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Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist

Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist

List Price: $20.00
Your Price: $17.00
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Why Waste Your Money?
Review: Like I did. I bought a copy of this book before I saw his debate with Michael Butler. It seems that Dan Barker fell into every trap that Butler left for him. Barker constantly begged the question on issues of morality, made ad hominem arguments, and couldn't justify morality. You can pick up on all this fallacies in this book. What's most disturbing and troublesome is that he doesn't have "one hundred percent" confidence in induction. What kind of world does Barker live in?! You have to believe in induction. It's like telling me that oxygen doesn't exist, yet all the while you're breathing....

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Not perfect, but definately worth reading
Review: I really enjoyed this book. It was for the most part smart and thought provoking. I agreed with many of the author's insights and critiques of Christianity, as well as the belief in god as a whole. I did however come across many typographical errors, sloppy editing. My only real complaint about the book is the use of the song lyrics. The lyrics from his Christian songs are funny and make a good point about the childishness of blind faith. His included freethought lyrics have the same laughable, elementary quality. I don't think that's what the author had in mind when he included them. It also seemed that he repeated himself a lot from chapter to chapter to bulk it up a bit. Minor problems that take nothing away from the message. Overall a very good read!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: He Isn't Fair
Review: But that's no surprise. Coming from someone like Barker you can never be fair. He thinks he has an authority over the interpretation of the Bible just because he use to be a Christian, yet at the same time he doesn't think putting the Bible in context is important. I think the most embarassing thing about Barker though is that he admits he doesn't have one hundred percent confidence in induction. BARKER IS THE ONLY ATHEIST I KNOW WHO DOESN'T BELIEVE IN INDUCTION. And he may be the ONLY ATHEIST in history to not believe in such an important concept. It's no wonder he lost his debate to Michael Butler. He actually had the audacity to ask the audience, how many people believe in God because of the laws of induction. Is that philosophy?! Do we determine belief by a show of hands?! But, to appease him, YES, MR. BARKER I'VE DECIDED TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN BECAUSE I BELIEVE THAT ONLY IN A CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW CAN YOU HAVE INDUCTION! But, what do you care, you don't even believe in it! So, why ask?! It only goes to show that he DOES believe in induction.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent book with credibility
Review: I found this book enlightening and well written. The author has IMMENSE credibility due to the fact that he was a long-time preacher himself. He spent years travelling and spreading religion and has made a 180 degree turnaround. His old life is a prime example of how people can live in ignorance and believe what they are fed. Once he began QUESTIONING and EVALUATING, he realized how foolish he was. Great book. Great author.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: I'm glad I'm #100, there's some things you ought to know...
Review: ...about Dan Barker. Well, if NOBODY is reading this review IT DOESN'T EXIST. Dan Barker has claimed that if people didn't exist, laws wouldn't exist. But, of course, we can disprove this premise by merely pressing the "YES" or "NO" icon at the bottom of this review [Whether you find this review helpful or not]. And, it seems that some of you actually helped me. Thank you Christians and non-Christians!

What's even more embarassing, Dan Barker admits he doesn't have one hundred percent confidence in induction. Let me try an experiment, press the "BACK" icon (at the top of your screen), and then after a few seconds, press the "FORWARD" icon. Do this a few more times. If this review is still here, WE'VE DISPROVEN MR. BARKER'S PREMISE AGAIN!

As you can see LOSING FAITH IN FAITH is a joke. I really feel sorry for any non-Christian who will try to use this book against Christians...they're only hurting themselves. You should get his debate with Michael Butler if it helps any.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: barker sees the light
Review: it is a sad commentary on the low level of intellectual development in the usa that a book of this nature is considered controversial. it would not raise an eyebrow in the advanced nations in western europe and scandanavia, or in japan and singapore. these countries have mostly abandoned tradional religion for the modern age, however, in the good old usa, old time religion reigns supreme and people like dan barker are reviled and slandered for their disbelief in the christianized sky god of the ancient hebrews. and to think we put men on the moon 30 years ago!

dan barker's book is a good read and on a par with "jesus doesn't live here anymore" the work of another fundamentalist minister turned skeptic, skipp porteus. dan barker's ideas are not really new, as robert ingersoll and others articulated many of his views many years ago. however, he presents his debating points in a very readable and autobiographical manner. and it is clear, now that the fundamentalists have seized control of the white house in a supreme court coup, that new voices need to be heard speaking out against the scourge of religious fundamentalism.

i am sure that many fundamentalists have gone down the road from darkness to light before, and hopefully many more will follow. the greatest threat to secular, constitutional democracy in the usa today is christian fundamentalism (primarily protestant but allied with catholicism and orthodox judaism). dan barker, to his credit, turned his back on the irrational claims of christianity and embraced reason and science. that this took a great deal of courage is a sorry reflection indeed on the "land of the free."

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: According to Barker...
Review: (1)Logic and reasoning is a function of our brain, (2) my brain tells me that this book stinks, therefore, (3) this book stinks. Do you disagree with me? Maybe your brain is telling you that my criticism is wrong, but get this, I think that you're wrong if you think that I'm wrong, and since I think you're wrong, you really are wrong! Make sense? Probably, not. But don't blame me...that's Dan Barker for you. There was a time when Barker said that he would be happy to know if there was a god. Well, no matter how much evidence he's given, Barker will never believe. If God decided to write "Made by God" on every DNA in the world, Barker still wouldn't believe. Why? Because his worldview presupposes that order comes from disorder (namely, evolution); so, whatever seems like order and design ISN'T. Losing faith in faith? No, kidding! You guys should get his debate with Butler... you'll see how much of an embarassment Barker made of himself.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: I used to be like the author is now
Review: I became a Christian at age 38, after being an extreme skeptic for many years. I became one in full knowledge of all the contradictions, etc., in the Bible. (By the way, I was a metallurgical scientist, and I accept the Big Bang and the theory of evolution: they're triumphs of the human intellect. ) I feel sorry, in a way, for people like the author, who became Christians without ever having grappled with such issues. Becoming aware of them only as an adult, after many years as a Believer, seems devastating to them. I guess it's a lot like getting mumps or chicken pox--it's a lot worse when it happens to you as an adult! Perhaps it's the price to be paid for accepting any faith (or unfaith) uncritically for so long.

I used to reject Christianity for many of same reasons that the author now does, but I came to see things differently. Some of the books that influenced me were Paul Davies'(e.g., The Mind of God), Spong's (Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism), C. S. Lewis's (The Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity), and the various books by Gustavo Gutierrez, especially his book on Bartolome de Las Casas, a Dominican friar and Bishop who fought to end slavery in Latin America almost 500 years ago.

It's amusing that some reviewers consider this book quite a masterpiece of skepticism, because the last chapter shows that the author still believes in mystical influences that are every bit as unprovable as is Christianity itself.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: god is nothing
Review: i have read this book and i found that Mr Barker actually shares many same views as me. christians are just purely arrogant and self-centred, thinking that only their God exist- thats prejudice against other religions! well, i dont believe in Jesus at all, n who the hell is he anyway? the world will be in great peace if He really exist. why are there so many people who have to endure the pain and agony caused by this pathetic world? believing in christianity makes me laugh, its just like any beleiving in any other cult sects, who believe in nothing but spiritual stuff, and learn to be so selfish and look down on people. just think about it, people out there.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: PLEASE READ ME, TOO
Review: I would like to expound on [...] criticism of Dan Barker. Barker states sarcastically: "...Jesus was compassionate enough to say that there are some slaves that you ought not to beat as hard as other slaves. THIS ISN'T A CONTEXTUAL THING (empahsis mine)." Yet later, Barker says, "So, IN CONTEXT slavery was the norm that Jesus was confroming to... (emphasis mine)" This obviously shows how Barker will go to far unscrupulous and desperate lengths to discredit Christianity. Even if it means contradicting himself, which he is apt at doing. Barker knows he cannot justify induction (that what happens in the past will happen in the future). Why's that? Well, first he says that induction is justifiable because it works (well, duh, Mr. Barker!), but later he says IT MIGHT NOT WORK. Why is he unjustifying his own justification?! Furthermore, induction has to work for it to be an induction. Does Barker even believe in induction? I know some other Atheists who do (Bertrand Russell and David Hume for instance). Thanks for admitting to us that you have no answer for induction, Mr. Barker. Worst of all, Mr. Barker, actually believes that logic is a function of the brain. He says that all philosophers he's read would agree with him. Are you kidding me?! Philosophers would laugh and scoff at such a statement. How can it be reduceable to material things? But, okay, name one philosopher who would agree with him. HE DOESN'T NAME ANY. Barker says that without a brain there would be no logic or value or concepts; this is another thing philosophers would laugh and scoff at. Name me an atheist who believes that the number 2 would not exist if we didn't exist. I hope you guys can see how much of a glib-remarking, self-contradicting, fideist Mr. Barker is. He should have entitled his book, LOSING FAITH IN BLIND FAITH.


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