Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #48308 in Books
• Published on: 2004-12-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Customer Reviews

A must read for any with an inquisitive mind
Interesting to observe a number of negative reviews here that deny Grayling's assertion that the Christian/Catholic position on sex and material concerns is damaging.
Being raised in a Catholic family there is no question that a strict Catholic upbringing results in hangups and low self-esteem, but most especially sexual hangups. This is observable not only in myself but in my family and Catholic friends.
Atheism was the best thing that happened to me and I only regret I was not raised with such views.
Grayling gets under the covers of these issues and provokes thought, which is his intent - at least in any but the most committed religious / superstitious types, who as you can see from other reviews, fail to think and instead just leap to the defensive.
In many ways this is a case in point and proves Greylings underlying theory that religious thought is only good at reigning in the critical faculties and essentially blinkering the rational mind.

Not a polemic, just a comment
This isn't intended to be a platform of my own ideas about sex or the secular and religious arguments that surround it. I'm an agnostic and I'm actively trying to make up my mind about God, life and the church. I feel I probably question what little faith I have, more than bona-fide 'christians' do, simply because I refuse to base my life on values and principles due to habit and the status-quo (but then you need 'faith', of course).

From reading books on ethics and morality across quite a wide spectrum it seems clear that most ethicists tend towards attempting to base our morality in secular terms. This, I feel, is no bad thing - If I don't believe in God, can't I still be moral? Anyway, if a moral is good enough it should stand alone and not be due to some being whose morality has been clouded by centuries of reinterpretations and who may or may not exist.

Previously, I have read Grayling's 'Reason of Things' and 'Meaning of Things' - while each topic is only looked at in a little depth, it is clear that any views are staunchly anti-religion (or organised religion). It seems that the purpose of the Church is to fool believers and essentially get them to stop having sex. This seems a bit harsh and while the book reads well, it can tend to make sweeping generalisations (which aren't the philosopher's best friend). The Church has done a fair bit of good through charities and the core of christian ethics (love thy neighbour, don't kill etc) seems fairly commonsensical and in keeping with secular opinions. So, I don't agree with all of Grayling's arguments - in a sense this is the point. He fires up debate and works to get people thinking about fundamental ideas of our society. Fundamental ideas that we either take for granted or refuse to question.

Think of Socrates - quite possibly the most annoying man that ever lived. If he was alive today, governments would probably have made laws against being annoying and picky, just so they could shut him up. But without Socrates we'd be much too busy (and scared) sacrificing a calf and praising Apollo, to ever question the state of our society. I think Mill said something along the lines of - if you don't question a belief, then you can't really believe it. (apologies if it was someone else - still a good point though). The point is that Grayling has got me thinking about this whole debate and while I do agree with him on certain topics - for instance, the misappropriation of the Church's moral high ground etc - I also disagree with him on many. 'A reader' who took it upon themselves to comment (at some length...zzzz) has been provoked by Grayling's ideas and I imagine Grayling would be quite pleased with himself for doing so. In experience, debate with Church-folk seems more-or-less futile, because they either throw facts at you ("statistical evidence links NFP to extremely low divorce rates" - hmm "there are lies, damn lies and statistics") or pull something out from 2000 years of Christian theology, which can reveal arguments for anything in a nice shrink-to-fit manner. Convenient.

Philosophy is about the search for truth. Grayling doesn't have the answers, but merely asks important questions. He is a good read and will fire up passions.
Just remember to be like Socrates - never take anything on face-value, question everything and try to live your life by your own standards, not by those forced upon you.

I prefer the words of another atheist
Grayling's disdain for those who disagree with him is apparent in this book, and he is unlikely to win many opponents to his reasoning, not only because of his tone but also because his reasoning is so often lopsided or false. Grayling cites (page 50 in the essay "Sex") as an “inevitable” consequence of what he alleges is Platonic dualism in Christianity (he wrongly alleges that Christians repudiate the body as bad) the “extremes represented by Origen castrating himself to escape his sexual longings.” Grayling’s characterization of castration as an extreme is welcome because accurate and helpfully reproachful, but he fails to disclose why he thinks the act “inevitable.” Has Grayling confused Christians with those Hale-Bopp comet following castrati suicides? And can Grayling name another Christian self-castrato? (Eusebius’ description in “Ecclesiastical History,” Book II, 6,8,1-3 of Origen’s “rash act” is consistent with but not beyond doubt self-castration.) Origen, by the way, is not a canonical saint in any major (or perhaps any) Christian group despite his profound legacy to Christian thought, his sanctity and his drawing many into the faith. His "rash act" has been nothing but an impediment to whatever chance he might have of attaining such sainthood.

Given my druthers between the thinking of A.C. Grayling and P.J. O'Rourke, both atheists, regarding sex, I would choose O'Rourke. In his "Give War A Chance" (1992), he remarked "the sexual revolution is over and the microbes won." I don't quite agree, but he is not too far off. While the AIDs epidemic is monstrous, other sexually transmitted diseases rage, and the rates of adultery, sterility, out-of-wedlock conceptions and births, procured abortions and divorce are vastly higher than before the 1960s (and most would agree that these have more than a little to do with the sexual revolution), the sexual revolution is not over. Partly to avoid further accusations of a spirit-body dualism in Christianity, I prefer the following aphorism because it includes not only material consequences but also emotional and spiritual ones: "the sexual revolution has not merely been tried and found wanting; it has been tried and found tragic." But Grayling dwells in some la-la land. He writes of "the availability of safe scientific means of controlling fertility." He doesn't specify the means, but seems unaware that, even according to Planned Parenthood, which carries out more abortions than any other body, the majority of women procuring abortions were using a contraceptive drug or device when they conceived. He complains (page 45) of "anti-sex" moralists crusading to restrict sex to marriage, yet also seems unaware that, in the USA, for example, more than 80% – approximately 960,000 of 1,200,000 per year in recent years - of procured abortions are to end pregnancies resulting from nonmarital intercourse. These grim statistics should alarm those considering – or those such as Grayling advocating - nonmarital intercourse which for centuries in disparate locations and cultures was viewed quite frequently if not as unconventional then at least as regressive.

This book discloses Grayling's bad attitude. The butt nekkid woman on the front cover and Grayling's photo, which shows a considerable resemblance to Johnny Depp, inside the back cover, are much less insulting and more humorous than the essays.