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A review by jasperburns
The Four Horsemen: The Conversation That Sparked an Atheist Revolution by Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris
3.0
This conversation happened over a decade ago just before the tide was turning on social media. Since then those identifying as non-religious on surveys seems to have increased markedly. Dennett makes the prophetic point in his prologue that "the rise of the New Atheism was enabled in large measure by this expansion of mutual knowledge. Some of your best friends may be atheists, and you may know that, but now almost everybody knows that almost everybody knows that some of almost everybody’s best friends are atheists – which makes it much less daunting and dangerous to ‘come out’ as an atheist. There is strength in numbers, but much more strength when the numbers know roughly how numerous they are. It permits a measure of coordination, which doesn’t even have to be carefully reasoned out." This is probably true. Partly why it is increasingly okay to be an atheist publically is because of the momentum created by these four men. This is something to be thankful for.
Throughout the book, Harris stood out to me as the most precise speaker. It surprised me that many of his current day talking points are the same as they were a decade ago. Hitchens, of course, is a force of wit to be reckoned with, and all four really inspired me with their depth of intellectual and cultural knowledge. Thank goodness for the footnotes, because they would reference dozens of different speakers, events, pieces of music, architecture, art, etc. that everyone seemed to track and understand, but for those less knowledgable readers like myself.
I was sort of torn rating this book at three stars because, on the one hand, all four of these men are highly articulate and influential for me. On the other hand, atheism is a mostly uninteresting discussion, not focused on creating new ideas but just on dismantling bad ones. It doesn't profess anything inherently profound or posit anything more absolute than skepticism.
While countering bad ideas is uninteresting, it is important, and the interlocutors make numerous good points throughout the book. As someone familiar with the territory I just found myself nodding my head in agreement without many new insights, and so I don't feel like I learned much from reading this famous conversation. If you are new to the "Atheist Revolution" this is a good primer outlining the scientific, skeptical mindset an some of the major problems and cognitive dissonance associated with taking things on faith.
View my best reviews and a collection of mental models at jasperburns.blog.
Throughout the book, Harris stood out to me as the most precise speaker. It surprised me that many of his current day talking points are the same as they were a decade ago. Hitchens, of course, is a force of wit to be reckoned with, and all four really inspired me with their depth of intellectual and cultural knowledge. Thank goodness for the footnotes, because they would reference dozens of different speakers, events, pieces of music, architecture, art, etc. that everyone seemed to track and understand, but for those less knowledgable readers like myself.
I was sort of torn rating this book at three stars because, on the one hand, all four of these men are highly articulate and influential for me. On the other hand, atheism is a mostly uninteresting discussion, not focused on creating new ideas but just on dismantling bad ones. It doesn't profess anything inherently profound or posit anything more absolute than skepticism.
While countering bad ideas is uninteresting, it is important, and the interlocutors make numerous good points throughout the book. As someone familiar with the territory I just found myself nodding my head in agreement without many new insights, and so I don't feel like I learned much from reading this famous conversation. If you are new to the "Atheist Revolution" this is a good primer outlining the scientific, skeptical mindset an some of the major problems and cognitive dissonance associated with taking things on faith.
View my best reviews and a collection of mental models at jasperburns.blog.