More Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion, & Morality/Book II (More Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion & Morality)

Rating:
Summary: Well-Written and Interesting, but Flawed on Moral Issues
Review: Allen's second volume addressing facts, history, and morality in the Bible is interesting and well-written, with an eminently compassionate, reasonable perspective. However, it does contain some noteworthy stumbles in his approach.

In addition to numerous mini-essays on morality and the human condition (all thoughtful and well worth reading), Allen takes aim at fundamentalism to expose the flaws and fallacies in fundamentalist reasoning, as illustrated by the Bible itself.

However, this is a hit-and-miss endeavor because he attacks fundamentalism on two fronts, only one of which is firmly supported by reason and logic. He addresses aspects of the Bible which can be loosely grouped into two categories: "logical impossibilities" (such as "The earth is flat," "You can eat any flying creatures with four legs," "This city will be conquered 20 years after it's destroyed") and "moral impossibilities" ("God orders the murder of thousands of innocent women and children captives.")

On the logical impossibilities, Allen is on firm ground: theologians and biblical scholars have long discussed the number of contradictions, scientific and historical errors, and outright falsehoods sprinkled throughout the Bible-which have no effect on its overall moral message, I might add. Even within the framework of the Bible's own statements, many contradictions and impossibilities exist (ranging from counting and name errors to faulty references to other books of the Bible), which Allen addresses in a clear and lucid manner. The fundamentalist perspective has no real recourse but to ignore such blatant discrepancies and pretend the logical flaws and inconsistencies simply don't exist.

When he discusses what I call "moral impossibilities," however, he enters much shakier territory. These are sections and passages of the Bible in which God is portrayed as so capricious, so unjust, so pointlessly vengeful and violent, that Allen cannot accept this depiction as true; therefore, he concludes, the Bible must contain errors and falsehoods that have portrayed the real, loving, just God incorrectly.

In taking this stance, Allen has committed the Argument from Personal Incredulity error (as well as the either-or fallacy of assuming only two possibilities exist). His reasoning boils down to: "If the Bible is literally true in these sections, then God is unthinkably awful, and I can't accept that, so the Bible [and the fundamentalists] must be in error."

This is one of the weakest attacks on fundamentalism you can make; it is unsupported by the rules of reason or logic, and Allen does no service to the skeptic's cause by framing his argument in this manner. He also ignores other possibilities: For example, the humanist conclusion would be that such a god, if he exists, is not worthy of worship. Other possibilities abound: That God has changed his attitude over time; that God is insane; that God is, in fact, evil, and the *positive* depictions of him are the ones in error; etc., etc.

(Allen's reasoning on these points also includes the assumption that *of course* a perfectly wise, just, and compassionate God exists, so any portrayal that shows him to be otherwise must be in error. In other words, Allen is guilty of a little "My perspective cannot be contradicted" fundamentalism of his own here.)

Allen is (was) a talented writer with a strong sense of justice, compassion, and morality. He is on target with his criticisms of the fundamentalist stance that ignore the logical impossibilities of the Bible. He's a clear thinker overall, and bible scholars and skeptics alike would benefit from reading this and his previous book on the subject. However, his take on the "moral impossibilities" (as he sees them) stems from personal preference, not reason and logic. While I applaud most of his moral and ethical positions, I believe Allen made a serious mistake in pretending that his conclusions about the Bible's moral flaws are as rational and inevitably logical as his criticisms of the logical flaws.

Rating:
Summary: You Should Have Stuck To Comedy, Steve
Review: My respect and admiration for Steve Allen the comedian, creator of the Tonight Show and "What's My Line?" panelist is limitless. And so is my contempt for his attempt to masquerade as a Biblical scholar and pass his drivel off as something to take seriously.

Allen's whole problem stems from the fact that he thinks he can understand God and how He was worked through history through the rationalist/Enlightenment lens of modern man. He in short, presumes that he, like so many others who do not want to accept the truth of God's word as it has been revealed, can presume to judge God through the limited capacity of the human mind which is ultimately the greatest exercise in arrogance I think anyone can presume to do.

I find it strange that Allen would say that his discourses do not presume a belief that God does not exist. But to borrow a page from the greatest defender of orthodox Christianity, C.S. Lewis, this is a simply illogical position to take. If one presumes that there is a God who has created the universe and is a real presence, then it is illogical to think that God is capricious enough to prevent His Word and His message from being revealed clearly to man. This is the supreme irony because in arguing that a literalist view of God makes Him somehow capricious because the Old Testament enemies of the Hebrews are smote down on occasion, then I would submit that if no clear view of God has emerged until the perspective of post-18th century Enlightenment humanists, that is by far an even greater mark of a God engaging in a malicious game with humanity, and thus, renders his whole framework ridiculous.

Steve, may you Rest in Peace (though I fear with approaches like this to Scripture that may be a forlorn hope of mine), and God bless you for the rich creative legacy you left us in television and comedy, but these forays into something you had not a whit of competence in, ultimately besmirches your otherwise great resume. Such a pity.

One note to the gentleman above who chose to attack me personally rather than look for virtue in this silly book. I *am* a history teacher and have taught so at Wheaton College and Joliet Junior College in Illinois for over five years. So much for your vaunted skills of objectivity. My POV is that this is a rotten book written by someone who was in over his head on a subject he knew little about and who had no more business writing a book on the Bible than I as a history teacher have writing a book on nuclear physics. Such a pity that such common sense standards of author competency are deigned irrelevant for a book like this.

Rating:
Summary: Helpful
Review: This book helped me a lot. Steve Allen is not afraid to discuss the problems with the Bible. He especially made clear that Revelations (Apocalypse) is not really very clear. I never did understand Revelations, but I thought maybe I was missing something, since Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins had made such a big deal with their "Left Behind" series. Allen straightens all that out: basically, what he says, we really can't pay much attention to Revelations, because it really can't be understood, the author is really not known, and so forth.

Allen's basic approach is that God, as an omnipotent, omniscient power, could not have had much to do with the Bible, because the Bible has so many contradictions, errors, descriptions of revenge instigated by God or Yahweh. Allen interprets the Bible literally in order to show how it really doesn't hold together.

But I think, at least for me, Allen's whole book (I didn't read the first volume) tends to increase my faith in God, the omnipotent, omniscient One, that is. I'll have to look a little closer at our current version (one of many) of the Bible. Diximus.