Demolishing Disbelief: A review of The Last Superstition: A refutation of the New Atheism (longer)

[F]aith, properly understood, does not contradict reason in the least; indeed… it is nothing less than the will to keep one’s mind fixed precisely on what reason has discovered to it.

- Edward Feser, The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism, p.154

The modern world is an irreligious world. Sure, you still meet someone out there who still identifies as “Christian” and probably still fulfils his Sunday obligation. But is his belief in God firm? Does he still care for his immortal soul? Is his moral view consistent with his Christianity, or does he think that there’s nothing wrong with a woman “marrying” or “having sex” with another woman? We can never be sure these days given that we live in a post-conservative society that is hostile to traditional religion and morality and is open for “innovations” and “progress”. Forget about Jesus Christ and all these crap about “eternal damnation” if you refuse to believe. Forget about sex only for procreation. Today we know better. Long live St. Charles Darwin!

But, as Dr. Edward Feser argues in his book The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism, all of these things many label as “progress” is actually “madness”. Dr. Feser amazingly defends Classical Theism, the reality and the immortality of the human soul, and traditional sexual ethics in a Thomistic perspective against the widely accepted secularist ideology of today which presupposes a “mechanistic” view of the world formulated by the early modern philosophers like Descartes. He gives solid reasons why traditional religious belief does not rest on “blind faith”, but is built on rational ground. In fact, it is modern militant atheism and its proponents that should be considered “superstitious” (hence the title of the book).

Dr. Feser also made it clear that the so-called “war between science and religion” is actually a myth, and that the dispute between Darwinians and Intelligent Design theorists is a wrong way to frame the God debate. The real issue is whether or not the mechanistic-cum-materialistic conception of the world is correct. And, as Dr. Feser argues, it isn’t. The correct philosophical view of the world that we should believe, at least if we still want to remain sane and morally upright, is classical philosophy that started with Plato and Aristotle, and culminated and put into completion by the Scholastics, particularly St. Thomas Aquinas. If you’re an atheist and/or a secular liberal (you know, those people who radically support counter-religious movements while it’s okay for them if gays wave the rainbow flag while they mock the moral claims of Christianity) reading this review, this I want to tell you: If you’re indeed an “open-minded” person that wants to treat the world view of the other side with fairness, you have to read the book. That’s a challenge. I’m not going to say that an atheist/secular liberal will be convinced immediately that the beliefs he staunchly despises is actually correct all along after one read, but I’ll bet that after the atheist/secular liberal reads this book, he’ll realize that he has to take the views of the believer in God/traditionalist more seriously than before, because religion (Christianity, in particular) isn’t an ideology motivated by irrational faith, or bigotry, or hatred, but rather with zeal in knowing what’s true.

It’s also worth noting in this review the writing style of Dr. Feser, his “tone” in the book. He wrote in the preface that The Last Superstition is an “angry book”. And indeed it is. The rhetorical force he shows throughout the book is totally fascinating. The Last Superstition will not only fill your mind with truth, it will also satisfy your sense of humour (at least if you agree with Dr. Feser, like me; in case you disagree with him, you’d probably be hurt- both emotionally and intellectually). I think that this polemical approach against the New Atheism is just appropriate, considering the fact that a lot of atheists and secularists today are often big-mouthed and proud of their supposed “rational superiority” when they compare themselves to religious conservatives. The book serves as a hard-hitting answer and a wake-up call to people with this kind of attitude.

Also, the book can be considered a not-so complicated introductory book on philosophy. Dr. Feser has this incredible talent of simplifying hard stuff so that readers unfamiliar with his field of expertise may understand him. He knows how to “dumb it down” for many people, how to write for us philosophical morons. The book is different from your typical boring and overly technical philosophy paper (although yes, it might be a little technical when you read the second chapter, but it has to be, otherwise the book will be badly written).

Personally, the section of the book on the “mind-body problem” made me interested in the field of Philosophy of Mind. I, like many people, take my rationality and consciousness for granted, but once you study it and ponder about it, you’ll find to be amazingly complex. The nature of the mind is a very technical issue, but as Dr. Feser has argued in the book, Hylemorphic Dualism is the only view on the mind’s relationship to the body that makes sense, and the other alternatives to it are problematic.

In conclusion, I would recommend this book to everybody, whether you’re a theist, or an atheist, or anything in between. As long as you can think, you have to read the book. The Church’s doctrines and morals are under attack, and we, her children, have to defend ourselves. Dr. Feser just shows us how to do that. The world is in desperate need of people like Dr. Feser, who knows that there is a real war against truth and decency, and knows how to punch back.

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