Not Everyone Believes, Ross Douthat
At the beginning chapter 4 of Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious, an overconfident Ross Douthat boasts that religion is the obvious choice because he has articulated multiple rational arguments in favor of religious belief. This chapter is meant to be Douthat’s victory lap, a preparation for his argument in favor of Christianity. Actually, it’s where his book falls apart into complete disaster.
As this podcast’s line by line, page by page examination of Douthat’s book shows, none of his arguments in favor of religion make any rational sense. So, an intelligent reader of his book must come to a conclusion that’s the opposite of what Ross Douthat thinks he has achieved. The rational choice, given Douthat’s multiple failures to justify religious belief, is to walk away from religion.
This episode presents a summary of Ross Douthat’s arguments for religious belief in the book so far, and recaps the reasons these arguments are plainly absurd to any thoughtful person.
And then what? We are now halfway through Ross Douthat’s book, and yet, we find that it’s at this halfway mark that Ross Douthat concludes his supposedly rational argument in favor of religious belief in general.
What on earth is Ross Douthat going to do for the rest of this book? It’s been pretty obvious from the beginning.
For the rest of the time, Ross Douthat is going to start attacking non-Christian religious, telling you why they are dangerous or deluded. It turns out that in spite of his promises at the beginning of the book, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious is actually dedicated to promoting Christianity over both non-religion and non-Christian religion alike.
Yes, Ross Douthat broke his promise, in the long tradition of dishonesty by Christian preachers. That’s just one more reason that not everyone believes. Christianity is thoroughly untrustworthy.