Atheism: The Case Against God - George H. Smith

[GrandizerII]

Has anyone read this book? I'm halfway through finally, and it's actually not bad from a philosophical angle. If you thought Hitchens' "God is not Great", Dawkins' "The God Delusion", and Harris' "The End of Faith" were rather unfulfilling in this respect, give this book a read. Though a little outdated now and not in tune with the latest discoveries of modern science, and though Smith is very aggressively anti-theist, he nevertheless takes the arguments made by theists seriously and provides precise and perhaps very pedantic counters to the arguments (without going over the top with flowery language). It's not the most entertaining read, though, but it's got value.

[Belacqua]

Has anyone read this book? I'm halfway through finally, and it's actually not bad from a philosophical angle. If you thought Hitchens' "God is not Great", Dawkins' "The God Delusion", and Harris' "The End of Faith" were rather unfulfilling in this respect, give this book a read. Though a little outdated now and not in tune with the latest discoveries of modern science, and though Smith is very aggressively anti-theist, he nevertheless takes the arguments made by theists seriously and provides precise and perhaps very pedantic counters to the arguments (without going over the top with flowery language). It's not the most entertaining read, though, but it's got value.

I'm quite sure that no one here would stoop to using the popular academic piracy site Library Genesis to download this book instantly for free. 

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Link removed.

I look forward to skimming it later today.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Has anyone read this book? I'm halfway through finally, and it's actually not bad from a philosophical angle. If you thought Hitchens' "God is not Great", Dawkins' "The God Delusion", and Harris' "The End of Faith" were rather unfulfilling in this respect, give this book a read. Though a little outdated now and not in tune with the latest discoveries of modern science, and though Smith is very aggressively anti-theist, he nevertheless takes the arguments made by theists seriously and provides precise and perhaps very pedantic counters to the arguments (without going over the top with flowery language). It's not the most entertaining read, though, but it's got value.

I'm quite sure that no one here would stoop to using the popular academic piracy site Library Genesis to download this book instantly for free. 

Administrator Notice
Link removed.

I look forward to skimming it later today.

I won't use LibGen and I'm frankly a little surprised that you would.

Boru

[Belacqua]

Has anyone read this book? I'm halfway through finally, and it's actually not bad from a philosophical angle. If you thought Hitchens' "God is not Great", Dawkins' "The God Delusion", and Harris' "The End of Faith" were rather unfulfilling in this respect, give this book a read. Though a little outdated now and not in tune with the latest discoveries of modern science, and though Smith is very aggressively anti-theist, he nevertheless takes the arguments made by theists seriously and provides precise and perhaps very pedantic counters to the arguments (without going over the top with flowery language). It's not the most entertaining read, though, but it's got value.

Here's a review of the book by another philosopher of religion, who is also atheist, who has also published books arguing for atheism. 

https://infidels.org/library/modern/mich...smith.html

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I won't use LibGen and I'm frankly a little surprised that you would.

Boru

I was pleased to see that three different people uploaded my book to LibGen. It is a solid vote that they consider it to be worth reading, and ensures it will be available to everyone who wants it. 


Writers of specialized nonfiction don't do it for the money.

[GrandizerII]

Yeah, it's unfortunate he's a big fan of Ayn Rand, and you see a hint of that in the book. It's also disappointing that he doesn't address the ontological arguments (if what I just read in the review is correct, since I haven't finished the whole book yet), but still the book is more respectful of philosophy than any of the books written by Dawkins, Hitchens, Krauss,

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From the review:

The argument proposing to show the incompatibility of omnipotence and omniscience is not obviously valid either. First of all, it is not clear in what sense it is logically possible to change the future. So, if God could not change the future this would hardly be a limitation of His power. But even if it was logically possible in some sense to change the future, it is unclear why this would mean that God could not know the future. Suppose that it is possible to change the future by some action A. Suppose that this means merely that if action A were to be done now, some true proposition P about the future would be false and action A could be done now. Clearly I could know a certain proposition about the future, e.g., that I will be alive one minute from now, and yet it is possible that I could change the future in the above sense by an act of suicide. If this is possible for a mere mortal, it is certainly possible for God.

Yeah, sorry, but this doesn't seem right to me. A human being cannot know (in an infallible sense) whether they will be alive a minute from now or no. You can intuit that you will be alive, but that's not really the same as knowing (in the infallible sense).

[Belacqua]

The argument proposing to show the incompatibility of omnipotence and omniscience is not obviously valid either. First of all, it is not clear in what sense it is logically possible to change the future. So, if God could not change the future this would hardly be a limitation of His power. But even if it was logically possible in some sense to change the future, it is unclear why this would mean that God could not know the future. Suppose that it is possible to change the future by some action A. Suppose that this means merely that if action A were to be done now, some true proposition P about the future would be false and action A could be done now. Clearly I could know a certain proposition about the future, e.g., that I will be alive one minute from now, and yet it is possible that I could change the future in the above sense by an act of suicide. If this is possible for a mere mortal, it is certainly possible for God.

Yeah, sorry, but this doesn't seem right to me. A human being cannot know (in an infallible sense) whether he will be alive a minute from now or no. You can intuit that you will be alive, but that's not really the same as knowing (in the infallible sense).

Well, he's discussing what it would be like to know the future. He's aware that we can't. 

So he says "suppose we were able to know that, given all the events in the universe so far, we will be alive a minute from now. We could still change that known future by committing suicide now." 

This means that if we were creatures who knew in detail what future the events in the world so far were pointing to, we could still change that by doing something now that prevents that future. 

I don't know if that's a good argument or not, but I'm pretty sure that's what he means. He knows that we don't actually know we'll be alive in a minute.

[GrandizerII]

Yeah, sorry, but this doesn't seem right to me. A human being cannot know (in an infallible sense) whether he will be alive a minute from now or no. You can intuit that you will be alive, but that's not really the same as knowing (in the infallible sense).

Well, he's discussing what it would be like to know the future. He's aware that we can't. 

So he says "suppose we were able to know that, given all the events in the universe so far, we will be alive a minute from now. We could still change that known future by committing suicide now." 

This means that if we were creatures who knew in detail what future the events in the world so far were pointing to, we could still change that by doing something now that prevents that future. 

I don't know if that's a good argument or not, but I'm pretty sure that's what he means. He knows that we don't actually know we'll be alive in a minute.

Either way, it doesn't sound right. If you really know X will happen, and it ended up not happening, did you really know?

[Belacqua]

Well, he's discussing what it would be like to know the future. He's aware that we can't. 

So he says "suppose we were able to know that, given all the events in the universe so far, we will be alive a minute from now. We could still change that known future by committing suicide now." 

This means that if we were creatures who knew in detail what future the events in the world so far were pointing to, we could still change that by doing something now that prevents that future. 

I don't know if that's a good argument or not, but I'm pretty sure that's what he means. He knows that we don't actually know we'll be alive in a minute.

Either way, it doesn't sound right. If you really know X will happen, and it ended up not happening, did you really know?

Like you could say that, given everything in the universe that has happened so far, war with China is going to begin tomorrow. 

If you knew that, you could take some action that would prevent it. 

Or if I could see that all past contingencies point to me getting in a bus accident on Tuesday, I could just stay home on Tuesday and avoid it.

[GrandizerII]

Either way, it doesn't sound right. If you really know X will happen, and it ended up not happening, did you really know?

Like you could say that, given everything in the universe that has happened so far, war with China is going to begin tomorrow. 

If you knew that, you could take some action that would prevent it. 

Or if I could see that all past contingencies point to me getting in a bus accident on Tuesday, I could just stay home on Tuesday and avoid it.

Wouldn't that be soundly predicting as opposed to infallibly knowing?

And besides, if all past contingencies point to X, then they inevitably point to X.

[Belacqua]

And besides, if all past contingencies point to X, then they inevitably point to X.

If all past contingencies SO FAR point to X, and you know exactly what their results will be, you can add a new event that changes things. 

So in a sense it's knowing two futures: the future with X that will definitely happen if you don't do the thing, and the future without X that you can create. 

So for example we can't know for sure the results of the 2020 election. But if you could see in your crystal ball that Trump will win (and all the contingencies that lead to that result) you could introduce a new event that prevents that future.