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The End of Reason: A Response to the New Atheists

Author: Ravi K. Zacharias
Creator: Lee Strobel
Publisher: Zondervan
Category: Book

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Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

19 reviews
Sales Rank: 7898

Media: Hardcover
Pages: 144
Number Of Items: 1
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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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
When Sam Harris wrote his book Letter to a Christian Nation, stating that Christians display “murderous intolerance,” Dr. Ravi Zacharias felt called to answer. The End of Reason is a clear and powerful response to the “utter bankruptcy” of Harris’s New Atheism as it explains the true nature of God, the foundation for evil in the world, and the basis of true morality.

Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

Quick & Easy Apologetic Primer November 18, 2008
T. S. Conner (Taylors, SC USA)
Being familiar with Ravi's work, I was satisfied with the content of this short and concise book. While other reviewers criticized it for being shallow, I actually found it to be quite pithy and to the point. Rather than producing a sprawling and exhaustive seven-course-meal tome on apologetics, Ravi has boiled the salient points down to a quickly digested, high-caloric, high-energy snack. This book is designed to get the answers into people's hands quickly and easily in order to engage the enemy. This is a weapon for quick, special-forces, minute-man warfare rather than an all out WMD.

5 out of 5 stars

Timely! October 9, 2008
C. Brooks (New Mexico)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

If you are tired of the pervasive political correctness of acceptable thought - read this.

1 out of 5 stars

More Imaginary Friend Rationalization September 30, 2008
Suzan Cooke (Dallas, Texas)
2 out of 14 found this review helpful

It is a stretch to describe this religious screed as a book. An extended pamphlet would be more apt.

I would ask if morality based on fear of punishment in some sort of afterlife is real morality at all.

Like most theists the author cannot see the rationalism of a secular humanistic based ethos that does not need an invisible bully in the sky to act as an enforcer

2 out of 5 stars

Disappointing and simplistic September 4, 2008
James W. Hertsch (Alexandria, VA)
5 out of 8 found this review helpful

In _The End of Reason_, Ravi Zacharias ultimately fails to counter arguments put forth by the so-called "new atheists," particularly Sam Harris, who authored _The End of Reason_ and _Letter to a Christian Nation_. Zacharias offers two major arguments in favor of a theistic worldview, but neither one is ultimately persuasive.

Zazharias's first argument is that a life without God has no meaning. In Zacharias's view, the inevitable conclusion to this worldview is suicide. No meaning? No reason to live. Zacharias further excoriates those who, confronted with meaninglessness, instead seek meaning through empty hedonism.

Zacharias's conclusion seems simplistic. This seems overly simplistic, and entire schools of philosophy -- existentialism in particular -- confront the question of whether a person should suicide, given a lack of meaning in the universe. Moreover, I suggest that if a person concludes that there is no God to grant meaning to life, then perhaps that person can find that meaning elsewhere. Through family or through friends. Through work or through craftsmanship. Through intellectual debate, if nothing else.

Zacharias's second argument also largely fails. Zacharias argues that without a divine lawgiver, there can be no morality. In particular, Zacharias spends inordinate amount of ink claiming inconsistency in Harris's belief in moral standards and denial of God. If there is an absolute moral standard, Zacharias reasons, there must be a God. There are moral standards, therefore there is a God.

Again, Zacharias's ship of argument cracks open against the shoals of complication. For some reason, Zacharias chooses to ignore entire theories on the origin of morality, any numebr of which lack a divine origin. Social contract theory? Non-existent. Consequentialism? Not a chance. Deontology? Only in the context of a divine lawgiver. Evolutionary development of morality? Absent.

Again and again and again, Zacharias assays simplistic approaches to complicated philosophical issues. And again and again and again, Zacharias's approach is unsatisfactory and unpersuasive. I cannot recommend this book as a suitable rebuttal to the "New Atheists."

That said, Zacharias still merits a two-star, rather than one-star rating for one thing. Both of Harris's works are replete with an attitude just short of outright hatred toward the faithful and organized religion, and Zachrias rightfully takes Harris to task for this religious bigotry.

2 out of 5 stars

I really wanted to like this July 28, 2008
P. C. Allen (Colorado)
4 out of 9 found this review helpful

I always want to like Zacharias' works, because they are always presented as the best counterpoint to difficult issues. Like always this volume disappoints. Despite the name, this book passes itself off as a response to Letter to A Christian Nation, but it does a miserable job. The most difficult issues are never touched upon and the issues that are responded to receive treatment with anecdotes, include Ravi's old chestnut 'Atheism made me attempt suicide.'

Don't bother.

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