Believing Bullshit [Paperback]

...it has a feature I find a little disingenuous. So I'm just going to get that criticism out of the way before I go on to praise the book to the rafters.

Early in the book, in the introduction, Law sounds very reasonable when he says that his religious examples of BS should not be taken to mean that no intelligent argument for theism exists. He is, he says, only going after those defenses of theism that employ one of the BS strategies that most of the rest of the book covers (more on that in a second). But despite the fact that Law discusses other types of BS (astrology, crystal healings, UFO cults, etc.), his focus consistently shifts back to theism and it's very clear that despite his earlier protestation to the contrary, and despite often making conciliatory-sounding comments about how there just may be some reasonable defense of theism he hasn't come across yet, Law is one hundred percent convinced that by far the most reasonable position is atheism.

And he makes the case very well, and I think he's right. And that's FINE. Maybe books like this one (the other book "like this" I read recently is Reasonable Atheism: A Moral Case For Respectful Disbelief) are a backlash against some of the harsher and less compromising-sounding books by the so-called New Atheists--Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Vic Stenger and others. Maybe authors like Law were genuinely put off by the "tone" of books that just flat-out insist that there is no good reason for believing in gods, and wished to find a way to soften that message somewhat, to make it sound more soft-spokenly reasonable, less shrill and polemical. And that's not an altogether bad thing--I have some sympathy for that impulse.

But the truth is that once you remove the flannel swaddling from Law's arguments, the stone-and-steel facts of logical force still remain, and it is not kind to theism. I am convinced that Law knows this, and while I have no doubt that he's sincere about leaving the door open to other, better arguments, it's hard not to conclude that he considers leaving that door open to be like setting a place at the table for Elijah in case he shows up for dinner. Can't be absolutely ruled out, but come on. Close e-freaking-nough.

On to the contents. And a blanket statement--the entire book is extremely well-written. Without ever talking down to the reader, who Law obviously assumes will be intelligent and thoughtful, the prose maintains a popular accessibility. No descents into arcana or Latin jargon, and the examples he draws from are lively and on-point. No strutting here, just useful and engaging writing.

After the introduction, there are chapters on "Playing the Mystery Card," "But It Fits!," "Going Nuclear," "Moving the Semantic Goalposts," "I Just Know!," "Pseudoprofundity," "Piling Up the Anecdotes," "Pressing Your Buttons." For each chapter, Law explains how the BS trick is used, why it's not legitimate to use it, and provides excellent and interesting examples...which he then goes on to deconstruct with non-BS logic. It's a winning approach, and as an amateur skeptic who loves poking around various non-rational beliefs like homeopathy, Law of Attraction stuff, creationism (including intelligent design), end times prophecies and the like, I can say that every one of Law's examples is completely on-target. And his responses--devastating.

What I'm saying is that with "BS," you get a twofer. It's entertaining just as a general kind of read-for-fun book, but it's also a master class in spotting and confronting bologna, and avoiding the Intellectual Black Holes that Law rightly points out, even the brightest of people can fall into if they get trapped in an attractive bubble of unreason, spackled shut by great smears of impenetrable bovine manure.

I'll go back to my initial quibble, though. When it is abundantly clear that a few truly cogent, FORCEFUL arguments are on one side of debate, as is true with atheism, I'm not entirely convinced that feigning a wholly unnecessary and frankly patronizing "fairness" isn't itself not a form of BS.

Hi

The previous reviewer, S J Synder, suggests that my book tries to "prove" there is no God. It doesn't. It does not even to try to show there is probably no God. In fact the book does not argue against theism at all!

However, the book does contain an entire section on the myth of "You can't prove a negative" (it's in chapter one), particularly as employed by theists to try to immunize what they believe against intellectual attack.

So it is highly ironic that the previous reviewer should choose to play that card in defence of theism here. It appears that S J Synder has not actually read the book.

(PS excuse the self-praising stars but I had to choose something!)

Stephen Law - author

Little time to write reviews -- too busy reading books! Call me selfish. But had to write a short comment regarding this S. Law book.
I absolutely loved this book. I wish everyone would read it. Why? Because it is well-written, entertaining, full of wisdom --really has something important to say and teach, and just the last section of the book alone is worth the price to me!

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 17 reviews  4.1 out of 5 stars