Oh dear: Dr. Cobb promised a nice, interesting science post this afternoon, but he’s very busy being famous and all, so I’ll just make a few announcements. The first is that Dan Barker, whose proclivity at writing books makes him the Steve Pinker of Godlessness, has yet another book, one that will go on sale February 1. Click on the cover below to go to the Amazon listing:
According to the Amazon description, it appears to have been designed as a straight collaboration between Dawkins and Barker, but Richard was eventually limited to writing the foreword (probably by the press of work). It’s strange for a description to say stuff like that. But, as with all of Dan’s books, it’s sure to be good. Amazon blurb:
What words come to mind when we think of God? Merciful? Just? Compassionate? In fact, the Bible lays out God’s primary qualities clearly: jealous, petty, unforgiving, bloodthirsty, vindictive—and worse! Originally conceived as a joint presentation between influential thinker and bestselling author Richard Dawkins and former evangelical preacher Dan Barker, this unique book provides an investigation into what may be the most unpleasant character in all fiction. Barker combs through both the Old and New Testament (as well as thirteen different editions of the “Good Book”), presenting powerful evidence for why the Scripture shouldn’t govern our everyday lives. This witty, well-researched book suggests that we should move past the Bible and clear a path to a kinder and more thoughtful world.
The chapter headings below reflect, in order, the qualities of the Old-Testament God limned in Richard’s famous quote from The God Delusion:
“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
I don’t think anything Richard ever wrote brought him as much hatred and opprobrium as that quote, yet what he said is largely true (Sauron may be worse. . . ).
But wait! There’s Part II, with extra added vices!:
Only $15.07 in hardcover—a bargain!
I have seen that Dawkins quote used as a description of Lord Voldemort, Harry Potter’s nemesis in the J.K Rowling books but with one single change, filicidal changed to patricidal because he didn’t have a brother but did kill his father.
Rowling based the character and his followers on the Nazis and the Klu Klux Klan.
Ordered.
+1
Thanks for the heads up. I will preorder this book immediately.
I think that William Empson’s zinger about God is pretty good: “The Christian God The Father, the God of Tertullian, Augustine and Aquinas, is the wickedest thing yet invented by the black heart of man.”
So far it has one 5-star review by someone named Customer.
He just needs to finish it all off as George Carlin did in his bit – “But he loves you”.
I’d agree with the entire Barker/Dawkins list of faults except “megalomania” — because God, right? That’s like faulting Jesus for having a messiah complex or Gen. Bonaparte for thinking he’s Napoleon.
Yes, but the gods before him didn’t think they were the *only* god, did they?
Now I am curious about Barker’s book.
LOL! Can’t help but laugh at the title. There will be gnashing of teeth!
Gotta love the cover blurb from Michael Shermer! :]
“If you thought Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion was hard on religion, gird your loins for Dan Barker’s book on God because he makes the New Atheists sound like diplomatic accommodationists in his unrelenting deconstruction of the Bible, a book he knows better than the Four Horsemen combined since he used to preach from it. You will never read the Good Book the same way again.”
One of my favorite pastimes is telling christians that their god is nothing but a pathetic monster and occasionally, I use a few of these other adjectives. It really gets their goat (which we sacrifice later at the satanic mass).
What a nihilistic faith to believe in!
There’s already a copy at a local Barnes and Noble but with the pages poorly aligned with wayyyy too big a top page margin and almost no margin at the bottom. Hopefully this is a stray reject that somehow got prematurely onto B&Ns shelf by mistake.
Some of the Jewish prophets try to retcon God into a nicer guy but are saddled with the problem that in the 1st century the slaughter of the Amalekites and Canaanites was declared “canon” by the rabbis and priests. You can rewrite Wizard of Oz to make the wicked witch nicer but at the expense of claiming Baums original is “wrong” as Greg Meyer did in “Wicked”. Same voes for Majon Zimmer Bradleys efforts to rehabilitate Morgan LaFaye in “Mists of Avalon”. The 2nd part of Isaiah has a fairly pleasant notion of God, but Noah, etc. has been ruled canonical
My vote for the most unpleasant character in fiction who appears in only one story is Professor Humbert from “Lolita”.
How many millions did Prof. Humbert murder, including babies?
The operative phrase “in only one story” was intended very directly to preclude that question!! Sorry if I wasn’t clear.
As the Old Testament contains many books written by several different authors (most likely trying to revise and contradict each other), it is fair to say God appears in multiple stories, like episodic television or a series like “Game of Thrones”.
I find soul-murder (using “soul” metaphorically) more disturbing than killing, though it is fair to say God (at least in some guises) has done both.
Still, YHWH killed untold innocents even if you look at only one story.
Prof. Humbert was far from omnipotent, and had very little time at his disposal.
Guys & gals, I’m just trying to confine my own poll to characters who HAVE only one story largely written about BY ONE author!! (Not counting multiple stage and film adaptations of the same story by others).
Multiple authors have written about God as has also happened with Dracula, Norman Bates, Lex Luther, and Wiley Coyote. Thus God and all of the above are excluded from my personal poll by definition.
Why am I not getting this across?
Not sure, seemed clear. I just wanted to say that Wiley Coyote (Genius) is awesome.
Supra-genius IIRC
‘the most unpleasant character in fiction’ (who appears in only one story) could be an entertaining category to explore.
Hmmm. Darth Vader (who blew up the whole planet Alderaan) could qualify (not that I’m familiar with Star Wars).
The Prostetnik Vogon Jeltz who destroyed Earth is another candidate, repulsive and gratuitously bloody-minded.
Of course both those appeared in a number of movies/books, but the series could be described as a ‘continuing story’ (as indeed they are).
Or the loathsome Burke, in Aliens, who let the settlers colonise LV-426 knowing the aliens would get them, and was quite prepared to let everyone else be killed so he could capture a ‘specimen’. I think he wins the category.
cr
(Prostetnik Vogon Jeltz was of course in Doug Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide 5-book trilogy)
cr
Frank Herbert evoked several very loathsome characters in Dune. Baron Vladimir Harkonnen was perhaps the most loathsome.
Mine is for Jason Compson in ‘The Sound and the Fury.’ But he’s also wonderfully funny– at his own expense, as Faulkner wields the sword of ironic distance just as brutally/subtly as Twain did with Pap Finn in ‘Huck.’
I’ll want to read it on my ipod, so far that’s not an option.
If you buy the physical book, you can have the pleasure of letting people see you reading it on airplanes.
hehe…Apple just allowed me to pre-order, so that’s ok.
Good to see he’s still going.
Dan’s Losing Faith In Faith book was, as I remember, what started my interest in the atheism/religion debate, when I found a copy in the 90’s at a book sale. It was an exhilarating, fascinating read. That book, and Philip Kitcher’s Abusing Science hooked me. (Abusing Science, even though published in ’82, is still I think one of the best take downs of creationism in book form.
I loved Abusing Science too. I thought Phillip Kitcher did a fantastic job. I read it more than once.
I’ve never read anything by Dan Barker. Sounds like I should.
These old testament strictures are to command obedience to a controlling elite OR else.
There is nothing new about the mafia, or any other protection racket.
“Vaccicidial” ? He’s a cow killer on Billy the Kid’s scale? Hmmm, possibly, if you add all the various sacrifices up.
The point that this god is a liar doesn’t get enough publicity. Remember the bit where he says “you shall have no god but me”? But the way it’s phrased, it’s clear that Goddy-boy knows that there are other gods around who are his peers, and accepts it. Otherwise, there would be no need to ban the sheeple from holding to any other god.
I’ll add it to the “to buy list for one of those decades.
I only buy books on the Kindle app.
I’m just curious as to why so many ebook aficionados feel they must always proclaim as much–I’m quite sure there’s nothing anyone here can do to make them appear.
For some reason, on this topic, Ben Goren comes to mind. It somehow doesn’t seem complete without a comment from Ben.
Ben?
We miss you…
cr
While this looks like an amusing read, I don’t think there’s really all that much that can be said in addition to whats already in the Bible. All one has to do to come to Dawkins conclusion is to simply read the Bible.
Anyone who doesn’t come away from that experience concluding Yahweh is an asshole, is probably not going to both read, and be convinced, by this book.
It might be enough to tip the scales when a disillusioned Christian who has finally read the Bible decides to see what people have to say about the incident, besides just apologists, but honestly, from what I’ve heard, the apologist answers are either all they needed to comfort them, or are inadequate on their own.
I could be wrong, but this feels like it’s going to be some fun literary criticism more than it’s going to have any real affect on anyone.
I think it is well worth it. The more people criticize religion openly, the more normal it becomes to do so. And that is a major part of this kind of battle. Moving the Overton Window, as they say.
Will this book be the one that foments a drastic change in the religiosity of the US? Very unlikely. That kind of thing, one book, speech, incident being the spark that sets off a major change, is a very rare thing period. And typically the drastic change has more to do with many other factors rather than any special qualities of the book, speech, incident that provided the spark.
But still a worthwhile addition to the “dialogue.”
Completely agree. And Dan is such an enjoyable writer this book should be great fun to read. (As opposed to “simply read[ing] the Bible,” which many find overwhelmingly ponderous.)
Strictly speaking the title should be “Jehovah, the most unpleasant character in all fiction.”
Which raises the question, is Jehovah the most unpleasant god in all fiction?
Huitzilopotchli would give him a run for his money.
Hmm, does anyone else see scope for a sort of X Factor for gods TV Show?
Or maybe not, it would just end up like Eurovision….
Seeing as how all gods are fictional, that reduces to “is Jehovah the most unpleasant god?”
I was going to nominate one of those South American human-sacrifice-demanding gods too, if TJR hadn’t.
And then there’s Cthulhu, though he is even more fictitious (in that no-one actually worshipped Cthulhu, so his nastiness was also fictitious, unlike some of Jehovah’s and most of Huitzilopotchli’s achievements).
Then there’s always Allah, I’m not sure how he stacks up against Yahweh, current nastinesses notwithstanding.
cr
Aren’t Yahweh and Allah the same god up until the the birth of Christ and the miraculous intercourse?
Depends. “Allah” is used by Arabic speaking Christians, after all.
Despite all these nasty attributes to an all powerful God, Yahweh never seemed to bring a plague of snow and ice upon his desert-dwelling chosen ones. I wonder why that is…
Looks like a fun book, if only because it may get some heads bent. 😉
I wonder if Barker has a title he could still claim to make it funnier, like “Reverend”.
The fun thing with “The Holy Babble” is that it is precisely babble:
“Things took a particularly interesting turn when physicists from the IFJ PAN began tracking non-linear dependence, which in most of the studied works was present to a slight or moderate degree. However, more than a dozen works revealed a very clear multifractal structure, and almost all of these proved to be representative of one genre: stream of consciousness. The only exception was the Bible, specifically the Old Testament, which has so far never been associated with this literary genre.”
[ http://phys.org/news/2016-01-world-greatest-literature-reveals-multifractals.html ]
In other words, if that text doesn’t make sense for you it is because it doesn’t make sense. (O.o)