review: IRRELIGION by John Allen Paulos

IRRELIGION: A MATHEMATICIAN EXPLAINS WHY THE ARGUMENTS FOR
GOD JUST DON'T ADD UP by John Allen Paulos
(a book review by Mark R. Leeper)

This is the sort of book that was needed eventually, even though
what it does is not all that difficult.  John Allen Paulos is one
of the county's leading essayists on the topic Mathematics and
Society.  Like David Krumholtz's character Charlie Eppes in
television's "Numb3rs" he finds a surprising array of applications
of math in everyday life.  He will look at mathematical issues
raised by political advertisements or the stock market or the
effects on society of "innumeracy."  The latter is a word of his
own coinage, I believe, and is the numerical equivalent and
parallel to illiteracy.

In IRRELIGION he looks at the pseudo-logical arguments believers
give for the existence of God and shows the flaws in each argument.
This is immediately certain to make him persona non grata in a
certain sector of the religious camp.  Many of these are people who
consider a flawed and misleading piece of logic that still might
convince someone at some level that they are right about God as
being far better than an absolutely correct proof about prime
numbers.  By explaining the flaws he is really doing a favor for
those who have accepted the arguments and/or those who use the
proofs to convince others.  Experience suggests, however, that the
favor will not be one that is appreciated.

It should be noted the Paulos, a professor of mathematics at Temple
University, is not here arguing in any way against the existence of
God, though he does declare (I almost said "admit") that he is an
atheist.  His purpose is to show that some logical arguments, even
some that some people have an emotional attachment to, are flawed
and do not stand up to scrutiny.  In IRRELIGION he examines twelve
popular (if that is the right word) arguments used as supposed
proofs to convince the credulous that there are correct and logical
proofs for the existence.  This is a short book, about 150 pages,
and the purported proofs he examines are mostly familiar.

I admit that this whole subject has been a personal interest of
mine since in High School English we read Thomas Aquinas's supposed
proofs of the existence of God and claims he made that were vaguely
mathematical were dead wrong.  (For example he said that if
something is infinite there could be no room for anything else.  I
knew that a line split a plane into two half planes, each of which
was infinite.  He said that a chain of causes could not go back
infinitely but it is quite possible just as every integer on a
number line is one greater than the integer to its left and there
is no leftmost.)  I do not blame Aquinas for not knowing the
mathematics, but even today his arguments are still used to
convince the credulous of the existence of God.

My rebuttals are not necessarily the same as those of Paulos, but
they frequently amount to being much the same.  There are
limitations on what Paulos can hope to do.  Showing that twelve of
the most popular arguments are false lines of reasoning does not
show that there does not exist someplace a logical proof.  Further,
even if he could show that there can be no logical proof it would
still not prove the non-existence of God.  The Universe just may
not give us the tools to decide the question.

Paulos says what needs to be said.  This book is certainly less
pointed than is the recent THE GOD DELUSION by Richard Dawkins or
GOD IS NOT GREAT: HOW RELIGION POISONS EVERYTHING by Christopher
Hitchens.  This book will not endear Paulos to the religious
community.  They certainly will not abandon their positions because
they do not hold those positions for logical reasons in the first
place.  But I suspect that it will not get the rebuttals that those
books got either.  To correct his logic, a critic would have to be
better at logic than is Paulos.  That does not seem likely.


Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Copyright 2008 Mark R. Leeper
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