouts the same anti-science, anti-atheist arguments many atheists have heard over the years, such as the tired argument that a secular society will fall prey to immorality and destitution. This is clearly false but he neglects to address the mountain of evidence against this wrong-headed belief. Sociologist Phil Zuckerman points out this fact. He writes, “If this often-touted religious theory were correct - that turning away from god is at the root of all societal ills - then we would expect to find the least religious nations on earth to be bastions of crime, poverty and disease and most religious countries to be models of societal health. A comparison of highly irreligious countries with highly religious countries, however, reveals a very different state of affairs. In reality, the most secular countries - those with the highest proportion of atheists and agnostics - are among the most stable, peaceful, free, wealthy, and healthy societies. And the most religious nations - wherein worship of god is in abundance - are among the most unstable, violent, oppressive, poor and destitute.”

These factual and logical errors, among many, many others, can be found on almost every page of the book. Other than the poor argumentation I found Berlinski's tone to be condescending and pompous. I am well aware that some of the New Atheists are not much better by comparison but the New Atheists' views are mostly grounded on facts and established scientific principles. Berlinski's arguments are based on wild conjecture, god-of-the-gaps reasoning, and a misunderstanding and/or misconstrued views of science and history. He has no right to write the way he does. What he needs to do is learn to intelligently answer the arguments of the New Atheists and this he fails to do in spades.

Many of the things Berlinski said just made my head spin. One example is the following. He writes about Dawkins' most famous line from 'The God Delusion' referring to god and how, “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” Shockingly, Berlinski responds by saying, “These are, to my way of thinking, striking points in God's favor, but opinions, I suppose, will vary.” As I wrote in the margin of my copy the book, “WHAT!?” I'm sure more can be said about this but I don't think there is any need. Any person with their moral compass working correctly should be able to easily see the problems with this statement.

My final complaint about the book is the fact that it contains not a single footnote or bibliography. He neglects to cite his sources in most cases so it's very difficult to check the accuracy of many of his claims.

I wouldn't recommend this book if you're someone who values intelligent argumentation, or someone who has been around the block, as they say, and have heard the majority of these arguments spouted by other, more qualified, religious apologists. It's just more of the same.

For those of you who may have thought this post was another one of my well-done refutations of anti-New Atheist books I apologize. Don't worry, though. I have prepared another refutation that I'll be posting in a few weeks so keep an eye out for this new one! [This review happened to be a refutation of The 'New' Atheism: 10 Arguments That Don't Hold Water? by Michael Poole.]