I read it a while ago. It’s good at justifying taking a reductionist approach to religion as a social phenomenon- if religion actually is good for you, we should be able to test that, and the religious should want us to test that. I don’t remember being impressed by it, though- the book is riddled with disclaimers and pacifying statements, trying to ensure that no religious person is offended by any section of it. This gets tiresome, because, really, someone’s going to get offended nine chapters in? I also don’t recall thinking anything in it was truly revolutionary, or likely to change the mind of a theist who reads it- though it may be a good book to get a toe in the door, by making them more willing to consider ancillary paths of their faith critically, and then eventually they’ll find a crack which leads to the core.
I read it a while ago. It’s good at justifying taking a reductionist approach to religion as a social phenomenon- if religion actually is good for you, we should be able to test that, and the religious should want us to test that. I don’t remember being impressed by it, though- the book is riddled with disclaimers and pacifying statements, trying to ensure that no religious person is offended by any section of it. This gets tiresome, because, really, someone’s going to get offended nine chapters in? I also don’t recall thinking anything in it was truly revolutionary, or likely to change the mind of a theist who reads it- though it may be a good book to get a toe in the door, by making them more willing to consider ancillary paths of their faith critically, and then eventually they’ll find a crack which leads to the core.