Vox Day’s Book: No, I won’t be reviewing it February 25, 2008
Posted by Evil Bender in Atheism, Religion, wingnuts.trackback
I honestly tried to read Vox’s self-published silliness, but even given that I’m ill and have absolutely nothing else I can do, I can’t make it past the first chapter. Maybe it’s that in his preface brags about how this isn’t going to be a book about theology, and then he starts Chapter 1 with a sales pitch for Jesus, albeit one disguised as an attack on those mean atheists who dare to express their views in public.
The irony of colossal douchebag Vox Day claiming that it’s atheists who are somehow the ones pushing their beliefs down others throats should be evident on its face. But even were I able to overlook that–hell, even if I were to have nothing better to do with my time than to listen to one of the few writers I respect less than Christopher Hitchens bash Hitchens–I can’t get past the fact that Vox couldn’t get past the epigraph to his first chapter without quote mining Charles Darwin.
Turning to chapter 1, you see the epigraph Vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science attributed to Charles Darwin. Is Darwin actually saying that the “voice of God” is not to be trusted in science? As anyone who has read Origin will know, the quote (when taken in full) says something else entirely:
When it was first said that the sun stood still and world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science.
See? Darwin not making any comment about God. He’s commenting on the fact that popular (or majority) opinion cannot be trusted, a claim very different from what Day is putting in Darwin’s mouth. An obvious quote-mine that doesn’t bode well for the rest of the book.
Vox depicts his book as a type of intellectual deathmatch. Nice to know he’s decided to go in unarmed.
[...] starting with a link to WingNutDaily, advocating violence against Richard Dawkins, and shilling his own book–all in two paragraphs: I’m not surprised that someone should shoot himself after [...]
[...] *Evil Bender on February 25, 2008. To read the entry: http://evilbender.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/vox-days-book-no-i-wont-be-reviewing-it/ [...]