This book provides the best critic of the so called "new atheism" that I've encountered thus far. The book articulates the position that seeking the transcendent experience is an integral part of the human experience. Suggestions that progress in human knowledge and science make religion unnecessary is labeled as arrogance out of touch with human nature. The author comes from a Christian background; He even has seminary training. However, this book is a defense of all religions, not just Christianity. The author indicates that he seldom attends church services, and when he does he rolls his eyes at the things said which indicate that the members consider themselves to be honorary sinners. So he's certainly not defending any religious organization as an institution. But rather he's defending it from the standpoint of human psychology, sociology, politics and history.

To my tastes, the author was a bit guilty of demonizing the targets of his criticism. He describes Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris as being irrationally extreme to the same degree as the radical religious fundamentalists on the other end of the spectrum. Apparently Hitchens and Harris have made comments that indicate that it may be necessary to make a preemptive military strike against radical Islamists to save civilization. (I don't think Dawkins has said anything like that.) Comments such as those don't deserve support. But I'm inclined to feel more accepting of atheist with a humanist inclination than I am of conservative religionists who seem to hate everything human. By painting his opponents in the worst possible light the author makes discrediting them easier. Ironically, that's the same tactic that Hitchens, Dawkins and Harris use against religion. ( )

Good subject, lousy execution.

I should have dropped it as soon he wrote something re how people in Third World countries aspire to a lifestyle "like ours" or like that of developed countries. No, they don't. Wait a minute--didn't this guy live overseas? In poor countries, poor people and middle-class people aspire to the lifestyle of their own upper-class, most certainly including their politicians. That means servants, chauffeurs, expensive jewelry, gigantic houses; they sure don't want to take the commuter trains, even if they're sparkling and bear no resemblance to the Japanese variety. Doesn't Hedges know these Mercs cost hundreds of thousands of dollars? What about the minor functionary or cop with a $30,000 car? Hasn't he noticed that the politicians in developing countries have a hell of a lot more assets than ones in Japan, Europe and the U.S.?

He's not a good observer and is shockingly ignorant of great historical events, such as the Japanese war on and occupation of China and other Asian countries. ( )

Reading the jacket of this book, I was a little puzzled as to its subject. Having read it, I suggest The Misanthropic Wrath of Chris Hedges as a title. Hedges rages about how humanity disappoints him, especially the "West" and the United States. The text is disjointed, internally contradictory, and rambles over a wide range of topics, and I found it very poorly argued. The fury is so intense, that in the middle of the book, I flipped to the smiling jacket author portrait and wondered if Hedges was on drugs when they took it. I read an article once that angry people think that they are demonstrating their sincerity, but most people react to the rage and miss the message. My main reaction to the book is to hope that I am never trapped in the presence of Hedges.

One of his particular hatreds is for utopians who believe in the perfectibility of human nature and are willing to cull the least perfect with violence. Actually, I agree with this, and with most of Hedges assessment of the "war on terror", but I begin to worry about the company that I am in. Hedges attributes utopian thinking to "fundamentalists." I don't like the use of this term: it has a meaning with regard to religion, but not with regard to science. I think this is a rhetorical trick by which Hedges takes a term that has fallen into some bad repute and hurls it at people he doesn't like as a piece of invective, as if we needed more of that.

I don't that "human nature" is to be confused with cultural traits, which can be changed; accordingly, I think that Hedges misses the boat with his criticism of Dawkins' "memes." I don't necessarily associate religious fundamentalism with "utopian thinking" either. Some believe that the world cannot be redeemed, except by a miracle performed by god, and may actually have to be replaced.

Hedges is unclear as to what he means by "new atheists": sometimes he seems to be condemning science as a bad idea altogether, and other times he narrows his attacks down to Ron Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, E. O Wilson, Susan Blackmore, and Daniel Dennett. I should perhaps state here that I am an atheist. I have read at least some of the work by all five men, and I would agree that four of them are over the top in their expressions of atheism. Certainly, all of them think that science is a better guide for humanity than religion, but I am not convinced that they are in fact utopians. The best that Hedges can do is to make the case that Harris would sanction violence in defense of his own society, not exactly the same thing. When Hedges attempts to contrast this with Neibuhr, whom I think he admires, and who argues that pacifism can be carried too far, the effect is surrealistic. Hedges also accuses them of ignorance, as when Hitchens argues that the issue of the creation of the creator has never been addressed. Hedges' response to this leaves me more convinced than ever that it hasn't, although he obviously thinks he is making the opposite case.

At one point, Hedges asserts that "Reigns of terror are the bastard children of the Enlightenment." This is ahistorical poppycock. In the first place, it seriously conflicts with Hedges own assertion that human nature is unchanging. Secondly, the European Expansion began in 1500, well before the Enlightenment, and was carried out in the name of God and country (not to mention personal profit.) I happen to have read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel immediately before this book. Diamond makes it clear that in times and places far removed from the European Enlightenment, people generally "engulf" weaker neighbors. I think that this is a fair example of the level of Hedges' reasoning. Hedges also ignores the simple fact that some scientists are religious, especially as one goes back in time, and the same can be said of Enlightenment thinkers. In addition, it does not follow that all opinions of atheists are, or must be, based upon demonstrated scientific fact. If a Methodist bishop announced that tutti-frutti is the best sherbet, I don't think that most people would take that as a statement of dogma.

Hedges defends religion as a somewhat vague general concept, pointing to heroic believers. The problem is, atheists can point to truly appalling believers, and one is engage in a war of anecdotes. The one accomplishment I would give Hedges is that he points out, to a country chiefly worried about religious-based terror, that terrorists can be atheists, as well. Certainly one can demonstrate that religious belief and activity, or atheism, does not necessarily make one a good and kind person, but are the religious worse? As a friend of mine, also an atheist pointed out, people are violent, and it may be the religion is used as an excuse and is not really the source of violence. Unless someone can come up with a meaningful study of the effects of religion and irreligion, it is just a lot of hot air.

I can't really think of anyone to whom I would recommend this temper tantrum. ( )

What I was hoping for when I picked this up was some help in defending my faith against the arguments of followers of "new atheists" like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, without coming off as a fundamentalist right-wing nut-job. It seems that the extremists on both sides of the "God question" oversimplify their opponents, and we moderates - neither anti-Evolution nor pro-Intelligent Design - get caught in the crossfire.

But Hedges is just as guilty of letting a few extremists define atheism. He's not arguing with any of the atheists I know, he's arguing with the loutish, pro-war, anti-Muslim Chris Hitchen and his friends at "Reason" magazine. Worse, he throws moderate and liberate church-goers under the bus by calling us naive for wanting a better world.

Hedges sees any attempt to improve human morality as a delusional, destructive and down-right selfish attempt at a utopian society. As if trying to better myself and my community will inevitably lead to my wanting to eradicate the world of all evil. For Hedges there's no in between - if you want a better world (and why would you since according to him there is no chance at that ever happening), than you want to rule the world and kill any one that stands in your way. And, God-forbid, if you're a member of a liberal church you're even worse because you don't even *know* that this is what you want.

Hedges also errs in assuming that all atheists share the same beliefs, so to speak, of Chris Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. The atheist bloggers I read are - and always were - against the war in Iraq. In fact, most seem to feel the need to separate Hitchens the Warmonger (and Hitchens the Egomaniacal Drunk) from Hitchens the Atheist - not that you ever truly can, but they try - before praising something he has said on the subject.

I was terribly disappointed with this book. Not only does it not bring something constructive to the subject, it uses over-generalizations - in exactly the same way extremists on both sides of the argument do - to confuse the topic even more. I would hope that the next author who tries to tackle this subject would take a few steps back and try to get a better view of the big picture. That would be a refreshing change from everything else I've read on this topic. ( )

Not what I expected when first browsing it in the bookstore, this is still an interesting book, though sometimes it lacks clarity and organization, especially in opening chapters. Hedges attempts to combine two very important topics into one tiny volume: (a) the ideological battle between religious fundamentalists and the new scientific Atheists (such as Dawkins, Harris, etc.); and (b) the American "war on terror" and the idea of a "clash of civilizations" with the Islamic world that allows us to commit atrocities in the name of preventing them. This latter topic dominates the second half of the book, and clearly Hedges has more experience in discussing its nuances and details (to be expected considering some of his previous published works).

This book begins, however, with an impassioned discussion of the "new atheists" and their hypocritical attack on religion. It reminds me of a comment I once left on Sean Carroll's blog, Cosmic Variance, in which I said that "listening to the new brand of scientific Atheists argue with Christian fundamentalists about the nature and value of religion is like watching Pepsi and Coke attack each other over their respective nutritional value." (That comment did not go over too well, in case you were wondering.) The point Hedges makes, eventually, is that modern fundamentalism shows up in many forms, among them as a blind faith in scientific rationalism, and that the "new atheism" and the religious fundamentalism it attacks are made up of largely the same stuff (such as the myth of human progress/perfectibility, the justification of violence in the name of ideals, the dehumanization of dissenters and disbelievers, and the anti-intellectual rejection of complexity and subtlety in debate and discussion).

The connection between these new Atheists and the American "war on terror" is made by statements by scientists like Harris and Dawkins, who side with American military power in exterminating all those who threaten the triumph of reason and its supposed embodiment, Western civilization. Before reading this book, I had been only vaguely aware of the racist and anti-Muslim tendencies of these scientists' writings (having usually encountered them while discussing Christianity and religious tolerance more generally). Some reviewers have suggested Hedges willfully robbed Harris's statements in particular of their appropriate context, but the quotes themselves (for example, about our right to use torture and death as a means of protecting our own superior society in the name of "reason") often seem straightforward enough to make me wonder exactly what kind of context or argument could have made them sound even remotely justified or reasonable.

All in all, an interesting book, though Hedges often leaves something to be desired in terms of clarity of thought, so overwhelmed by disgust and frustration does he seem at times. It's hard to blame him for this (and I can certainly relate), but one would hope that such jumbled insights could have been refined a bit during the book's revision and editing process. In the midst of his outbursts, Hedges even sometimes makes a few controversial or seemingly intolerant remarks of his own, so readers are cautioned to take the book with a grain of salt. Still, he raises some very important issues and provides plenty of food for thought. ( )