Looks Like I'll Have to Read This Book
Based on this write-up it looks like I'll have to add this to my (long) list of books to read:
From the above-cited review in Crooked Timber:
I don’t think of religious believers as any more emotionally and psychologically damaged or troubled than anyone else; it’s the human condition, and while some are lucky to be more kindly treated by the world than others we all need comfort, and the religious are lucky enough to have beliefs that allow them to draw that comfort from religious practice. The rest of us have to find other sources, and we should be honest that many of our sources of comfort have [sic] no more defendable by reason than belief in the supernatural. If the “religion acts as a crutch” view is accompanied by the “and we’re all cripples, me included”, as it is, and I believe sincerely, in Kitcher’s case, perhaps that makes it less insulting than it might otherwise be. Kitcher can’t say anything more without abandoning his integrity; like me, he is an atheist, and it seems to me that it would be disrespectful to pretend that we had doubts when we don’t, or to withhold our reasons for our atheism. Elaborating them, as Kitcher does, without a sense of superiority, and with an understanding of our own fallibility, is the best we can do.
