Talk:The Language of God

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Reviews

I just moved the reviews from Sam Harris to the talk page, because it is far too long and should be shorten drastically. 50% of the text just for Sam Harris is a little bit too much...

Here is the text from the page:

Sam Harris wrote a review entitled "The Language of Ignorance", in which he argued that "Collins’ book reveals that a stellar career in science offers no guarantee of a scientific frame of mind". He criticised Collins's waterfall argument with a comparison to the myth of Romulus and Remus, argued that Collins's treatment of the evolution of altruism should have considered kin selection and exaptation, and challenged Collins's theodicy by arguing that rationalists should ask whether evidence suggests the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God rather than whether it is compatible with it. As well as ccriticising Collins's treatment of the big bang, Harris accused Collins of misquoting scientists such as Albert Einstein and Stephern Hawking on religion and of misrepresenting the history of the Galileo affair. Harris concluded that: "Viewed from abroad, “The Language of God” will be seen as another reason to wonder about the fate of American society. Indeed, it is rare that one sees the thumbprint of historical contingency so visible on the lens of intellectual discourse. This is an American book, attesting to American ignorance, written for Americans who believe that ignorance is stronger than death. Reading it should provoke feelings of collective guilt in any sensitive secularist. We should be ashamed that this book was written in our own time."

--Cyrus Grisham (talk) 12:33, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One problem with the article is that it doesn't specify many details of Collins's arguments. The text removed by Cyrus would be more suitable if the arguments to which Harris is responding were also alluded to in the article. Having said that, I've added a stripped-down verison of the text back in, but haven't expanded on Collins's stuff itself. 129.67.53.232 (talk) 18:22, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I changed "waterfall argument" to include something about what the waterfall issue itself was. I think that just calling it a "waterfall argument", while saving space, is unfortunately misleading, because it gives the impression that the discussion of the waterfall in the book by itself was meant to be a comprehensive argument for the existence of God. Reading it in the book, it seems clear to me that Collins didn't mean it to be that at all. Of course, you could argue that it forms part of the argument of the entire book, but it was only included in the section on Collins' description of his personal search for God. What was meant to be rigorous discussions of the existence or non-existence of God come in other parts of the book. This is, however, only my point of view, but I definitely feel that it's open to inpterpretation as to whether it was or was not what "waterfall argument" tends to imply. So I changed the wording to explain a bit more, to give a more balanced impression. Sorry for increasing the space in that section again!--Tardis Rabbit (talk) 05:26, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]