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 enlarge | Author: Ravi K. Zacharias
Creator: Lee Strobel
Publisher: Zondervan
Category: Book
List Price: $12.99
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Rating:  19 reviews
Sales Rank: 7462
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 144
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.2 x 4.4 x 0.8
ISBN: 0310282519
Dewey Decimal Number: 239.7
EAN: 9780310282518
ASIN: 0310282519
Publication Date: May 1, 2008
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| Customer Reviews:
 Zacharias's work is most necessary and enlightening in reponse to "new atheists" teaching July 14, 2008
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias writes an eloquent yet firm response to author Sam Harris's LETTER TO A CHRISTIAN NATION, in which Harris debunks Christianity by telling readers that "science has the answers to our questions about life and that religion is the bane of existence." In rebuttal, Zacharias states that he has "Always found it fascinating how relativists who say they love the idea of tolerance ultimately reveal themselves to be among the most bigoted."
Zacharias writes not only in response to Harris's work but also to refute other well-known atheists, such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, whose work runs along the same lines as those of Harris's. He opens his text by sharing his personal story of growing up in India, which some say is the most religious country in the world. Zacharias, though, says that many live there as practical atheists. He recalls listening to priests who were Hindu, Buddhist and Christian, and finding them (and their message) completely boring and inconsequential.
After following "only one serious philosophical question" as purported by Albert Camus, Zacharias watched two close friends commit suicide and then tried himself, but ended up in a hospital in New Delhi. It was then that he was handed a bible and was read the gospel story. Four decades later, he has traveled the globe lecturing and teaching in universities, finding Jesus "more beautiful and attractive than ever before."
Zacharias tells of his extensive study of atheism researching the world's best scholars and begins dismantling Harris's premises one by one, starting with "origin." Nothing cannot produce something, writes the author, and at this very starting point the laws of science begin to break down. Even the staunchest atheistic contenders cannot explain why there is "something" from "nothing."
Next, Zacharias tackles the "odds of random life," where Nobel laureate and atheist Francis Crick believes a spaceship delivered spores to "seed the earth." He shares more examples of well-regarded atheists' postulations on beginnings, each more far-fetched than the previous one. From there, he discusses the meaning of life and morality, posing important questions such as these: Does the reality of evil mean there is no God? Can morality exist apart from a moral lawgiver? Can reason alone provide a moral framework? Are atheists more "moral" than others? How do we define love?
Zacharias presents a study of the Christ of scripture, prophecy and the inherent morality of the Ten Commandments. He then tackles Jesus' method for changing hearts, along with current hot topics such as genetic engineering, abortion and cloning, before presenting his argument for the existence of God. Readers, whether Christian or not, will find Zacharias's work to be most necessary and enlightening reading in response to the "new atheists" teaching, which is gaining more credibility with society as a whole.
--- Reviewed by Michele Howe
A light to a dark world July 10, 2008
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
Ravi is an inspiration to us all as he takes on the Godless that want to destroy our souls and offend our spirits. By taking on tough issues, Mr. Zacharias shines a spotlight in the darkest corner of human society, the one the atheist lives in, and strikes from. Thanks Ravi, may God strengthen you for the fights ahead.
Outstanding! July 8, 2008
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
Ravi is quickly becoming one of my favorite Christian Apologists. This book did not disappoint. And I think I read it in a couple of hours. That's the positive side of this. The negative is that the target audience probably won't waste their time reading this.
Sure, the Christian community will applaud this, but will the non-believer take it seriously? Their ears are already deaf to the truth of Jesus Christ, so I would have a hard time believing that they would want to waste their time on sound theological arguments that rail against the lies that they so strongly shout out about.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed this little book. A good read with some sound arguments, for those that would actually care.
A Sound Rebuttal to the atheist polemic July 7, 2008
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
I found this book to be well written and objective in giving clear, concise answers to the atheist's worn out, broken record philosophy of "There is no God, but we blame him for all of the problems in the world". I don't need to read Sam Harris's book to feel the hate that he has toward Christians in particular...it exudes from the quotes Mr. Zacharias cites in his work. That being said, there was one point the author made that I had not heard of before...that the atheist wants to create God in his own image and likeness. This is not new, for the Bible records in several places in the Old Testament where the wicked wanted God out of their lives when they couldn't mold him to their desires. God is still on the throne and they are not. I do have some questions for Sam Harris: If there is no God...plain and simple, what are you in business for? Why do you write your books and rail on about someone that doesn't exist? Why are you trying so hard to convince the world that religion, and Christianity in particular are to blame for the ills of the world if the central figure of their belief system is only an "imaginary friend"? Thank you, Dr. Zacharias for your book, and I'll be praying for you Sam! Thank you.
 Preaching to the Choir. No One Else Will Listen. July 6, 2008
11 out of 26 found this review helpful
The first critique I make of this book is that Zacharias confuses the titles of Sam Harris' books. Why would he name a book "The End of Reason" which is a play on the first book Harris "The End of Faith", when this book is an obvious response to "Letter to a Christian Nation." It is obvious that this book would be much better titled "A Letter to an Atheist." That is important, because the title of the book is nonsense. There will never, so long as reasonable humans are alive, be an end of reason. Reason is the defining feature of humanity. The title of the book makes the author seem like a mindless fool. It is obviously going to be a turn off for Christians and Atheists alike, much like the title of Harris' first book "The End of Faith" stirred emotions.
I won't argue that Ravi Zacharias makes some good points in response to Sam Harris. Harris' use of the Bible, for instance, is sketchy at best. He quotes it much like a fundamentalist Christian, which obviously is no way to treat any text. I also agree with Zacharias that Harris, Dawkins, and Hitchens are not going to convince anyone to leave their faith by attacking them. By attacking, name calling, integrity questioning, etc. one is only going to make the other side fight even harder to defend one's beliefs. I also agree with Zacharias that Harris frames his discussion of evil incorrectly when he uses it to disprove the existence of God. In that sense, many, perhaps most, of the criticisms of Sam Harris are legitimate. The problem is that Zacharias attempted to take on Harris' condescending and abrasive personality as the tone of his book, which leads him to a lot of logical fallacies.
First of all, his defense of the existence of God is nothing more than a "god of the gaps" philosophy, which is shaky at best. For instance, he cannot understand why atheists are silent on the fact that they cannot explain where matter came from. His slogan is "nothing cannot produce something." His conclusion is that for this reason there must be a God. The silence of atheists is supposed to show that since atheists have no good answer as to why there is something rather than nothing, the atheist must be wrong. This cannot be considered good reason, because perhaps it is possible that there will some day be an explanation as to why matter exists that will have purely natural explanations; to use the fact that science has not produced any explanations to this point as evidence for God's existence is to set oneself up for disappointment if those explanations do come forth in the future because that will mean that one no longer has that particular evidence to use. Good evidences of God's existence have to avoid rhetorical questions like, "if God doesn't exist, how do you explain this or that?"
The other thing the author does not even seem to consider is that matter simply exists, and has done so from eternity. In fact, I am sure that is what scientists will claim is the case if they are asked to give a naturalistic explanation of why there is something rather than nothing. I have never found that positing the existence of a supernatural deity explains the question of why there is matter, rather it simply puts the focus somewhere else. Just like one might ask why is there matter rather than no matter, one might ask why there is a God rather than no God. That question is not a bit easier to answer without retreating into agnosticism by saying "I don't know why God exists, he just does." That is exactly what the scientist would say about physical matter, which is why this evidence for God's existence just does not work. It does not solve anything, just diverts one's attention to something else.
The author is also guilty of making appeals to his personal experience and the readers emotions in order to make his case against Sam Harris. I cannot argue with Ravi Zacharias' personal experience, so when he claims that he attempted suicide as a result of his despair over the apparent lack of answers in a world without God I have no choice but to believe him. What his experience does not do is prove that every person in the world must live a life of despair as an atheist simply because Ravi Zacharias did. Basically, what he is asking the reader to do is to look at his despair as indicative of how all atheists really feel, and if an atheist ever claims to have no problems despairing, then that atheist must be lying. It is an absurd double standard. We are to categorically accept the experience of the author, but question anyone else's experience if it is different.
Zacharias also declares that despair and insanity is the "logical conclusion" of atheism, because Friedrich Nietzsche died insane, and apparently Michael Foucault once had some drug induced point of despair and he died of AIDS. This is an absolute scream of Tom Cruise proportions! It totally denigrates those Christians who have at some point had to unfortunate experience to either have a mental illness or die of AIDS. It is absurd to think that mental illness or AIDS is the "logical conclusion" of any worldview. Most atheists have never went insane or acquired AIDS, but we are supposed to ignore that fact and accept that atheism leads to these sorts of things. This is not good reasoning, it is a scare tactic that I am sure most theists would be sickened by.
My last criticism for the purposes of this review, is to point out that Zacharias often critiques what he considers "atheist beliefs" (63) or "atheistic philosophy" (72). This is ridiculous, because anyone who knows anything about atheism realizes that "atheism" is a term that simply denotes one's lack of belief in God. There is literally no such thing as an "atheist belief," because atheism is a lack of belief. The only thing two atheists might share in common is the lack of belief in God. They might have opposite views on everything else. The reason that the author does this is to build up a straw man to tear down. It lumps someone like Antony Flew in the same ranks as Joseph Stalin. If you can convince the reader that the atheist at the university really has the same worldview as Joseph Stalin, then it is easy to convince that person that the atheist is really a terrible, horrible person. It is nothing more than guilt by association.
I find this book repulsive because it tries to prove the existence of God through dishonest means. He blasts Sam Harris for his methods, when in the end Ravi Zacharias' methods are not much better. If God is the epitome of all truth, then there is no reason to resort to inane emotional, ad hominem arguments to prove his existence. I suggest one stick with serious academics like Richard Swinburne if one wants to find reasons for the existence of God. In the end, most people do not care anyway about philosophical proofs; their beliefs are based on their personal and cultural experiences. That certainly is the case for me, at least to a certain degree. The difference between Ravi Zacharias and myself is that I do not pretend my personal experiences ought to convince everyone else to believe exactly as I do. That is a lesson both Sam Harris and Ravi Zacharias could stand to learn.
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