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gijs's review against another edition
5.0
4,5 stars; This was a pleasant surprise; its publication came a bit late (2013), in the waning years of the 'new-atheism' (or pro-science or anti-anti-science) revival starting in the mid 2000's (see Sam Harris' 'The end of faith' 2004, Richard Dawkins' ‘The God delusion' 2006 and Christopher Hitchens' ‘god is not great' 2007), but very effectively rams home the point of the absolute necessity of having and maintaining the open, adaptable mindset, as opposed to the restrictive and harmful 'doxastic closure' so typical of any faith based epistemology.
The book in one sentence: "Faith is a failed epistemology."
The book in one sentence: "Faith is a failed epistemology."
aueltschy's review against another edition
3.0
A very worthy goal, to increase the reliabilty of people's epistimology, but I found his writing lacking. While having good ideas, he sometimes will alternate from dry word-salad not saying very much to engaging descriptions of (perhaps inaccurately remembered) dialogues.
Overall, it is worth reading, but I wouldn't suggest it bump others off your to-read list.
Overall, it is worth reading, but I wouldn't suggest it bump others off your to-read list.
dr_oligo's review against another edition
3.0
Still trying to formulate my opinion. Largely well written and cogent but I'm not sure I like his world.
erik_gamlem's review against another edition
1.0
As an atheist, trying to talk people out of god is like trying to teach people how to unlearn riding a bike. It also forces people to believe that Atheism is only about the absence of a belief in god (or anything else). Modern Atheist thought like this is just as detrimental to Atheism as Mahler and Dawkins racism. Atheism is best described as the ideology that embraces not knowing shit, being shaky on what we do know, and not accepting any idea or concept without proof or evidence. Atheism doesn't believe or disbelieve in anything and as far as God and heaven and Nirvana and all that shit, I don't know, there's no evidence and logically that shit doesn't seem to fit into the order of things based on what we do know. But I don't want to talk people out of God, I want to talk them into thinking logically, show them why faith and belief is so dangerous and that not knowing shit is okay. I'm tired of modern atheism as an Atheist. I wish Douglas Adams was here to see this day.
bootman's review against another edition
5.0
Great book, but I’m still not sold on religion in America being the epidemic they say it is. As always though, he has great tips for engaging in tough conversations.
glitterbomb47's review against another edition
3.0
Some thought-provoking content but I hated his evangelical approach, which he admitted he was hypocritical about.
reasonpassion's review against another edition
5.0
Let's start with what this book isn't. This "Manual" is not about creating atheists, as if atheism was in any way a legitimate identity, which it isn't. Atheism is simply one answer to a singular question and the nuances of both the question and the answer are myriad. So then, once one gets past the hyperbolic title, what is it exactly? Boghossian makes a much-needed and interestingly controversial next step in the public dialogue concerning religion and its role in living. Notably, the attempt is not made to remove religion per se, indeed Boghossian is at pains to tell people not to attempt attacking religion. Not only is religion a social construction that has much more to it than a view of the world, people are simply not moved by facts to change their opinions. This latter is likely what tends to grate people, amusingly on both sides of the faith debate. Those on the pro-faith side aren't likely to appreciate being told that facts have little to do with their belief structure and those on the pro-reason side aren't likely to appreciate that their often ego-laden tactic of bombarding people with facts isn't going to work. Being someone who was once a fervent faith-believer, I can personally attest to the utter lack of power facts have in changing an opinion away from faith. That's because, and this is the truly great contribution Boghossian has made, faith is a means of understanding the world, it is a grounding epistemic system that, like reason and science, is used to organize facts. The initial attempt in the book is to make this point glaringly obvious for all those blindly assuming faith is no different than hope or trust. It is. Boghossian speaks as one who has attempted to understand the thinking of those involved in religion and succeeded, rather than merely look at them as an enemy or stupid. The result is a call to raise the level of discussion, expand the understanding of how people come to view facts, and call for an engagement concerned with helping people learn to appreciate the uncertain universe in which we all live. This means utilizing the publicly shareable epistemic means of reason, rather than pretending to know what one does not know.
lenzen's review against another edition
4.0
This book is a must read for atheists or really anyone who is rationally minded and interested in studying what, practically, is required in reaching people with different views on important subjects. Boghossian emphasizes the interpersonal aspects involved such as making the discussion one where there is mutual respect and exploration and where you go in ready to learn and open to the possibility that you may be the one shown to have unwarranted beliefs. The emphasize in Boghossian's approach is "how do you know?"
Boghossian emphasizes that progress with anyone of fundamentally different beliefs will almost always be slow and will often include retrograde steps along the way.
In some sense Boghossian's will be a "softer" approach than most atheists have probably employed. My guess is that the typical atheist's approach is trying to explain to a believer that their beliefs make no logical sense and then throwing their hands up when the believer "doesn't get it". Although much of Boghossian's approach is, indeed, "softer" he does emphasize that one should often avoid "soft" language where it is not called for and would be harmful, e.g. "excuse me for questioning you on this" since this implies there is some reason why asking questions about someone's religious beliefs should be considered taboo.
Boghossian's name for his approach is "Street Epistemology" and it has started to gain a decent following. There are now many videos on YouTube showing the approach in action and there is a growing community. There are also indications that faith leaders are worried about its efficacy.
Overall I would rate the book as the best investment an atheist can make given the small amount time required to read it. On the downside the book is not as self-contained as I would like. Much reading outside the book is required and many nuggets are in the footnotes (typically skipped but don't with this book!) It would also have been nice to include more chapters on common arguments you will hear from believers. For example believers do not think they believe things with insufficient evidence. Rather they believe that their evidence is revealed to them personally in a manner that, by design, would not convince others (since the others would then not require their own faith: something God wants). Examples would be things which believers feel happen to them that seem like a series of improbable coincidences. It would be good if Boghossian included some more material on how humans have biases to see patterns where none exist and tend to downplay the role of coincidence in general.
Another aspect I felt the book, likely due to its short length, came up somewhat short on was providing motivation of why you want to change someone's beliefs. There is discussion of the political harm that faith beliefs have, but it needs to go beyond this. Given a non-political, peaceful, seemingly happy believer how sure are you that dislodging them of false beliefs will make their lives better compared to having beliefs which are mystically based? In practice, it seems, although most people in the United States are theists it is unclear that this has much of an impact on day to day decisions that they make. The book could use some further exposition here.
Boghossian emphasizes that progress with anyone of fundamentally different beliefs will almost always be slow and will often include retrograde steps along the way.
In some sense Boghossian's will be a "softer" approach than most atheists have probably employed. My guess is that the typical atheist's approach is trying to explain to a believer that their beliefs make no logical sense and then throwing their hands up when the believer "doesn't get it". Although much of Boghossian's approach is, indeed, "softer" he does emphasize that one should often avoid "soft" language where it is not called for and would be harmful, e.g. "excuse me for questioning you on this" since this implies there is some reason why asking questions about someone's religious beliefs should be considered taboo.
Boghossian's name for his approach is "Street Epistemology" and it has started to gain a decent following. There are now many videos on YouTube showing the approach in action and there is a growing community. There are also indications that faith leaders are worried about its efficacy.
Overall I would rate the book as the best investment an atheist can make given the small amount time required to read it. On the downside the book is not as self-contained as I would like. Much reading outside the book is required and many nuggets are in the footnotes (typically skipped but don't with this book!) It would also have been nice to include more chapters on common arguments you will hear from believers. For example believers do not think they believe things with insufficient evidence. Rather they believe that their evidence is revealed to them personally in a manner that, by design, would not convince others (since the others would then not require their own faith: something God wants). Examples would be things which believers feel happen to them that seem like a series of improbable coincidences. It would be good if Boghossian included some more material on how humans have biases to see patterns where none exist and tend to downplay the role of coincidence in general.
Another aspect I felt the book, likely due to its short length, came up somewhat short on was providing motivation of why you want to change someone's beliefs. There is discussion of the political harm that faith beliefs have, but it needs to go beyond this. Given a non-political, peaceful, seemingly happy believer how sure are you that dislodging them of false beliefs will make their lives better compared to having beliefs which are mystically based? In practice, it seems, although most people in the United States are theists it is unclear that this has much of an impact on day to day decisions that they make. The book could use some further exposition here.
beatsbybeard's review against another edition
3.0
The distillation of this book is how to engage people in a line of questioning based on "How do you know?" Boghossian provides strategies to help "Street Epistemologists" to disabuse people of their faith, which he defines as "pretending to know something that one does not know." He targets the method by which people arrive at empirical claims, specifically in terms of how faith is a worse method for doing so than reason and rational inquiry. Rather than criticizing individual claims that the faithful arrive at, he focuses on the process of how they got there.
I wasn't a huge fan of Boghossian's writing style. It's clear, but the way he talks about the faithful is sometimes too clinical, too sterile. However, he gets a lot of things right – particularly about the academic left and the perils of multiculturalism, the conflation of criticism of ideas with criticism of individuals, and specific arguments from apologists that don't hold up. He spins a few bizarre paragraphs on feminism that I didn't agree with, but overall, it's a solid enough read.
I wasn't a huge fan of Boghossian's writing style. It's clear, but the way he talks about the faithful is sometimes too clinical, too sterile. However, he gets a lot of things right – particularly about the academic left and the perils of multiculturalism, the conflation of criticism of ideas with criticism of individuals, and specific arguments from apologists that don't hold up. He spins a few bizarre paragraphs on feminism that I didn't agree with, but overall, it's a solid enough read.
bisthesu's review against another edition
5.0
Espouses fact and evidence-based thinking with calm and direct questioning. Excellent read.