Josiah Concept Ministries

Christopher Hitchens’s book The Portable Atheist is a collection of “essential” writings for unbelievers.  I’m currrently posting some of my miscellaneous thoughts about the various works in the book as I read them.

According to Hitchens, Percy Bysshe Shelley was a victim of the theocracy that once ruled Oxford and Cambridge universities.  He wasn’t allowed to teach there because he did not profess faith in God.  Hitchens sees this as a great tragedy, but after reading Shelley’s pamphlet “A Refutation of Deism,” I’m hardly moved to agree.  Yes, Shelley had a great mind, but he focused it to the wrong ends.  He came to simple, startling, and incorrect conclusions about the nature of God.

First, the pamphlet argues from the point of view of an eternal universe.  This is because, according to Shelley, it is simpler to conclude that the universe is the Uncaused Cause than to reach outside the universe for that Cause.  The flaw here is that modern science has unanimously concluded that the universe is not eternal–it had a beginning sometime in the finite past.  The universe, because it came into being, must have a cause.  Even Shelley concedes that point, and that it is one of the main reasons that he begins his argument with the assumption that the universe is self-existent and eternal.

Since that is not the case, the rest of the argument–founded upon a faulty premise–is incorrect.

However, it remains for me to point out one of the double standards of atheism, and that is the application of Occam’s Razor to the divine.  The atheist applies Occam’s Razor to the universe, saying that the Big Bang is the Uncaused Cause–the First Mover that set the universe into motion.

The theist, however, has a much better argument here.  The theist begins from the divine as the Uncaused Cause because all that begins must first have a cause.  The universe began, and so therefore must have a cause.  A cause cannot itself be a part of the effect–think of the Laws of Inertia here.  Therefore, the Uncaused Cause is supernatural–outside the order of the universe.

Here is where the atheist retorts, “What created the Creator?”  Using this retort is a vicious double standard.  The atheist allows Occam’s Razor to be applied to the Big Bang, stating that is the Uncaused Cause.  But he doesn’t allow the theist the same leeway to apply Occam’s Razor to the divine Creator.  The divine creator, the atheist reasons, must Himself have a Creator, who also had a Creator, who also had a Creator, and so on backwards into infinity.

This is reasonable to the atheist.  He doesn’t see the hole in his logic, however.  He is using Occam’s Razor to make the Big Bang the First Cause.  He refuses to give the theist the same ability to simplify to one deity, in effect requiring a multitude of deities when he only requires one Big Bang.

I also read Mark Twain’s essay, “Bible Teaching and Religious Practice.”  More of the same old refuted notions–buffet style religion (the idea that we can pick and choose the laws that we follow), slavery, and witch hunts.  I agree that religion is many times a very bad thing, but I only wish that atheists would at least represent our side without resorting to argument by outrage as they so often do.  These notions are refuted in Lee Camp’s excellent book, Mere Discipleship.

The Da Vinci Code was published in 2003.  The movie, starring Tom Hanks, came out in 2006.  Now, in 2007, I thought that all of the apologetics material related to this novel had been published.  I was mistaken.

Francis De Souza, an electrical engineer from southern California, has taken on the subject in a new book, Shredding the Da Vinci Code and Vindicating the Deity of Christ, available from Outskirts Press.

I had never heard of Outskirts Press before, but as soon as I opened De Souza’s book and skimmed a few pages, I knew that Outskirts had to be either a vanity press or a self-publisher.  I was absolutely correct–it’s the latter.

How did I know that?  Simple.  De Souza’s book contains no clear separation between paragraphs and no citations.  There is no bibliography.  The poor formatting and the lack of citations are both major strikes against this book, but I thought that I would give it a chance.

I gave up on this book 106 pages into it, and I would have burned it happily forty pages prior to that.  This book is the biggest waste of time, and despite the sentiments of a few positive Amazon reviews, contains no original information.  In fact, had I not known the information that De Souza presented, I would have been hard pressed to learn it from this book.

First, there is no introduction to the book.  Absent the title and book description, I have no way of knowing exactly what and how this book will really present.  But I’m not surprised that this book lacks an introduction.  That would indicate that, at some point, the author thought about what was actually going to be included in this book.  This book seems to be written in a stream-of-consciousness style with no unifying voice.  As if De Souza wrote it as a series of vignettes, but never actually intending to write a full book.

Second, we have the aforementioned paragraph issue.  Sometimes, there is a blank line between paragraphs.  Other times, there is just a hard return.  It is very difficult to visually see where paragraphs end, so the pages look like massive blocks of text.

Third, the grammar is very difficult.  Aside from the usual misplaced commas, the italics sometimes stress the wrong words.  That makes sentences mean things that the author probably never intended.  De Souza often speaks in metaphors but doesn’t explain them adequately.  Related to that, the voice of the book lacks any sort of unity.  Sometimes he speaks directly to the reader.  Sometimes he holds an imaginary conversation with Robert Langdon.  Sometimes he holds an imaginary conversation with Dan Brown.  De Souza never alerts his readers to the switch in voice.

Finally, no bibliography or citations combined with De Souza’s apparent lack of expertise in church history and theology, leaves no credibility whatsoever to any of De Souza’s claims.  That means that this entire book is a farce.  It could be completely made up for all anyone knows, because the author leaves us no way to check out his claims.

With all of that going against it, I gave up on this book after De Souza spends fifteen pages attacking the way Dan Brown writes.  This is really the pot calling the kettle black.  Considering how poorly written De Souza’s book is, that borders on hypocrisy.

The verdict?  This is the worst book I’ve ever read.  I can understand why De Souza had to go to a self-publisher.  No reputable editor would touch this book without major overhauling.  Leave this book on the shelf where it belongs, and check out the other, superior literature debunking Dan Brown’s novel.