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louiepotterbook's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
opheliabedilia's review against another edition
3.0
Barker has a really interesting story to tell. Unfortunately, he's not always that good at telling it. What he needed most was a heavy handed editor. The first half of the book is his own story, the history of his life of Christian faith and then his leaving that faith, and the consequences that had for himself and his family. The most interesting part of the whole book was the chapters about the reactions of those around him, particularly friends and even family, people he had considered great friends for years. The fault in the first half of the book is that there is a sense, at least to me, of some longing for his past "glory days" such as they were. Barker was a big name in a specific field, namely Evangelical Christian music writing and performing, and his efforts to make sure the reader knows this feel a little like he misses those days, or at least wants to be sure we know he was kind of a big deal.
The second part of the book is his arguments 1. for atheism and 2. against Christianity (mostly modern American Evangelical Christianity). This is the part where he especially could have used a better editor. He is thorough to a fault. There felt like there were thousands of examples of Biblical contradictions, for example, each explored exhaustively. It got boring. The same is true of examples of passages in which the Bible is not, by most modern standards, presenting good moral behavior. The second half of the book is also very heavy on philosophy. I am sure there are readers to whom this would appeal a good deal, so my boredom there could well be my issue, not the author's. I skimmed a decent amount of the second half.
My ultimate question is who is the intended audience? I think it's those who hold the faith he used to hold, but I can't imagine many of them willingly picking this up and reading it the whole way through. For those who are already in agreement with Barker, the personal story would be pretty interesting, minus some of the name dropping, but the second half would be preaching to the choir and therefore probably not interesting for most, unless they are beefing up on their knowledge to take to Thanksgiving day family arguments.
The second part of the book is his arguments 1. for atheism and 2. against Christianity (mostly modern American Evangelical Christianity). This is the part where he especially could have used a better editor. He is thorough to a fault. There felt like there were thousands of examples of Biblical contradictions, for example, each explored exhaustively. It got boring. The same is true of examples of passages in which the Bible is not, by most modern standards, presenting good moral behavior. The second half of the book is also very heavy on philosophy. I am sure there are readers to whom this would appeal a good deal, so my boredom there could well be my issue, not the author's. I skimmed a decent amount of the second half.
My ultimate question is who is the intended audience? I think it's those who hold the faith he used to hold, but I can't imagine many of them willingly picking this up and reading it the whole way through. For those who are already in agreement with Barker, the personal story would be pretty interesting, minus some of the name dropping, but the second half would be preaching to the choir and therefore probably not interesting for most, unless they are beefing up on their knowledge to take to Thanksgiving day family arguments.
thatpatti's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed this book. The author is clearly a thoughtful, considerate person. He clearly takes as much care as he possibly can to make his point without degrading the views of others.
cinda_lu's review against another edition
4.0
This book was an informative and reasonably indepth look into the fallacies of religion, particularly focused on christianity. As well as a great personal story of Dan Barker's transformation from theist to atheist.
sumzaal's review against another edition
3.0
An alright read. I feel that this sort of drifted from a scholarly pursuit, so I'll go about finding something a little more edifying. Not that I don't agree with Dan, I was just looking for something more indepth / less personal.
carahamelie's review against another edition
4.0
This was great. A little winded at times.. and I felt the need to skim some areas... but over-all I liked this because it was more personal that something like "The God Delusion". I love memoirs and the first part of this book was just that which I appreciated. Great facts and ideas.