Customer Rating:
Summary: the logician
Comment: Paulos is first rate. His humor and anecdotal style stands out - whether it be the stock market or religion, or Irreligion in this case, Paulos keeps me hooked. He is concise and precise as you might expect from a Math prof, but he really stands out for me as a logician, a rare quality in this world - a good read.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Fascinating but ultimately irrelevant
Comment: For over the past two thousand years, mathematical philosophy has sort of driven western philosophy generally.

By deliminating those things which could possibly be true, mathematics has informed us greatly about what therefore is.

It is with these observations in mind that I was particularly excited to read this book which is nothing less than a treatment of the twelve majors arguments that have been made over the past two thousand years for believing in the existence of God.

And interestingly enough, it's that very phrase "believing in the existence of God" which operates to befuddle the inquiry philosophically. That's because good mathematics, like good philosophy, informs us as to the demonstrable and the empirically provable.

However, by defination itself, faith in God is just that: an article of belief for those things which defy empirical proof.

Now having said that, this book still operates as an effective rebuke to the traditional proofs that have been made for the existence of God. For convenience sake, about half of them are left brain oriented and vary on the theme that a watch implies a watch maker. These fail because modern science has demonstrated that order can arise naturally from choas. And if the system is sufficiently large, the periodic patches of order can be extremely articulated. The other half of the arguments for the existence of God are right brained and vary on the idea that inspiration or mass inspiration provides "proof" of their existence. Here again, modern science has shown that the shimera of water on the sands, our brains sometimes confuse us to believe we see things that don't actually exist.

But contrary to the implicit assumption made by this book, a tour of the traditional arguments together with their rebuttals does not dispose of the God question. That's because science and good philosophy along with it are limited to the proveable and the demonstrable.

Perhaps the very eminent mathematician Kurt Godel said it best in his 1931 paper concerning the limitations of mathematical systems. This is paraphrasing to be sure, but Godel observed that all mathematical systems are like trees rising into the sky. Their branches and leaves may catch a lot of the sunlight of truth but there's still other sunlight...other truth...which falls outside their grasp.

In this way, perhaps the poet Henry David Thoreau said it even better in the closing the words of his masterpiece Walden: "Let the word go out to every Jon or Jonathan. There is more light to day.

The sun is but a morningstar!"

For one I believe. I may be wrong...the traditional arguments for faith almost certainly are. I may be right...but either way I'm neither right enough nor wrong enough to indulge in the temerity of instructing others in what they themselves should "believe" or conversely to be myself cowed in being told what to "believe."

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Customer Rating:
Summary: One more voice of reason
Comment: I thoroughly enjoyed the audio-book version of Irreligion. Paulos does a fine job dismantling religious arguments while keeping it light and funny. The narrator is thoroughly delightful in his presentation; it sounded as if he was having a lot of fun delivering the text. Some of the material really needed visual cues, so unless you're paying very close attention, you can easily miss the point. While the book is unlikely to yank fundies from their beliefs, it certainly serves as another supporting pillar to the fact that we'd better make the most of this one life we have.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: (Arguments for God's existence) + (A mathematician's analysis of these arguments) = (Faulty reasoning for God's existence)
Comment: XXXXX

1. Across cultures, the similarities in what's considered right or wrong are strikingly apparent.
2. The best explanation for these similarities is that they stem from God.
3. Therefore God exists.

The above argument is one of the arguments that is analysed in this slim but fascinating book authored by John Allen Paulos, a professor of mathematics at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

What Paulos does is analyze twelve arguments that "range from what might be called the golden oldies [or classic arguments] of religious thought to those with a more contemporary beat [or psycho-mathematical arguments]."

Don't worry! Even though this book is written by a mathematician, there is not a single formula in it. So why is it important that a mathematician wrote this book? Two reasons. First, we see a mathematician's logic and probability analysis at work and second, we see how the analytic approach to this analysis is done. (Also, and this was a surprise to me, I learned that mathematicians, believe it or not, can actually be funny.)

Throughout the book, each chapter (where each chapter analyzes one argument) begins with "a rough schema" of the argument in question, just like the example argument that begins this review (classified as a psycho-mathematical argument).

Among the arguments are interspersed brief interludes or "asides" (there are six altogether) where the author discusses "a variety of irreligious themes." One of my favourite asides is entitled "Self-reference, Recursion, and Creation."

I was impressed with the number of high-profile names included in this slim volume. Examples include Michael Behe (author of "Darwin's Black Box"), Francis Collins (author of "The Language of God"), Richard Dawkins (author of "The God Delusion"), and the late Bertrand Russell (philosopher and mathematician).

Finally, a major problem I had with this book is that there are no references. Some of what I read did not look right to me and I wanted to see where the author obtained this information. Another problem is that I discovered a contradiction when Paulo discusses complexity.

In conclusion, I believe John Allen Paulos will give readers of this book plenty to think about, whether they be theist, agnostic, or atheist!! I leave you with another argument (classified as a classic argument) analyzed in this profound book:

1. The values of the physical constants...are necessary for humans to exist.
2. Human beings exist.
3. The physics must have been fine-tuned to the constants' values to make us possible.
4. Therefore, the fine-tuner, God, exists.

(first published 2008; preface; 3 parts or 18 chapters; main narrative 150 pages; index)

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Customer Rating:
Summary: A Mathematicians Illogic
Comment: Book Review:

Irreligious: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don't Add Up
By John Allen Paulos

aka The Epistle of Paulos the Apostate to the Theologians

The subtitle is a quote from the book, page xv. Though Mr. Paulos says that it's not really what the book is all about, it is. It is because this is his representation of apparent weaknesses found within the various avenues of Christian apologetics.

He begins with an assessment of four classical arguments: First cause, design, the anthropic principle, and ontology. In the second section he gives his assessment of subject arguments: Coincidence, prophecy, subjectivity, and interventions into history. Then in the final section he confronts what he terms "psycho-mathematical" arguments: Redefinition, cognitive tendency, universality, and gambling.

There are reasonable criticisms of Christianity. This is not one of them. Any serious philosopher and theologian, whether in agreement with Christianity or not, will quickly recognize the weakness of the material.

Mr. Paulos evidences only a cursory knowledge of Christian apologetics. If the taxonomy of apologetics has five divisions (classic, evidential, cumulative case, presuppositional, and reformed epistemology), Mr. Paulos dealt only with the first three. The final two subjects are avoided completely.

In dealing with probability and the argument from design he says:

This line of argument, however, is deeply flawed. Note that there are always a fantastically huge number of evolutionary paths that might be taken by an organism (or a process), but there is only one that will actually be taken. So if, after the fact, we observe the particular evolutionary path actually taken and then calculate the a priori probability of its having been taken, we will get the miniscule probability that creationists mistakenly attach to the process as a whole. (p. 16-17)

But what - isn't that precisely the point? His position is an "after the fact" argument that requires him to beg the question regarding the end result of the process. Recursion may be acceptable in mathematics (and my field, software development), but has no place in this type of logic. In similar breeches of reason he equates economic development with biological evolution (p. 20), redefines the ontological argument to suit his own purposes (p. 36), and resorts to the shallowness of the Flying Spaghetti Monster argument (p. 42).

This book can be used as an effective substitute for any current TV sitcom.

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