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A review by socraticgadfly
The Happy Athiest by P.Z. Myers
1.0
Per my status update, for any non-Gnu Atheists, skeptics, agnostics, etc., who are familiar with PZ, this book is what you'd expect. Basically, it's a collection of edited blog posts.
He has good critiques of religion, and is good at things like rejecting non-overlapping magisteria, at pointing out that liberal-minded believers have the same metaphysical problems as fundamentalists, and more.
But, it's the usual PZ bombast that goes beyond snarkiness to snideness.
And, this made me realize one new thing about PZ.
Not only does he not know philosophy well, he knows psychology at least as poorly.
Gnu Atheists, whether they would use the word or not, are atheist **evangelists.**
Now, the fundamentalist Christian type uses the big carrot and big stick of heaven and hell, though they claim that's not why they believe, in many cases. (Fundamentalist Hindus and Buddhists, I would expect, use the carrot and stick of good karma/reincarnation and bad karma/reincarnation.)
But snideness, rudeness, and ridicule are neither carrot nor stick.
They're shaming, is what they ultimately are, in many cases.
And, our Internet world shows just how well, or poorly, shaming works.
Hence my comment about how little PZ knows about psychology. That said, given that many Gnus are dismissive of reading about psychology of religion, or evolutionary psychology of religion, per a Scott Atran or Pascal Boyer, among others, this isn't surprising.
Finally, I had originally 3-starred this, until I checked the price. $24 for a 200-page compilation of blog posts? What an effing ripoff.
Then, after reading this from an Amazon commenter:
>> If you Google the terms "The Happy Atheist", "PZ Myers", and "free" you can find the URLs of the recycled articles. << I moved it down another star.
If you're going to be an atheist evangelist, do it right. If you're going to make bucks off fanboys, and fangirls, at least be more honest about it.
He has good critiques of religion, and is good at things like rejecting non-overlapping magisteria, at pointing out that liberal-minded believers have the same metaphysical problems as fundamentalists, and more.
But, it's the usual PZ bombast that goes beyond snarkiness to snideness.
And, this made me realize one new thing about PZ.
Not only does he not know philosophy well, he knows psychology at least as poorly.
Gnu Atheists, whether they would use the word or not, are atheist **evangelists.**
Now, the fundamentalist Christian type uses the big carrot and big stick of heaven and hell, though they claim that's not why they believe, in many cases. (Fundamentalist Hindus and Buddhists, I would expect, use the carrot and stick of good karma/reincarnation and bad karma/reincarnation.)
But snideness, rudeness, and ridicule are neither carrot nor stick.
They're shaming, is what they ultimately are, in many cases.
And, our Internet world shows just how well, or poorly, shaming works.
Hence my comment about how little PZ knows about psychology. That said, given that many Gnus are dismissive of reading about psychology of religion, or evolutionary psychology of religion, per a Scott Atran or Pascal Boyer, among others, this isn't surprising.
Finally, I had originally 3-starred this, until I checked the price. $24 for a 200-page compilation of blog posts? What an effing ripoff.
Then, after reading this from an Amazon commenter:
>> If you Google the terms "The Happy Atheist", "PZ Myers", and "free" you can find the URLs of the recycled articles. << I moved it down another star.
If you're going to be an atheist evangelist, do it right. If you're going to make bucks off fanboys, and fangirls, at least be more honest about it.